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.

Man Dies In Hospital After Wreck

A Huntingdon, Tennessee man was died Saturday after he was injured in a two-vehicle accident earlier this month in Henry County, according to local media reports.

I wrote about this accident in an earlier weblog. The 66-year-old-man, was stopped for a flashing red light on Tenn. 140 at an intersection with Highway 54 about 6:19 p.m. Nov. 11. For some unknown reason he pulled out directly into the path of a pick up truck coming alone Highway 54, with the right-of-way.

The pickup driver tried to swerve to avoid the collision but he never had a chance. He struck the man on the left side of his vehicle at the drivers door and then lost control and slammed into a building. This driver was wearing his seatbelt, not so for the deceased man and his passenger who was also seriously injured.

If you or someone you love has been hurt in a serious Tennessee car accident due to somebody else’s negligence, then you may be feeling angry, frightened, or even alone in your suffering.

There is no reason for you to bear your burden alone.  The experience of a Tennessee auto accident is traumatic enough and your recovery will bring its own challenges.  You don’t need the added stress of worrying about who will pay for the medical care you need, how your car will be repaired, and if the individuals responsible for your suffering will be brought to justice.  This is the time to call Phillip Miller & Associates, the law firm of local Tennessee attorneys and staff who for the past 25 years have dedicated their lives to protecting the rights of injured men, women, and children in Tennessee.

Yield To Emergency Vehicles

For  local media report to be helpful to use as teaching aides for Tennessee drivers they have to contain all of the relevant facts. A good example is a report out of Memphis describing an intersection crash between a car and a police unit. According to the report the officer was proceeding through the intersection with his lights and siren on when a woman in a Honda SUV entered the intersection, hitting the police cruiser. Unfortunately we don’t know if the woman driver had the green light. Three people were transported but none were in serious condition.

As we go about our daily business, we are watched over by law enforcement, fire rescue and emergency medical teams. We need to be aware as drivers what to do when one of these emergency vehicles approaches. The Number One rule is, when you hear or see an emergency vehicle of any type approaching from any direction, pull as far to the right as possible and stop!

When you observe or hear an emergency vehicle approaching, what should you do? Upon the immediate approach of an emergency vehicle sounding a siren and flashing emergency lights, a driver must yield the right of way and immediately drive to a position parallel to and as close as possible to the nearest edge or curb of the highway clear of any intersection and remain there until the emergency vehicle has passed. Exercise extreme caution around an emergency situation and follow the directions given by a police officer.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee car accident caused by a Nashville driver who fails to yield the right of way, time is of the essence. Contact the experienced Nashville auto accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates as soon as possible. Call 615-356-2000.

Red Light Means Stop

Stupid is as stupid does. My life experience tells me that there are some people, far too many, who are simply unable to see their own roll in their problems. These people blame everything on others and refuse to take responsibility for their own stupid actions.

Take, for instance, a recent intersection crash in Knoxville, Tennessee, in which a 23-year-old man who ran a stop sign and slammed into another vehicle, gets out of his wrecked car and tries to start a fight with the innocent victim.

To compound his stupidity, the guy then tries to fight with police officers responding to the crash. Instead of a ticket for running a red light this bozo ends up being charged with reckless driving, resisting arrest, aggravated assault, and disorderly conduct.

Aggressive driving is a major concern of the American public, ranking at or near the top of traffic safety issues in national surveys of motorists. In Tennessee and throughout the country, the public’s concern over aggressive driving continues to grow. Some studies indicate the public is actually more fearful of aggressive drivers than it is of impaired drivers. Aggressive driving is truly dangerous and cannot be tolerated.

Many people misunderstand the difference between aggressive driving and what has become known as “Road Rage”. Most experienced Tennessee Car accident lawyers think of  aggressive driving as certain driving behaviors, such as speeding, tailgating, or violating traffic control devices,

Road rage, like we have here, is a criminal offense. This occurs when a traffic incident escalates into a far more serious situation. For example, a person may become so angry over an aggressive driving incident that he or she overreacts and retaliates with some type of violence. These violent acts may range from a physical confrontation to an assault with a motor vehicle or possibly a weapon. Often, the roadway incident that caused the person to become enraged may have been something quite simple and even trivial.

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

Don't Try To Flee The Police

Law enforcement officers often have to enter into a high-speed pursuit of criminal suspects. Other times, police are required to respond quickly to a crime in progress. Many times, innocent bystanders are injured as a result of a police chase or accident with a police car.

An Atmore Tennessee police officer entered into a high-speed chase which ended in a three-car collision. Local media reports failed to mention the reason for the chase but the patrol car entered an intersection against the light, a vehicle hit it and it went on to hit a pickup truck. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Cases like this a hard and require an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney to analyze the facts. Many times these car chases can be more dangerous to innocent citizens when balanced against the law enforcement necessity. In domestic dispute calls the police usually know the identity of wanted man and can call off the chase knowing that they will be able to find him eventually.

An experienced lawyer will be able to review the facts of the accident and the policies of the department to determine if the officers acted negligently, thereby causing the crash. If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a police chase you owe it to yourself to contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys a Phillip Miller & Associates and have a thorough case review to determine your rights.

Watch Out for Motorcycles

In traffic following the NASCAR race at Bristol a motorcyclist was injured when a pickyp ruck made an unexpected left turn directly in front of him at the intersection of U.S. Highway 19E and U.S. Highway 321.

The 70-year-old pickup driver made a left turn from Highway 321 into the path of the motorcycle, he was charged with failure to yield. The injured motorcyclist was transported by the Carter County Rescue Squad to the Johnson City Medical Center for treatment.

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.

“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 anyone you know has been injured or killed in a Tennessee car accident, please contact Nashville injury attorney Phillip Miller and the Tennessee personal injury attorneys at Phillip Miller and Associates at (615) 356-2000, or contact our office online here.

One last thing: If you are hurt and have any questions at all, contact our office at (615) 356-2000. Don’t delay. Cases involving personal injury or death in Tennessee must be acted on quickly. Time is running. Call for an appointment, if it’s bad enough that you need to read this far into a website blog, it’s bad enough to get an attorney involved.

Intersection Collision

During a very confusing accident a 19-year-old Nashville man was killed when his car plunged into a creek off of Nolensville and Wallace roads Monday morning about 6:45 a.m. According to local media reports, the man’s car entered an intersection and collided with an SUV.

His vehicle accelerated, then veered and side swiped three or four other cars, ran off the roadway, went airborne and slammed into the bank of a creek. Police said that they didn’t suspect alcohol or drugs as a cause, but surmised that the young man might have had a medical emergency. An autopsy should shed more light on the matter.

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.

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.

Four Fatalities

Based on local media reports it appears that there may be a problem in need of action going on in Bradley County, Tennessee. In the last nine days there have been three fatal  crashes leaving four people dead.

Saturday night two young men, ages 28 and 20, died when the vehicle in which they were traveling left Leadmine Valley Road and crashed into a tree. The second fatality occurred when an ambulance carrying a 78-year-old man was involved in an intersection accident at the intersection of Freewill Road and Georgetown Drive.

The third fatality involved a twenty-year-old Bradley County resident who died in a single-vehicle crash July 7 when her vehicle left the roadway on Interstate 75 near Exit 33. Whenever you see an accident, usually involving one car that leaves the road, an experienced Tennessee 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?

As an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney the main question is what were each of these drivers doing in the two seconds before their vehicle left the road? 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.

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.

Failure to Yield

A 78-year-old man from Ten Mile, Tennessee was killed the other day when a tractor-trailer pulled out of a private driveway along State Highway 58, and his vehicle slid up underneath the trailer. Intersections include private driveways entering public streets. In Tennessee a driver leaving a private driveway to enter a public road must yield the right of way to drivers on the road.

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. 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.

Time is of the essence in these kind of  cases. Although most cases can be reconstructed at a later time it is important to have someone looking out for your best interests as soon as possible. That’s why it’s important to contact an experienced Tennessee tractor-trailer accident lawyer like those you will find at Phillip Miller & Associates.

If you or a loved one is injured in a car tractor-trailer accident act quickly and take advantage of a no-cost no-obligation consultation and learn about your rights and put our crack team of lawyers and investigators on the case.

Intersections and Motorcycles

As an experienced Nashville automobile/motorcycle accident lawyer, I have never seen a good outcome for the motorcyclist in a collision with a car or truck. A 57-year-old Knoxville motorcyclist was involved in an intersection crash with a Nissan Maxima driven by an 80-year-old Knoxville woman.

It appears, from local media reports, that the two met at an intersection and the Maxima turned left in front of the motorcycle. The local media source said that the motorcyclist is hospitalized with life threatening injuries. The motorcyclist did not have a motorcycle driver license as required by law. Our prayers here at Phillip Miller & Associates, go out to this man for a quick and complete recovery.

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.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee intersection auto accident caused by a negligent driver contact the experienced Nashville motorcycle accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free consultation.