Stop Repeat DUI Offenders

An intereting report by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety shows that DWI offenders pick interlocks systems over house arrest. Alcohol ignition interlocks are a proven tactic to reduce repeat offenses for driving while intoxicated (DWI), but given a choice most offenders don’t voluntarily put them in their vehicles. Even when installation is mandatory, some offenders may sidestep the requirement by agreeing not to drive at all or claiming not to have a vehicle.

When the alternative is house arrest, though, convicted DWI offenders pick interlocks 7 out of 10 times. This is the main finding of a Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation study of one New Mexico counties experience with interlocks. The study looks at Santa Fe, where four judges agreed to a 2-year pilot to sentence all DWI offenders, including first-timers, to home confinement via electronic monitoring as an alternative to interlocks if they claimed to have no car or no intention to drive. The aim was to boost DWI offenders’ use of interlocks.

At the time, the state required interlocks for all convicted multiple DWI offenders and first aggravated offenders (BACs of 0.16 percent or higher). Interlocks prevent alcohol-impaired drivers from starting their vehicles. Drivers blow into a breath-testing unit and must register a blood alcohol reading below a preset level, which is usually well under the legal blood alcohol concentration (BAC) threshold of 0.08 percent, in order to start the vehicle. If the reading exceeds the level, the engine won’t turn over.

Researchers compared Santa Fe’s installation rates between June 1, 2003, and May 31, 2005, with all other New Mexico counties. During this period, 70 percent of drivers convicted of DWI in Santa Fe installed interlocks, compared with 17 percent in other counties. The finding is in line with a 2002 study of a similar program in Hancock County, Indiana. The judges stopped using the house-arrest option in 2006 after a state court rejected this sanction. Santa Fe’s interlock installation rate fell 19 percentage points in the 2 years following the program’s termination. But installations rose in most other counties during the 2006-07 period after New Mexico began to require interlocks for all convicted DWI offenders, not just those committing an aggravated offense.

New Mexico’s results show that “motivating interlock installation by providing a less desirable alternative to the interlock can substantially increase the number of DWI offenders who install interlocks,” the authors note. Interlocks successfully reduce the risk that repeat offenders will commit further violations, a 1999 Institute study found. Interlock restrictions reduced the risk of committing an alcohol-related traffic violation within the first year following conviction by nearly 65 percent.

In May 2010, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen signed into law a tougher interlock law that requires the use of ignition interlock devices if the offender has a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.15 percent or higher; is accompanied by a person under 18 years of age; or violates the present implied consent laws. The legislation also provides that those convicted of drunk driving with a BAC under 0.15 have the option to install an ignition interlock device instead of being geographically restricted by a court.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee auto accident caused by a drunk driver contact the experienced Nashville auto accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to find out all you need to know about obtaining a full and complete financial receovery.

Alcohol & Speed A Toxic Mix

The news photos of the wrecked car were horrifying. The 1999 Saab 93 had been speeding and weaving through interstate traffic when it was forced to go to one lane in a construction zone and was unable to keep control of his vehicle and slammed at high speed in the rear-end of a tractor-trailer.

What is there to say? The 47-year-old man was airlifted to a Memphis hospital and is critical condition. What caused the driver to act like this? You guessed it, alcohol. Police investigators say that the scene and the inside of the vehicle were strewn with alcohol containers. My prayers for a speedy recovery go out to this guy. My prayers of thanks that this guy didn’t kill anyone else.

As an experienced 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 press release makes clear that it is 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. That is down from 377 people killed in 2007 with a BAC of .08 or higher. Over the 2008 Labor Day holiday, 12 people were killed in 10 fatal crashes on Tennessee roadways, down from 17 people killed on Tennessee roadways in 2007.

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

Drink Drive Go To Jail

“Don’t Forget “Buzzed Driving is Drunk Driving”. The Tennessee Highway Patrol announced today that State Troopers will be out in full force during the Fourth of July holiday weekend, cracking down on drunk drivers with an aggressive Drunk Driving, Over the Limit, Under Arrest enforcement blitz. To ensure motorists are obeying the law, the THP will conduct sobriety and driver license checkpoints across the state in an effort to reduce fatalities and serious injury crashes. The 2010 July 4th, 78-hour Holiday period begins at 6:00 p.m., Friday, July 2, and will end at 11:59 p.m., Monday, July 5.

In 2010, preliminary statistics indicate 477 people have died on Tennessee roadways, an increase of 6 deaths compared to 471 fatalities at this same time in 2009.

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

Distracted Tractor-Trailer Driver

A distracted tractor-trailer driver rear-ends a stopped vehicle sending it into the other lane and into two other vehicles. As an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney were I to represent the initial vehicle’s driver in a personal injury lawsuit my main focus would be to determine what in the world the truck driver was doing that took his eyes and his mind off of the road ahead of him.

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.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) estimates conservatively that each year drowsy driving “is responsible for at least 100,000 automobile crashes, 71,000 injuries, and 1,550 fatalities.” But among all the major factors that cause or contribute to crashes, like speeding, alcohol use, and weather situations, drowsiness is the most difficult for police and other crash investigators to detect and quantify.

Was the driver using his cell phone? An experienced Nashville car crash attorney would study the drivers cell phone records to determine if he was using the device at the time of the wreck. Another avenue that investigators would use is a blood alcohol test to determine whether the driver was under the influence. Either way the truck driver and the company for which he drives will most probably have liability and damages to pay for this very avoidable act.

If you or a loved one is injury or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a distracted tractor-trailer driver time is of the essence. Contact the experienced Tennessee tractor-trailer accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to find out about your rights and remedies.

Head-on Roadway Departure Crash

A recent Tennessee roadway departure crash differs in one important respect than most of those that I have dealt with over the years. As an experienced Tennessee auto accident attorney when a vehicle goes out of control and crosses a divided highway the crashes that follow are almost always immediate. Usually it’s just some poor unlucky victim in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Reference a recent multi-victim fatal accident in Johnson City Tennessee the other day in which a 31-year-old woman in a small pickup truck left the southbound lane, crossed the median and gained control heading the opposite direction in the northbound lane. She continued driving in the wrong direction until she hit a Nissan head-on killing both the driver and his passenger.

What is one to think? Did she have a medical emergency? Had she been rendered unconscious by the trip across the median? As an experienced Nashville personal injury lawyer with a couple of decades of experience, my bet would be that she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have any inside information, nor have I been in contact with the investigating officer, but from media reports I would opine that the autopsy reports will prove me right on this one.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee auto accident caused by an impaired driver you owe it to yourself to contact an experienced Nashville auto accident lawyer like those at Phillip Miller & Associates, and find out about your rights and remedies.

Drunk Driving Crash With Collateral Damage

As an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney I have investigated thousands of car accidents over the several decades of my practice. I’m always amazed at the amount of damage an out of control automobile can cause. A recent one-car crash in Sevierville Tennessee brought that to mind. A woman driving under the influence of alcohol, speeding, looses control, leaves the road and shears off a power pole and ends up over 100 yards off of the road in a pasture.

The woman was unhurt and was walking to the road when the Tennessee State Trooper arrived at the scene. The Trooper described the scene as looking like a comet had landed. He went on to say that the grass along the path of the car was burning and the car appeared buried in a crater. The main damage was that over three hundred residences in the area lost power for over four hours. Collateral damage.

The drunk driver was wearing a seat belt and her car’s air bag deployed likely kept her from being more seriously injured. She was jailed for DUI, and speeding.

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. That is down from 377 people killed in 2007 with a BAC of .08 or higher. Over the 2008 Labor Day holiday, 12 people were killed in 10 fatal crashes on Tennessee roadways, down from 17 people killed on Tennessee roadways in 2007.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident casued by a drunk driver you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates for a free consultation to determine your rights and remedies.

As an experienced Nashville auto accident lawyer I regularly write about distractions that result in fatalities. In many of these fatal accidents the culprit is a cell phone. Studies show that a person talking on a cell phone, whether hands on or hands free, are as impaired as a driver who is above the legal level for drunk driving.

Reference a tragic fatal accident reported in this morning’s edition of the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. A 31-year-old man survived a roadway departure crash which occurred when he left the road, hit a concrete culvert and flipped several times before landing, up side down in the middle of the highway.

After extricating himself from the wrecked vehicle he was using his cell phone to call for assistance. He was obviously distracted while talking to emergency responders and walked out into the roadway where he was struck and killed by an SUV. An autopsy will be performed to determine whether alcohol was involved in this death.

This situation brings up several important topics. The first topic for investigators to explore is what caused the initial wreck. Was he drinking? Was he speeding? Was he distracted by something and took his eyes off of the road? Since it very early morning, had he been out all night and fell asleep at the wheel?

The final results of this investigation may mean little to the family and friends of this man. My prayers go out to them. But what is the message for the rest of us? The answer is, when we are behind the wheel of a motor vehicle we have to be alert and in a fit condition and up to the task.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee car crash caused by a distracted or drunk driver, act quickly and call the experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates

Cell Phone Distration Is Fatal

and let them work with you through the process of securing compensation for your injuries and other damages.

He Couldn't Stop Drinking And Driving

It doesn’t take an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney to tell you that when you mix a recidivist drunk unlicensed driver, no seat belt, speed, failure to stop at a stop sign when entering a busy US highway, you are going to a bad result. That’s just what happened to a Nashville man the other day.

The 51-year-old man mentioned above blew through a stop sign and crashed into a tractor-trailer truck. Witnesses who attempted to render aid to this man smelled the strong odor of alcohol and police investigators found alcohol in the vehicle. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt and was, upon impact, ejected from the truck. The deceased was driving on a revoked license due to four previous DUI convictions.

The driver of the tractor-trailer and his passenger, were both wearing their seat belts and were not injured.

Drunk driving is one of America’s deadliest crimes. Here in Tennessee in 2008, 327 people were killed in crashes where the driver had a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher. That is down from 377 people killed in 2007 with a BAC of .08 or higher.

On average, a human being is killed by a drunk driver every 45 minutes. In 2008, an estimated 11,773 people died in drunk driving related crashs, a decline of 9.8 percent from the 13,041 drunk driving related fatalities of 2007.

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

Drunk? Distracted? Does It Matter?

As an experienced Nashville automobile personal injury attorney I have reviewed thousands of Tennessee automobile accidents with, hopefully, an objective eye, looking to find the cause of the crash and setting about creating a plan to secure compensation for the victims. It’s not that I’ve become harden to the suffering, quite the contrary, I see very clearly the pain and suffering that follows such a tragic event.

A recent report of a Tennessee fatal automobile accident, unlike many others, has left me somewhat perplexed. It’s been on my desk for a week or so and I have thought about moving on and not using it in my Blog, “The Tennessee Auto Accident Attorney”, but the facts still haunt me.

The original story came from the web site of WBIR TV in Knoxville, Tennessee and it is short on facts, but in a nutshell, a 34-year-old man is heading south on a highway at a high rate of speed around midnight. The driver crossed the double yellow line and hit another car head-on. The driver of the other car and one of her passengers died at the scene and two othe passenger were life-flighted to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in serious condition. My sympathy goes out to the family and friends of the deceased and my wishes for a speedy and complete recovery go to those who were injured.

In all three people lost their lives and I can’t seem to get the question, why did this happen, out of my mind. An autopsy of the 34-year-old- driver will show whether he had consumed drugs or alcohol, interviews with his friends and family might shed light on whether this was a suicide, a review of his cell phone records will show whether he was distracted using his cell phone, but whatever the reason, this incident goes along way to illustrating the point that driving under the influence or in a distracted state, in just the blink of an eye can take the life of a human being. It only takes a second of distraction to weave into the other lane or off of the roadway and into stationary objects.

The lesson here, for those of us who survived this tragic accident, is to avoid distractions and never get behind the wheel if you have been drinking. If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident involving a drunk or distracted driver you owe it to yourself and your family to contact the experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and learn about your rights and remedies.

Distracted Drivers

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney I’ve seen all sorts of odd things but a recent automobile accident in Lauderdale County Alabama is an interesting case in point. Usually when a drunk tractor-trailer driver and a mini-SUV get together  you can pretty well count on  the drunk driver being at fault. Not the case here. A man driving a mini-SUV heading was heading south on US 43 when he suddenly veered across the center=line and clipped a tractor-trailer carrying large coils of steel.

The tractor-trailer driver veered to avoid the collision, then lost control, left the road and plunged down a 150 foot embankment. What causes a man to suddenly veer across the road, out of control, and smack another vehicle? Witnesses told investigators that the SUV driver told them that he had spilled coffee and when he reached for the fallen cup, he took his eyes off the road and lost control. This driver took his eyes and his mind off of the road and nearly killed himself and another because he momentarily took his eyes and his mind off the road.

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.

Distraction from the primary task of driving could present a serious and potentially deadly danger. There has been increased attention on the danger of distracted driving recently, specifically on the dangers of cell phone use and texting while driving. Other secondary task involvement includes eating, drinking, conversing with passengers, as well as interaction with invehicle technologies and portable electronic devices. Greater sophistication in these technologies may present greater physical and cognitive challenges for drivers than traditional information sources. Less obvious forms of cognitive distractions such as daydreaming or dealing with strong emotions also present potentially dangerous situations for drivers.

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