Seat Belts Save Lives

A Maynardsville, Tennessee woman is dead after she lost control of her vehicle late Friday night, according to local media reports. The 38-year-old woman was driving on Monroe St. in Maynardville when she lost control of her Chevy Blazer and was ejected when it overturned on an embankment. The article mentioned that she was not wearing her seat belt. Our prayers go out to her family and friends.

This Tennessee highway fatality presents two important issues, the first one is seat belt use, or rather, failure of seat belt use and the other is what caused her to run off the road.

Restraint use is clearly designed to reduce injury severity and prevent occupants from being ejected from their vehicles. Tennessee law requires the use of seat belts. An overwhelming number of studies show that seat belts, when used correctly, save lives. As an experienced Tennessee auto accident lawyer, whenever I read about an accident in which a driver or passenger is ejected, I automatically relate it to failure to wear seat belts.

The primary cause of this accident was that she left the roadway. Police investigators will look to see whether speed was a factor, or whether the driver was somehow distracted and not paying attention to the road ahead. Distraction is a factor in 80% of  all accident in the United States, and the leading cause of distraction is the use of a cell phone. Police investigators will look to her cell phone records to see if she was using the device at, or near, the time of the crash.

The lesson here for Tennessee drivers is to take a few seconds to secure yourself and keep your eyes and mind on the road.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a negligent driver, contact the experienced Nashville auto accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Head-On Fatality

Witnesses say the woman driver drifted across the middle lane and slammed head-on into a Franklin, Kentucky police officer driving a marked police cruiser. The officer had to be extricated from the vehicle and was taken to Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville. He was listed in stable condition.

Our prayers go out to the family of the deceased, and to the officer wishing him a full and speedy recovery. Investigators will have their hands full trying to figure out why the woman crossed the center-line.

Whenever you see an accident, usually involving one car that leaves the road or crosses the center-line, an experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyer starts thinking about driver distractions. Just what was the driver doing moments before the crash that caused his/her vehicle to go off the highway? What caused the driver to change focus from driving to other things?

I’ve noticed several accidents like this in East Tennessee this past week and I thought I might use them as examples to my reader of why it is so important to keep your focus on your driving and ignore distractions.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Nashville automobile accident caused by a distracted driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to find out about your rights and remedies.

Tennessee Roadway Fatlity

This past Friday afternoon a 62-year-old Oliver Springs man was killed in a one-car roadway departure crash in Anderson County, Tennessee. According to local media reports the man was traveling westbound on Oliver Springs Highway when he lost control, swerved across the intersection of Bill Key Lane, went airborne, and then flipped into a pond. Police told local media that the man was wearing his seat belt.

As an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney, I’m left to wonder what caused the man to lose control. From the article, I would assume that the man was speeding and was not able to negotiate a turn or was somehow distracted in the seconds before leaving the road.

Numerous studies point to driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes. Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event.  Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee car crash by a distracted driver or a case like the present one that will require and experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer contact the lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies. Call 615-356-2000.

Tennessee Intersection Accident

More crashes happen at intersections than at any other place. Intersections constitute a very small part of rural and urban street/highway systems, yet they are implicated in 31.9 percent of all motor vehicle crashes and 15.5 percent of all fatal crashes (2004 NHTSA data). Be very careful when approaching any intersection or driveway. Never assume another driver will yield the right-of-way to you. Always be prepared to stop.

In 2009, there were 33,808 fatalities on our Nation’s roadways. Of these, 7,043 (20.8% of total fatalities) were intersection or intersection related. An intersection is a planned point of conflict in the roadway system. With different crossing and entering movements by both drivers and pedestrians, an intersection is one of the most complex traffic situations that motorists encounter.

Dangers are compounded when we add the element of speeding motorists who disregard traffic controls. Despite improved intersection design and more sophisticated applications of traffic engineering measures, the annual toll of human loss due to motor vehicle crashes has not substantially changed in more than 25 years.

Tennessee drivers need to learn to look both ways as you near an intersection. Before you enter an intersection, continue checking traffic from both the left and right for approaching vehicles and/or crossing pedestrians.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile intersection accident contact the experienced Nashville car crash lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to find out about your rights and remedies.

Who was at Fault?

For an experienced Nashville personal injury lawyer a report of a fatal two-car collision  in a local Memphis media source left all sorts of questions. According to the report, a Memphis police car was involved in a crash with a Mitsubishi. One occupant was killed when the Mitsubishi made a left turn into the path of the police car.

Let me make it clear here, I don’t represent the deceased or any other occupant of the Mitsubishi, but if I did, I’d surely like to find out several important facts. Was the police car answering a call and how fast was it traveling when the collision took place. If so, was the police car traveling the speed limit and did it have its emergency lights engaged.

If I was representing the police officers I’d focus on determining what the driver of the other vehicle was doing that might have distracted him from seeing my vehicle. Distractions are the cause of a majority of the collisions that happen today. Cell phones are the leading distracter, followed by eating, applying makeup and simply talking to passenger and not paying attention.

My sincere wish is that reporters educated themselves so that they might ask the right questions so that other Tennessee drivers might read about these accidents and learn something from them. If you are involved in a Tennessee automobile accident, contact the experienced and certified civil trial lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and learn where you stand. Call 615-356-2000.

A Seat Belt Would Have Mattered

When we talk about distractions leading to Tennessee fatal automobile accidents we are talking about a serious issue in these days of cell phone’s, GPS and other navigation devices. The distraction can take only seconds and lives change forever. Take for example a recent crash in Thorn Hill, Tennessee. A Grainger County man was killed in a single-vehicle rollover crash Saturday night on state Highway 131 near Delmer Welch Road at approximately 7:35 p.m. when he lost control of his 2004 Dodge SRS.

According to local media reports his right front tire dropped off the roadway, he driver overcorrected, lost control, crossed both lanes and went airborne over an embankment. His car struck several trees and came to rest on its roof in a small creek.

The report quoted the investigating Trooper Toby Cameron as saying that the deceased was not wearing his seat belt, and he thought it would have made a difference. The man possibly lost his life because of two errors, he failed to take a second to buckle up and he took his attention off the road for a second. Our prayers go out to the family and friends of this unfortunate man.

The personal injury lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates plead with your to take a minute and buckle up before you head out onto the highways and byways of Tennessee, and above all avoid distractions. Call 615-356-2000 to find out all you need to know if you are injured in a Nashville auto accident.

Red Light Cameras Work

Recent studies have once again demonstrated the deterrent value of using automated enforcement cameras to reduce red light running. A new review of traffic data from the City of Philadelphia conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, has shown that the introduction of red light cameras after lengthening the yellow-light phase has virtually eliminated red light running violations at two problem intersections.

Researchers tracked signal violation rates at intersections before and after extending the yellow light sequence and again after red light camera enforcement had been in effect for about a year. The first step reduced signal violations by 36 percent. The cameras reduced the remaining violations by 96 percent . At the same time, violations were virtually unchanged at two control group intersections.

Another red light running study was conducted by researchers from Old Dominion University in Virginia. A team of researchers reviewing data collected both before, during and after the City of Virginia Beach’s six-month deployment of red light technology before Virginia’s red light camera authorizing law was allowed the sunset. The results showed that red light running violations more than tripled in just the first year after the law expired. Red light running at the several intersections that had previously been equipped with red light cameras is now worse than it was before they were installed.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile intersection accident caused by a red light runner you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies. Call us at 615-356-2000.

Distracted Tennessee Driver

Whenever you see an accident, usually involving one car that crosses the centerline and crashes into another, an experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyer starts thinking about driver distractions. Just what was the driver doing moments before the crash that caused his/her vehicle to go off the highway? What caused the driver to change focus from driving to other things?

This is the question several families in Fentress County, Tennessee will be asking themselves following a 2-vehicle crash. A 26-year-old Jamestown woman crossed the centerline and crashed head-on into an oncoming vehicle driven by a 40-year-old woman, also of Jamestown. The 26-year-old was dead at the scene and the other woman was injured.

What was she doing that took her eyes and her mind off of the task of driving? It only takes a second for the distraction to lead to calamity. Distraction from the primary task of driving could present a serious and potentially deadly danger. In 2008, 5,870 people lost their lives and an estimated 515,000 people were injured in police-reported crashes in which at least one form of driver distraction was reported on the crash report. While these numbers are significant, they may not state the true size of the problem, since the identification of distraction and its role in the crash by law enforcement can be very difficult.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Nashville automobile accident caused by a distracted driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to find out about your rights and remedies.

From The Highway To The River

The good news is that the vehicle driven by a 23-year-old man, that included his 21-year-old woman passenger, missed a concrete barrier after they ran off US Highway 72, near Scottsboro, TN. The bad news is that the vehicle also missed two separate guardrails that would have prevented the vehicle from flipping several times before ending up in the Tennessee River. Fortunately, both people were able to get out of the vehicle and make their way to the shore, underneath a bridge to await rescue.

Police investigators will try to piece the minute-by-minute scenario of what the driver was doing in the time prior to leaving the highway.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes. Nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involved some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event.  Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee car crash by a distracted driver or a case like the present one that will require and experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer contact the lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to learn about your rights and remedies.

Red Means Stop

Preventing injuries and deaths at intersections should be a high priority for towns and cities. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that last year alone, nearly 10,000 people died and approximately one million people were injured in intersection-related crashes that account for approximately 40-45 percent of all crashes.

Police investigators in Columbia, Tennessee will have to determine what a driver was doing in the seconds just prior to him running a red light and crashing into three other vehicles. Statistics show that nearly 80 percent of crashes and 65 percent of near-crashes involve some form of driver inattention within three seconds before the event.  Primary causes of driver inattention are distracting activities, such as cell phone use, and drowsiness.

In Tennessee, the Rules of the Road suggest that when you approach an intersection you should use a technique called “Traffic Checks”. “Traffic checks” is the process of looking frequently and carefully for vehicle traffic approaching from each direction. “Traffic checks” is especially important when merging or changing lanes AND when approaching and crossing intersections.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed by a negligent driver in a Nashville intersection accident contact the experienced Nashville personal injury accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates by calling 615=356-2000.