Slow Speed Ejection

Even at low speeds a roadway departure crash can have catastrophic consequences. Take for instance a crash involving a Johnson City, Tennessee woman, who was traveling at a speed estimated to be in the 30 MPH range, when for some unknown reason she left the roadway and slammed into a utility pole causing her SUV to flip one full turn.

Unfortunately, the driver was not wearing her seat belt and was ejected. During the ejection, the woman was thrown through the driver side window and came to rest some 50, or so, feet from her SUV. My prayers go out for her quick and complete recovery.

In a news release, police said the preliminary investigation indicated that medication was a possible contributing factor in the crash and a blood sample was obtained for a TBI lab analysis. Charges were pending the investigation’s conclusion.

Roadway departure crashes are frequently severe and account for the majority of highway fatalities. The cause of her serious injury is not such a mystery, during the crash she was ejected from the vehicle and bounced down the highway. She was ejected because she did not have her seat belt on. Seat belts save lives.

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyer I implore you to think about the distractions in your daily driving experience and try to avoid them. If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a distracted driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates to learn about your rights and remedies. Call 615-356-2000

Motorcycle + Alcohol = Disaster

A 54-year-old Clinton, Tennessee man was injured when his motorcycle went airborne after hitting poles blocking the entrance to a parking lot near the Hickory and Calumet Street intersection in Centralia, Illinois early Saturday morning.  Centralia Police say Douglas Coward ran a stop sign while southbound on Hickory Street.

After hitting the poles, the cycle went airborne for 90 feet and the rider was thrown airborne for 75 feet.  Police say there were skid marks indicating Coward had tried to stop.   Coward was initially taken to St. Mary’s Hospital in Centralia and then transferred to Barnes Hospital in St. Louis.

Coward was ticketed for driving under the influence, failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident and no insurance.  The wreck occurred at 12:28 Saturday morning.

Have you or a loved one been injured in a Nashville motorcycle accident or auto accident as a result of distracted driving or other negligent driving?  If so, you should call the experienced Nashville personal injury lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates, a Nashville motorcycle accident lawyer from our law firm will fight to help you win. We will treat you with the utmost compassion and respect. Call us today and speak with an experienced Nashville personal injury lawyer to discuss the details of your case. Call (615) 356-2000.

Drunk Driving Can Get Expensive

• Driving Under the Influence (DUI) includes not only alcohol, but any intoxicant, narcotic drug, or other drug producing central nervous system effects –including prescription drugs.

• Alcohol is alcohol, regardless whether it is hard liquor, beer or wine coolers.

• A cold shower or cup of coffee will not sober you up.

• Alcohol affects your physical mobility, and your ability to reason and use good judgment.

• Large amounts of alcohol can do major damage to your heart, liver, stomach, and other critical organs.

• Nobody reacts the same to alcohol.  Body weight, time of day, body chemistry, and mental state all affect a person’s physical reaction to drinking alcohol.

• Large amounts of alcohol consumed in a short period of time can be lethal not only for you, but for your spouse, your children, your family and your friends.  Is it worth the risk?

• If you are going to drink alcohol, ALWAYS assign a designated driver A single DUI conviction could cost you as much as $5,000 or more after all fines and fees have been paid.

Potential costs of a DUI conviction include:

• Fines

• Court costs

• Bail

• Towing and vehicle storage fees

• Attorney fees

• Alcohol education program enrollment

• Driver license reinstatement fees

• Ignition Interlock Program costs

• Higher insurance premiums and SR-22 Form.

Instead of throwing your money away on a DUI conviction, think of all the wonderful things you could buy with $5,000.

• College tuition

• Family vacation

• Down payments for homes or cars

• Home entertainment system with high definition big screen television

• Pair of season tickets to a professional sports team

If you or a loved one is injured or killed by a negligent driver under the influence of alcohol, contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates. Take advantage of a free consultation by calling 615-356-2000.

Hit & Run Fatality

Hit & Run drivers are, in my consideration, the worst kind of human being, yet they continue to get behind the wheel and ignore the rules.

Many H&R drivers are trying to avoid detection because they don’t have insurance and they don’t want to face the responsibility for their actions. No matter which category they fall into they are the very worst type of person, someone who will leave an injured or dying pedestrian lying in the street. Clarksville, Tennessee police say they now know who hit and killed a woman Friday.

A man turned himself into police and told investigators he thought he hit a deer and just kept going. Local media really didn’t provide much in the way of facts as to where she was when she was hit, so it’s hard to say who was at fault.

The driver’s story begins to weaken when we find out he had been drinking prior to the collision, leading reasonable people to disbelieve his story. Another mystery surrounding this event is the investigators inability to identify the victim. The woman was not carrying ID or a cell phone.

If you are the victim of a Nashville or Tennessee automobile accident we urge you to contact our car accident attorneys today for a free consultation. When you hire an auto accident attorney from Phillip Miller & Associates, you’re getting a qualified and dedicated lawyer. Details about our attorneys and staff can be found by viewing our website at www.seriousinjury.com where you can get to know the men and women who will be looking out for your best interest.

Hit & Run drivers are, in my consideration, the worst kind of human being. Most H&R drivers are under the influence of alcohol, others have already run afoul of the law and have lost their driving privileges, yet they continue to get behind the wheel and ignore the rules.

Many H&R drivers are trying to avoid detection because they don’t have insurance and they don’t want to face the responsibility for their actions. No matter which category they fall into they are the very worst type of person, someone who will leave an injured or dying pedestrian lying in the street.

Reference a recent case of Hit & Run in Tullahoma, Tennessee. A 28-year-old woman crossing the street with her friend is run down by a pickup truck, and died later at Vanderbilt Medical Center. Somewhere out there the driver, a selfish, lowlife of a human being, is waiting, waiting for a knock on the door that is going to change his/her life, just like the driver changed the life of the young woman left dying in the street.

If you are the victim of a Nashville or Tennessee automobile accident we urge you to contact our car accident attorneys today for a free consultation. When you hire a Nashville auto accident attorney from Phillip Miller & Associates, you’re getting a qualified and dedicated lawyer. Details about our attorneys and staff can be found by viewing our website at www.seriousinjury.com where you can get to know the men and women who will be looking out for your best interest.

Lowlife Driver

It’s been several months since I called out a driver for being a low life, no-good, sorry, less then human being. Today, I’m hanging that tag on a Maryville man who was arrested after the pickup truck he was driving, departed the roadway, flipped over in a ditch and fled, leaving a woman who described herself as his wife, trapped in the vehicle.

Tennessee law requires a driver involved in a personal or property injury accident to remain at the scene, to await emergency responders. Charges are pending.

Wreck & Run drivers are, in my consideration, the second worst kind of human being. Most W&R drivers are under the influence of alcohol, others have already run afoul of the law and have lost their driving privileges, yet they continue to get behind the wheel and ignore the rules.

Many W&R drivers are trying to avoid detection because they don’t have insurance and they don’t want to face the responsibility for their actions. No matter which category they fall into they are the very worst type of person, someone who will leave an injured or dying passenger trapped in the wrecked vehicle.

If you are the victim of a Nashville or Tennessee automobile accident we urge you to contact our Nashville car accident attorneys today for a free consultation. When you hire an auto accident attorney from Phillip Miller & Associates, you’re getting a qualified and dedicated lawyer.

Super Bowl Sunday

You may or may not know this but under Tennessee law you don’t have to be driving your car or truck to be arrested for driving under the influence. If you are behind the wheel and have access to the keys, even if you are simply sitting there or asleep you are in violation of the law.

A Clarksville man was charged with DUI after police allegedly found him sleeping in his car with an open can of beer. The 25-year-old man was asleep, probably passed out, behind the wheel, with an open can of beer, at a fast food restaurant on Madison St. in Clarksville.

Being drunk isn’t his only problem, when the police tried to wake him to inquire as to his situation, he became angry and resisted arrest and had to be subdued with the use of a stun gun. I’ll bet that ruined his buzz.

As an experienced Tennessee car accident lawyer I want to remind you that driving with a BAC of .08 or higher is illegal in every state. If you follow my blog you will see that in Tennessee we continue to see a tragic number of people with debilitating injuries and deaths as a result of impaired driving.

This careless disregard for human life must stop. To help ensure that happens, the Tennessee Highway Patrol and local police agencies are going to be at the alert on Super Bowl Sunday to nail drunk drivers and are dedicated to arresting impaired drivers wherever and whenever they find them.

Drunk driving is one of America’s deadliest crimes. In Tennessee in 2008, 327 people were killed in crashes where the driver or motorcyclist had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher.

If you or a loved one are seriously injured in a Tennessee auto accident caused by a drunk driver, you ought to contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates.

Bad Luck For DUI Driver Good Luck For The Rest Of Us

When you get behind the wheel of a Tennessee motor vehicle and you are drunk there is no such thing as bad luck, you are making your own luck. Reference a recent DUI arrest in Kingsport Tennessee last week.

A Kingsport police officer was on his way to work. He was driving his patrol car and was attempting to merge with other traffic onto Highway 11-W when a car driven by a 45-year-old Kingsport man nearly sideswiped the cruiser and continued on along the highway weaving to the right and then the left of the lane.

The officer lit up his emergency lights and the driver continued along, stopping only after the officer activated his siren. When the officer approached the car the driver had a half empty pint of whiskey in full view between the seats, he spoke with a slur, failed the field sobriety test and when the officer did a record check he found that the driver had previous problems with driving and alcohol and had a suspended license.

He was arrested and charged with driving under the influence and driving on a revoked license, then transported to the Kingsport city jail. Every day, 36 people in the United States die, and approximately 700 more are injured, in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver.

Last year, 13,470 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (32%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States. During that same period over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics.

Drunk driving is a serious problem in Tennessee. Continued driving by previously convicted DUI offenders continues to be a plague on the roadways of Tennessee. In an effort attack this problem Tennessee now mandates interlock devices be placed on the vehicles of all second offenders and those with blood alcohol levels above.

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

Man Gets 15 Years

Last year I wrote about a fatal bicycle/car accident that took the life of a man training for a Triathlon. The driver of the car fled the scene. This past week the fleeing driver pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter, driving drunk and was sentenced to 15 years in the state penitentiary. He will be eligible for parole after serving 11 years.

As an experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer I have railed in this Blog about Hit & Run drivers. Hit & Run drivers are, in my consideration, the worst kind of human being. Most H&R drivers are under the influence of alcohol, others have already run afoul of the law and have lost their driving privileges, yet they continue to get behind the wheel and ignore the rules.

Many H&R drivers are trying to avoid detection because they don’t have insurance and they don’t want to face the responsibility for their actions. No matter which category they fall into they are the very worst type of person, someone who will leave an injured or dying fellow human being lying in the street.

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

Motorcyle Fatality

A Chattanooga man is charged with vehicular homicide for a crash that killed a biker, in September. Already facing charges of driving under the influence and on a suspended license, the man is looking at some serious jail time. Police reports say that the man was driving his SUV on Hixson Pike when he crossed the centerline and hit a motorcycle head-on, killing a 51-year-old Perry Maddox who was dead at the scene. Investigators say that alcohol played a major role in the fatal accident.

As my goal with this blog is to educate my readers in the hope that you all will practice safe driving and instill in your family and friends the need to do the same. On average a human being loses their life at the hands of a drunk driver every 45 minutes. In 2008, an estimated 11,773 people died in drunk driving related crashes, a decline of 9.8 percent from the 13,041 drunk driving related fatalities of 2007.

About three in every ten Americans will be involved in an alcohol-related crash at some time in their lives. Over 1.46 million drivers were arrested in 2006 for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. This is an arrest rate of 1 for every 139 licensed drivers in the United States.

In 2001, more than half a million people were injured in crashes where police reported that alcohol was present an average of one person injured almost every minute.

When you hire an attorney from Phillip Miller & Associates, you’re getting the whole package.  You don’t just get an extremely qualified and dedicated lawyer, you also get a loyal Tennessee resident who cares about the quality of life in their community and who puts their time and money into standing up for causes and charities they believe in.  You can read about some of the causes we support on our home page, along with a summary of our professional qualifications.  Additional details about our attorneys and staff can be found by viewing our personal profiles, where you can get to know the men and women who will be looking out for your best interest.

Please contact Phillip Miller & Associates today and take your first step forward towards putting the frustration and horror of your Tennessee motorcycle accident experience behind you.