Tennessee Drunk Driving Fatality

As an experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer I use my blog to educate and warn my readers of the dangers they face on the highways and byways of Tennessee. I also try to suggest solutions they may employ to stay safe while behind the wheel. One of the other things I do with my blog is to name the number one driver each year who should never be allowed behind the wheel again.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a candidate. Reference recent articles in local Nashville media reporting on a fatal accident caused by a drunken driver on a Nashville highway the other day. Apparently an alert citizen reported that a seriously drunken man left a local pizza restaurant and got into his car. The police found the guy on the side of the Clarksville Highway passed out behind the wheel. When police officers knocked on the window to get his attention, he awoke and sped off.

A short time later this jerk lost control and crossed the double yellow line and smashed head-on into a car driven by 49-year-old man who was pronounced dead at the scene. This guy has used up all of his privileges to be a free man. To top it off the drunken man was not wearing his seatbelt and was thrown through the windshield upon impact and is hospitalized in serious condition. The vehicle had not been reported stolen and the man has prior convictions in Nashville for attempted murder and multiple thefts in Davidson and Rutherford counties. My prayers go out to the innocent victim of this senseless act.

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. 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 is involved in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a drunk driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyers at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Roadway Departure Crash Epidemic

The facts of this case are identical to those of dozens of fatal Tennessee automobile accidents that occurred over the past two weeks. A Tennessee driver tooling along a highway and for no apparent reason drives off one side of the road or the other, and overcorrects and leaves the road, hits something that doesn’t move, and if they happen to be not wearing their seatbelt like this particular Bristol driver, they die.

If you care about this trend and want to protect your family and friends take a minute to contact the following people and ask them what they are going to do about the carnage:

If you or a loved one is injured or killed by a Tennessee driver who leaves the road, contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies.

Speeding and No Seat Belts

According to Ohio State Troopers, Tennessee residents Nicholas and Beth Poe weren’t wearing their seatbelts when their Nissan Maxima slammed into a dump truck. Troopers also opined that speed appeared to play a part in the crash. The investigation is continuing and the Troopers preliminary report didn’t give enough information to get a complete picture of what happened, but as an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney, I can tell you without hesitation that the two identified factors of speed and no seatbelts never lead to a happy ending.

Speeding is one of the most prevalent factors contributing to traffic crashes. The economic cost of speeding-related crashes is estimated to be in excess of 40.4 billion dollars per year. In 2007, speeding was a contributing factor in 31 percent of all fatal crashes, and 13,040 lives were lost in speeding-related crashes. The total economic cost of crashes was estimated at $230.6 billion in 2000. Motor-vehicle crashes cost society an estimated $7,300 per second. In 2000, the cost of speeding-related crashes was estimated to be $40.4 billion, $76,865 per minute or $1,281 per second. Speeding reduces a driver’s ability to steer safely around curves or objects in the roadway, extends the distance necessary to stop a vehicle, and increases the distance a vehicle travels while the driver reacts to a dangerous situation.

The use of seat belts are required by Tennessee and Ohio law. Seat belts help prevent injury five different ways, by:

1. Preventing ejection: Ejection greatly increases the chance of death or serious injury.  The chance of being killed in a crash by being ejected from a vehicle is one in eight.  Safety belts virtually eliminate ejection.  The belted driver stays inside the car and is better protected from injury.

2. Shifting crash forces to the strongest parts of the body’s structure.  To get the most benefit from a seat belt, be aware of the following points:

• The lap belt should be worn low over the pelvis with the bottom edge touching the tops of the thighs snugly.

• The shoulder belt should be worn over the shoulder and across the chest, not under the arm and over the abdomen.  Make certain that the shoulder belt is not worn so loosely that it slides off the shoulder.

• Pregnant women should wear the lap belt below the abdomen and the shoulder belt above the belly.

3. Spreading crash forces over a wide area of the body.  Safety belts reduce the possibility of injury from “hostile” surfaces inside the car (steering wheel, dashboard, windshield, controls, etc.).  Even if the belted driver collides with some of these surfaces, it happens with much less force and often results in less serious injury.

4. Keeping the body more closely in the “proper driving posture.” The belt keeps the driver “in the driver’s seat.”  The belted driver is better able to deal with emergencies and often avoids more serious trouble.

5. Protecting the head and spinal cord. The belted driver is less likely to be stunned or made unconscious by the crash and is better able to cope with the situation. Research has found that proper use of lap/shoulder belts reduces the risk of fatal injury to front seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent (for occupants of light trucks, 60 percent and 65 percent respectively)

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee automobile accident caused by a speeding driver contact the experienced Nashville automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates and find out about your rights and remedies at no charge.

Seat belt use is required under Tennessee law. Research published by National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) shows that unbelted victims are at much higher risk for ejection than those with seatbelts. The actual data shows that more than 15,000 lives were saved by the use of seatbelts in 2007 alone. When the driver and passengers in a Tennessee car accident do not use their seatbelts, they are 17.7 times more likely to be ejected during a crash. Only 2% of belted passengers were ejected during a crash.

Unfortunately, in Tennessee, backseat passengers over the age of 18 are not required to wear their seatbelts. Not wearing their seatbelts was a decision a couple of backseat teen passengers made in an accident in East Tennessee in December. They were ejected and their flying bodies slammed against a couple of trees along a ditch, killing them instantly.

If you or anyone you know has been injured or killed in a Nashville or Tennessee car accident, please contact Nashville automobile accident and injury attorney Phillip Miller and the Tennessee personal injury attorneys at Phillip Miller and Associates at (615) 356-2000 or www.seriousinjury.com

Click It Or Ticket

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Fatal Interstate Accident

As an experienced Nashville automobile attorney I read articles about Tennessee automobile crashes looking for certain clues that give a clearer picture of what might have happened. An article yesterday on the website of WGRZ TV in Buffalo New York is just such an article. A 33-year-old woman, Jennifer Grimaldi of Buffalo was a passenger in a Chevy SUV driving on I-24 when the vehicle went out of control and slammed into the retaining wall on both sides of the highway before ejecting Ms. Grimaldi and two other passengers from the SUV and she and a male passenger landed on the parkway below. No word in the article on the condition of the male passenger or the others in the vehicle.

As an experienced Tennessee car crash lawyer some of the things I noticed where that the collision took place at 2:25 AM on a Friday night. The police suspected alcohol was the cause or at least a contributing factor. At least three people were thrown from the vehicle signifying that they were not using their seatbelts, even though seatbelts are required in Tennessee and lastly something, whether speed, distraction, drowsiness or alcohol caused the driver to lose control and crash the vehicle.

Even for an experienced Tennessee automobile accident lawyer this crash would present serious problems in terms of recovering damages because of the myriad factors that might make the victims contributes to the results. It’s a case like this that highlights the need to have an experienced personal injury lawyer on your side. The experienced Nashville automobile accident lawyers at phillip Miller & Associates fit the bill. Contact them and take advantage of a free consultation to learn about you rights and remedies.

Distracted Driver Rollovers

One week ago I blogged about what appeared to me to be an epidemic of automobile accidents in East Tennessee. Apparently, I missed three other fatal Tennessee accidents that occurred during that same time period. I feel compelled to raise the question again, What’s Going on in East Tennessee?

According to an article in the Cookeville Herald-Citizen Irene Malgeri, 84, of Crossville was killed on Tuesday afternoon when she attempted to turn into a church parking lot and did so right into the path of an oncoming tractor-trailer. Ms. Marleri died instantly and the driver of the tractor-trailer, Derrick Ogletree, 28, of Flovilla, Ga., was hospitalized.

Another Crossville citizen, Ronnie J. Stoke, 57, was killed in an accident on Sunday afternoon. According to the article Mr. Stoke was driving on I-40 when he lost control of his pickup truck and left the road, hit a guardrail and rolled, ejecting Mr. Stoke from the vehicle.

The following Friday morning 20-year-old Sarah Delk of Jamestown was killed when she lost control of her vehicle, ran off the road, struck an embankment and overturned. Ms. Delk was ejected from the vehicle.

Studies of real-world single-vehicle crashes show that more than 90% of rollovers occur after a driver runs off of the road. This is not referring to vehicles trying to negotiate difficult trails away from public roads, rather it refers to vehicles rolling over off of the pavement after the driver has lost control of the vehicle. The pavement, a ditch, soft soil, curb or other tripping mechanism usually initiates the rollover accident once the vehicle slides off.

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.

My sympathy and prayers go out to the families of the deceased. The lesson to be learned from these tragic accidents are that seatbelt use can and does prevent traffic fatalities and the driver inattention or distraction, even for a second or two, can have horrible results. The lesson for the political leadership is that to stem this epidemic they must be proactive and start an urgently needed public educational campaign to instruct and remind East Tennessee drivers of these two valuable lessons.

If you or a loved one is injured in a Tennessee automobile accident by a distracted driver contact the experienced Tennessee Automobile accident attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates to find out about your rights and remedies.

The Kingsport Times-News reported that the driver of a Toyota was killed and his passenger was injured following a head-on collision in Kingsport Tennessee on August 18^th. As an experienced Tennessee car accident lawyer I am sure that once you hear the facts that lead up to the collision there will be no doubt as to who is responsible for this tragedy.

The article reports that a Chevrolet Blazer was traveling eastbound along a two-lane highway and was negotiating a right curve. As the driver came around the curve a black Toyota pick-up truck was attempting to pass another vehicle in a no-passing zone striking the Blazer head-on. The driver of the Blazer was wearing his seatbelt and sustained minor injuries. The Toyota driver did not have his seatbelt on and was dead at the scene. Investigators say the man would have survived if he had been wearing his seatbelt.

Well, I hope wherever this guy was going in such a hurry was worth it. There seems to be a certain Darwinian aspect to this incident and I guess all we can do is be thankful that the Toyota driver didn’t kill anyone else

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.