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.

Impound Vehicles Of Habitual Traffic Offenders

This morning my blog focused on the problem of people without or with suspended or revoked drivers licenses. The problem is serious and measures need to be taken to curb this activity and reduce highway deaths, injuries and property damage. Once again I found some interesting answers in the Automobile Club of America Foundation study titled “Unlicensed To Kill”. The title of this report comes from “Unlicensed to Kill,” a small article that appeared in the June 13, 1994 issue of Time Magazine.

The report is based on research conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) under the Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) a nationwide census providing NHTSA, Congress and the American public yearly data regarding fatal injuries suffered in motor vehicle traffic crashes.

How Do We keep These Drivers From Continuing this Behavior?

Presently the punishments for any one of these enumerated actions (e.g., driving while intoxicated, reckless driving, driving without a license, or driving on a suspended or revoked license) go from monetary fines to periods of incarceration. Add to that counseling, remedial education, training programs and community service and license sanctions. The goal here is to save lives and the findings of the AAA report seems to point to the fact that they can indeed be an effective tool in reducing traffic violations, fatalities and injuries, but the same literature also acknowledges that drivers with suspended and revoked licenses often drive in spite of their suspensions and revocations.

Given that 30 to 70 percent of those drivers whose licenses have been suspended or  revoked may continue to drive and given that many of these drivers become involved in serious injury and fatal crashes, more stringent measures to curtail the risks posed by these drivers seem warranted.

Many believe that modifying unlawful driver behavior might not be an effective way to deal with this issue and think that engineering around this problem” is the best approach, and that the answer may be best found in vehicle sanctions or modifications that physically impede unlawful driving through vehicle impoundment, electronic drivers licenses, or alcohol ignition interlocks.

Vehicle Impoundment

Perhaps the most dramatic, but definitely low tech, vehicle sanction imposed on a driver is impoundment. This simple, low-technology strategy renders the vehicle unavailable to the driver for a prescribed period of time. At the end of the impoundment period, the owner was obliged to pay the costs associated with impoundment to reclaim his or her vehicle. The potential benefits of a vehicle impoundment law are basically two: (1) for a period of 30 days, impounded vehicles are unavailable to be driven by those without licenses or with suspended or revoked licenses, and (2) the inconvenience and cost associated with vehicle impoundment might have some residual deterrent effect that would curtail future illegal driving beyond the 30-day period that the vehicle was impounded. Overall, those drivers whose vehicles were impounded were significantly less likely to be subsequently convicted of driving without a license and driving with a suspended or revoked license; and yet they continued to be involved in crashes. In an up-coming blog I’ll address several other more high tech methods of achieving the goal of keeping these people off of the streets.

If you or a loved one is injured in a Nashville car accident contact our Nashville car accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies

Distractions Can Be Deadly

Safety should be the primary goal of every driver. Driving safely requires the driver’s full attention and anything that diverts the driver from this goal should be carefully studied. We know from personal observation and from studies such as those by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and the Governor’s Highway Safety Association (GHSA) that Driver inattention is a leading factor in many crashes, and cell phone use and texting are some of the most common driver distractions. Cell phone use can distract drivers from this task, risking harm to themselves and others. Research shows that driving while using a cell phone can pose a serious cognitive distraction and degrade driver performance. Therefore, the safest course of action is to refrain from using a cell phone while driving.

Another device that we haven’t talked about much and one that is becoming more common as the technology develops and the costs go down is the GPS. The GPS or Global Positioning Satellite is a navigation system that performs many functions such as guiding a person to a specific address, helping driver avoid traffic jams and many other driver assistance programs. The problem with these device is that they require the driver to look at them, program them and listen to the voice supported system while driving. Therein lies the problem. When you are looking at the device you can’t be looking at the road and when yo are not looking at the road accidents can happen. While more and more states and localities are banning specific distractions, GHSA’s message to all drivers is: don’t use cell phones or other electronic devices while driving, regardless of the current law.

State legislatures, such as Tennessee, have responded to the growing concern over cell phone use and texting while driving by passing a variety of new laws, inclucing banning handheld cell phone use or texting by all drivers or restricting cell phone use or texting for a specific demographic, such as teens or school bus drivers. Recently, states have been passing texting bans for all drivers at a frenetic pace.

The NHTSA has issued a call for and is providing financing for research and education that addresses this growing problem. As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney I strongly suggest that you put your cell phone aside while you are driving and pay particular attention when you are fooling with your GPS pull over into a safe place to do your programming.

If you or a love one is injured in a Nashville car accident that involves a distracted driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies

Car Crashes-A Rural Epidemic

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) highway fatalities are a major epidemic in this country; and most occur on rural roads involving rural residents. Only one-fifth of the Nation’s population lives in rural areas, yet two-fifths of the vehicle miles traveled and three-fifths of all fatal crashes occur there. In 2004, 59 percent (24,975) of the 42,636 people who died in motor vehicle crashes were traveling on rural roads. This includes drivers, occupants, pedestrians, motorcyclists, and pedalcyclists. The percentage rises to 65 percent when looking only at rural passenger vehicle fatalities: 20,302 occupants killed in passenger cars, pickup trucks, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) on rural roads. Of these, 54 percent (11,043) were unrestrained – not using a seat belt or child safety seat at the time of the crash.

A recent article on the website of Knoxville TV station WBIR, reported the death of a 48-year old Petros, Tennessee man killed when the dump truck he was driving left the road and crashed in Anderson County.  Reporting from Tennessee Highway Patrol reports the victim was traveling south on Red Oak Mountain Road, too fast for road conditions. When he began to slow down, the 1982 Mack DM8 dump truck went into a slide and left the road. It struck a tree and landed off the roadway on its side.

Speeding is one of the most common contributing factors of traffic crashes. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) show that the driver-level attribute “driving too fast for conditions or in excess of posted speed limit” is the critical contributing factor in more than 99% of all fatal crashes. In fatal crashes, about 55% of all speeding related crashes were due to exceeding the posted speed limit.

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

Reduce Road Fatalities

Last week Tennessee Department of Transportation Commissioner Gerald Nicely joined representatives from the Governor’s Highway Safety Office, Department of Safety, Department of Health, Federal Highway Administration, Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, AARP, AAA Auto Club South, and a number of other highway safety partners to sign a new Strategic Highway Safety Plan for Tennessee on Wednesday, September 30. The goal of the new plan is to reduce the number of fatalities in Tennessee by 10% by 2012.

Citing the success of the 2006- 2008 Strategic Highway  Safety Plan, Kendell Poole, Director of the Governor’s Highway Safety Office said, “The good news is the number of deadly crashes in Tennessee dropped nearly 14% between 2007 and 2008. The bad news is there were still more than 1,000 people who died in crashes in our state last year. We want to see that number decline even more and are pledging today to reduce fatal crashes by another 10% by 2012.”

The new Strategic Highway Safety Plan again focuses on the four “E’s”: Education, Enforcement, Engineering, and Emergency Response, with a goal of having fewer than 900 fatalities on Tennessee highways by 2012. The new plan also includes a new program designed to educate senior drivers. When crash and fatality rates are calculated, older drivers, much like teen drivers, are over-represented.

“All drivers, whether it’s teens just learning to drive or seniors who’ve been driving for decades, need to be consistently reminded about safe driving practices and updated on new traffic laws,” said Department of Safety Deputy Commissioner Greta Dajani.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration fact sheet on older drivers focuses on the older population in the United States which includes all people age 65 and older. In 2007, 13 percent of the total U.S. resident population (38 million) were people 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, 14 percent of all vehicle occupant 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%.

The new Senior Driver Safety Education Program aims to give seniors the information they need to stay up to date on new traffic laws and other safety measures they can take to improve their driving skills. You and I, as individuals, can help make this happen if you commit to reviewing the Tennessee Rules of the Road and make a good faith effort to follow the law and become safer drivers.

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

https://news.tennesseeanytime.org/node/2623

Tennessee Car Tractor-Trailer Accident

A Pennsylvania soldier stationed at Fort Campbell died in a mysterious accident early Sunday morning on I-24 in Clarksville, Tennessee. It’s accidents like this one, reported on the website of WSMV Channel 4 in Nashville, that cause me to ponder possible causes. According to the report Eric Thomas Rothharpt, 24 died when his Toyota Scion smashed into the rear-end of a tractor-trailer parked on the ramp with it’s flashers turned on because of a previous wreck. Police reported that the victim was not wearing his seatbelt when the collision occurred. The staff and attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates send our deepest condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Rothharpt.

What causes an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney like myself to ponder an accident like this is the question of how such an accident could have happened. You have a huge tractor-trailer parked off the roadway with its emergency lights blinking and yet the victim drives off the road and rams into it. My first thoughts were focused on whether this young man had been drowsy, fallen asleep and drifted off the road. Any investigation of this wreck should center on where he had been and what he had been doing prior to the collision. Had he been traveling some distance, been working long hours, there are many areas that need to be probed.

According to studies done by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) sleepiness impairs driving performance. Sleepiness leads to crashes because it impairs elements of human performance that are critical to safe driving. Relevant impairments identified in laboratory and in-vehicle studies include:

Slower reaction time. Sleepiness reduces optimum reaction times, and moderately sleepy drivers can have a performance- impairing increase in reaction time that will hinder stopping in time to avoid a collision. Even small decrements in reaction time can have a profound effect on crash risk, particularly at high speeds.

Reduced vigilance. Performance on attention- based tasks declines with sleepiness, including increased periods of nonresponding or delayed responding.

Deficits in information processing. Processing and integrating information takes longer, the accuracy of short-term memory decreases, and performance declines.

Working the night shift, overtime, or rotating shifts is a risk for drowsy driving that may be both chronic and acute. In a New York State survey, nearly one-half the drowsy drivers who crashed (and more than one-third of those who drove drowsy without crashing) reported having worked the night shift or overtime prior to the incident. In addition, a higher reported frequency of driving drowsy was associated with working a rotating shift, working a greater number of hours per week, and more frequently driving for one’s job.

My next thought was that he could have been distracted as he drove up the ramp. I would focus here on his cell phone to determine whether he had made or taken a text message or cell phone calls. The task of driving requires full attention and focus. Cell phone use can distract drivers from this task, risking harm to themselves and others.  Therefore, the safest course of action is to refrain from using a cell phone while driving. Research shows that driving while using a cell phone can pose a serious cognitive distraction and degrade driver performance.  The data are insufficient to quantify crashes caused by cell phone use specifically, but NHTSA estimates that driver distraction from all sources contributes to 25 percent of all police-reported traffic crashes.

If you or a loved one is injured in a Nashville car accident by a drowsy or distracted driver contact the experienced Nashville accident attorneys and Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Speeding And Alcohol Use

Two late night car crashes in Chattanooga leave one dead and another seriously injured. Chattanooga TV station WRCB reported that the accidents occurred within hours of each other, the cause of the first accident is unknown but Police sources believe that alcohol and failure to utilize a seatbelt were involved. The driver’s car left the roadway and flipped into a shallow ditch and the driver was thrown from the vehicle a sure sign that he was not wearing his seatbelt. He was transported to Erlanger Medical Center where he died from his injuries.

The other Chattanooga man Viengsamay Moungsiharath age-29, was found trapped in his overturned vehicle that, according the traffic investigators, had been traveling at a high rate of speed. Apparently the car crossed into the oncoming lanes struck several light poles before coming to a rest. Emergency responders pulled Moungsiharath from the wreckage and took him to Erlanger where he’s listed in critical condition with life threatening injuries.

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. The annual cost of alcohol-related crashes totals more than $51 billion. But there are effective measures that can help prevent injuries and deaths from alcohol-impaired driving.

How big is the problem?

*In 2006, 13,470 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes, accounting for nearly one-third (32%) of all traffic-related deaths in the United States.

*In 2007, over 1.4 million drivers were arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol or narcotics. That’s less than one percent of the 159 million self-reported episodes of alcohol-impaired driving among U.S. adults each year.

*Drugs other than alcohol (e.g., marijuana and cocaine) are involved in about 18% of motor vehicle driver deaths. These other drugs are generally used in combination with alcohol.

*Half of the 306 child passengers ages 14 and younger who died in alcohol-related crashes in 2006 were riding with drivers who had a BAC level of .08 or higher.

Speeding is one of the most common contributing factors of traffic crashes. Data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) show that the driver-level attribute “driving too fast for conditions or in excess of posted speed limit” is the critical contributing factor in more than 99% of all fatal crashes. In fatal crashes, about 55% of all speeding related crashes were due to exceeding the posted speed limit.

If you or a loved one is injured in a Nashville car accident involving a speeding driver or one under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol contact the experienced Nashville car accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Under The Influence

Sporting a long list of DUI convictions, a California woman knew she shouldn’t drive after she and her man friend took drunk at dinner last weekend in Knoxville, so she did the next right thing and turned the keys over to the one person with them who hadn’t had anything to drink. So far, even though she is drunk, it appears that she made the correct decision. Well, that isn’t exactly how it played out.

According to an article published on the Knoxville television station WBIR-TV website, that responsible party was a thirteen year old boy. It appears that the plan failed when the car stalled in an intersection and the Knoxville police stopped to check it out. The boy was released to another family member and the woman was charged with two misdemeanor counts, one of child endangerment and the other of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. I guess, if you think about it, she did avoid another DUI conviction and a sentence of up to eleven months and twenty-nine days in jail.

Child Endangerment: Known as the Tennessee Drunk Driving Child Protection Act, there are added penalties for people who violate DUI laws when accompanied by a child under 18 years old.  There is a mandatory minimum jail sentence of 30 days, and a mandatory minimum fine of $1,000.  Both of these child-related penalties are added onto any other incarceration, penalty and fines.  If the child suffers serious bodily injury, the violation is a Class D felony, and if the child dies, it is a Class C felony of especially aggravated child endangerment.

As explained in the Tennessee Rules of The Road, driving involves multiple tasks, and the demands can change continually. To drive safely, you must maintain alertness, make decisions based on ever-changing information present in the environment and execute maneuvers based on these decisions. Drinking alcohol impairs a wide range of skills necessary for carrying out these tasks.  Fatal injuries, resulting from alcohol-related traffic crashes, represent a tremendous loss of human life.  In 2005, over 16,000 deaths nationwide (39 percent of all traffic fatalities) were alcohol related.  In Tennessee, 37 percent of all traffic fatalities (464 deaths) were alcohol-related. Examples are driving too fast, passing cars without enough clear distance and speeding around curves.  Showing off is another example of impaired judgment.

If you or a loved on is injured in a Nashville car accident by a driver under the influence of alcohol contact the Nashville car accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Distracted Driving Kills

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood challenged over 250 safety experts, industry representatives, elected officials and members of the public to help put an end to distracted driving.  The Secretary’s speech was the keynote to a two-day Distracted Driving Summit in Washington, DC that will highlight the under-recognized dangers of distracted behavior behind the wheel.

“Every single time someone takes their eyes or their focus off the road – even for just a few seconds – they put their lives and the lives of others in danger,” said Secretary LaHood. “Distracted driving is unsafe, irresponsible and in a split second, its consequences can be devastating.”

Across the board, federal researchers who have directly observed drivers of all ages found that more and more people are using a variety of hand-held devices while driving – not just cell phones, but also iPods, video games, Blackberrys and GPS systems.  In particular, cell phone use for talking and texting is now more prevalent on our nation’s roads, rail systems and waterways, carrying a dangerous potential for accidents.

Cell phones and texting are now the primary means of communication for many people, especially young adults.  NHTSA’s research shows that the worst offenders are the youngest drivers: men and women under 20 years of age. ”We now know that the worst offenders are the youngest, least experienced drivers,” said Secretary LaHood.  “Unfortunately though, the problem doesn’t end there.  Distracted driving occurs across all age groups and all modes of transportation, from cars to buses and trucks to trains. We must work together to find solutions that will prevent crashes caused by driver distraction.”

If you or a loved one is injured in a Nashville car accident by a distracted driver contact Phillip Miller & Associates and let our experiences accident attorney’s fill you in on your rights and remedies.

Avoid Distractions Save Lives

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyer I hear a report like the one on Jackson, Tennessee station WBBJ TV yesterday and I just have to shake my head and sigh. A mother and father driving with their two year old in the backseat of their vehicle and the driver fails to yield the stop sign at an intersection and rams into a police car that had the right of way.  For those familiar with my blog topics you know that I have warned continually about the dangers posed by intersections. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that in 2005 alone, nearly 9,200 people died and approximately one million people were injured in intersection-related crashes-approximately 40-45 percent of all crashes. This is significant to say the least.

I have to ask myself why did this driver, with a baby in the vehicle ignore the stop sign and drive directly out into the path of oncoming traffic? My first thought is that the driver was obviously not paying attention to what he/she was doing and must have been distracted. 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.

We will probably never know the reason that this driver was distracted but we hope and pray that s/he will learn the lesson of due care– always focus on the road in the future. The two adults and the police officer were taken by ambulance to a local hospital for treatment of minor injuries and the 2 year old, who was safely buckled into a car safety seat was unhurt.

If you or a loved on is injured in a Nashville car accident by a distracted driver call on the experienced Nashville auto accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

http://www.wbbjtv.com/localnews.html