Medical Emergencies

It appears that a Tennessee automobile accident near Russellville, TN that took the lives of two Tennesseans, was caused by a medical emergency that incapacitated an 84 year-old woman driver. According to an article at the website of the Knoxville News, whatever the medical episode, it prevented the driver from stopping at a stop-sign. As she ran through the stop-sign she hit a tractor-trailer going the opposite direction and then she hit head-on with another automobile. The driver of the second vehicle a 50-year-old woman also died at the scene. The driver of the commercial truck was injured and transported to an area hospital.

Incidences of drivers who had crashes precipitated by their medical emergencies while driving are relatively rare and account for only 1.3 percent of all road fatalities. Older drivers have relatively higher incidences of crashes precipitated by drivers’ medical emergencies when compared to young and middle-age drivers. Drivers in crashes precipitated by medical emergencies were more likely than other drivers to be severely injured or to die as a result of the crash.

Patient education by health care providers on early warning signs of a health crisis, such as warning signs before seizure attacks, diabetic or hypoglycemic comas and potential side effects of medications are recommended as the most effective countermeasure.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile traffic accident contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation to determine your rights and remedies.

Seven Tennessee women died in an automobile accident in Lewis County, Tennessee, forty miles south of Nashville, this past weekend when a single passenger vehicle crossed a yellow line and rammed head-on into a van carrying women on their way to work at a nearby factory. The 69-year-old driver of the car was dead at the scene and police said they had no idea what caused her to cross into the other vehicle. i send my sympathy and prayers to the families and friends of all of those injured or killed in this tragic accident.

Unfortunately, neither her family, nor the families of the victims will ever be able to answer that question for sure. As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney it’s clear that one of three things happened. The driver was either distracted by something in her car, a cell phone, radio, GPS device, or she just lost concentration and failed to focus on the task at hand, or she had some kind of medical emergency that caused her to lose control of her vehicle.

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.

According to a survey conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 95% of respondents 55 and older have one or more medical conditions and 78% use one or more medications, yet only 28% indicated some awareness of the potential impact on driving performance associated with  those medications.

The lesson to be learned following this accident is that no matter where we are going, down to the corner to the local store or cross-country, we have to be vigilant and never lose focus of the task at hand. If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident you owe it to your self to take advantage of a free consultation with one of the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates

Distracted Driver

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Medications And Driver Safety

Yesterday I blogged about an event that many baby-boomers are going to have to face and that is making the decision to see that their elderly driver parents give up their cars and driving privileges. This morning I read an interesting article outlining the finding of a study conducted by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

According to the survey, 95 percent of respondents 55 and older have one or more medical conditions and 78 percent use one or more medications, yet only 28 percent indicated some awareness of the potential impact on driving performance associated with those medications. Few respondents (18 percent) had received a warning about potentially driver impairing medications (e.g. ACE inhibitors, sedatives, and beta blockers) from a healthcare professional. Further, the study found that such warnings do not increase with increasing numbers of medications or with increasing numbers of medical conditions.

Previous research indicates that use of a single potentially driver impairing medication as well as use  of multiple medications increases the risk of being in a crash. The age range was from 56 to 93 and the level of awareness of potentially driver impairing medications decreased with age, while in  contrast the number of prescription medications people were taking increased. Of those surveyed, 69 percent currently use one or more prescription potentially driver impairing medication and 10 percent currently use five or  more prescription potentially driver impairing medications.

“Health care professionals need to educate patients about their potentially driver impairing medications to help them make safe driving decisions” said AAA Foundation President and CEO Peter Kissinger. “One of our goals is to help older drivers stay mobile as long as safely possible; so, it is imperative that we do a better job of educating drivers on known risks,  such as the side‐effects of medications.”

With the number of drivers 55 years of age and older expected to increase by more than half by 2030, this issue will only continue to grow unless measures are taken to increase awareness about medications that can impact safe driving. High-risk groups include those with multiple medical conditions and those taking mutiple medications or potentially driver impairing medications, as well as those with less education.

This is good information not only for elderly drivers and healthcare professionals but also drivers of all ages who take one or more medications for a medical condition. If you would like to find out more information about this and other important driver safety issues go to www.AAAFoundation.org.

If you or a loved is injured or killed by a elderly driver in a Nashville automobile accident contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates.

Older Drivers

A recent article on WSMV TV in Nashville about an elderly driver who rammed his car into the front of a busy grocery store caught my attention and reminded me a meeting I had with a friend the other day. My friend had been having several of “The Conversations” with his mother. She is now in her 80s and experiences many of the issues related to her ability to continue driving. Their conversation focused on helping her recognize her changing abilities and deciding with her how to adapt to new ways of meeting her transportation needs. I’ve known this woman for many years, a fiercely independent Irish woman who spent her life selling real estate and in her later years playing poker.

As the population of the United States ages these conversations are taking place more often then in the past. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has a number of helpful suggestions that might make this process somewhat easier on both sides of this conversation, including a sample script for opening the discussion and some considerations to suggest.

Some Facts On Older Drivers: (65-years old and up)

In 2007, 13 percent of the total U.S. resident population (38 million) were age 65 and older. There were 30 million older licensed drivers in 2006, an 18-percent increase from 1996. In contrast, the total number of licensed drivers increased by only 13 percent from 1996 to 2006. Older drivers made up 15 percent of all licensed drivers in 2006, compared with 14 percent in 1996. In 2007, 196,000 older individuals were injured in traffic crashes, accounting for 8 percent of all the people injured in traffic crashes during the year. These older individuals made up 14 percent of all traffic fatalities, and 19 percent of all pedestrian fatalities. Most traffic fatalities involving older drivers in 2007 occurred during the daytime (79%), occurred on weekdays (72%), and involved other vehicles 71%. Over three-fourths (77%) of all older occupants of passenger vehicles involved in fatal crashes were using restraints at the time of the crash, compared to 63 percent for other adult occupants (18 to 64 years old). For older people, 60 percent of pedestrian fatalities in 2007 occurred at non-intersection locations. For other pedestrians, 81 percent of fatalities occurred at non-intersection locations. In two-vehicle fatal crashes involving an older driver and a younger driver, the vehicle driven by the older person was nearly twice as likely to be the one that was struck (59% and 33%, respectively). In 46 percent of these crashes, both vehicles were proceeding straight at the time of the collision. In 25 percent, the older driver was turning left, 5 times more often than the younger driver. In Tennessee in 2007 there were 1,639 fatal traffic accidents, of those 185 were involved with people aged 65+, which translates to 11.3% of the fatalities.

To this Nashville automobile accident attorney these statistics show me that older drivers are more experienced and their populations is growing but that their driving abilities are affected by things such as visual, hearing and response related issues. I highly recommend that before you have “the conversation” with an older family member that you drop in at the NHTSA website and introduce your self to some of the solutions that they have prepared. My friend told me that the conversations with his Mom have been going well and they have worked out a plan to meet her needs and allow her to continue to live a busy and fulfilling life. I did ask him whether he had a plan B in the event this approach didn’t work and he laughed and told me that he had planned to stuff a potato up her tail-pipe so the car wouldn’t start.

If you or a loved one is injured in a Nashville car accident involving a older driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.