Just the other day I wrote about the dangerous job our emergency responders have and the many hazardous obstacles they face hauling accident victims. I just read a news report about a potentially deadly, but thank god no one died, car/ambulance accident in Walker County, Georgia just South of Chattanooga.

Investigators report that an ambulance was transporting a woman on a non-emergency call when the driver fell asleep, crossed the center line and rammed head-on into a car coming in the other direction. A witness said that the ambulance drove over the center line for over a mile before slamming into the car. The driver has been charged with reckless driving.

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.

Sleepiness and driving is a dangerous combination. Most people are aware of the dangers of drinking and driving but don’t realize that drowsy driving can be just as fatal. Like alcohol, sleepiness slows reaction time, decreases awareness, impairs judgment and increases your risk of crashing.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee motor vehicle collision with a vehicle driven by a government employee the law is very tricky for the person who suffers damages and seeks compensation. For this very reason you need an experienced Tennessee automobile accident attorney to handle your case. Contact the experienced automobile accident attorneys at Phillip Miller & Associates

Ambulance Driver Fell Asleep

and let them handle your case.

Report Dangerous Commercial Drivers

Thousands of drivers every year are injured and killed because of commercial truck accidents. One of the main causes of these accidents is driver fatigue. Commercial trucking is a vital component to our economy and every year it seems to this experienced Nashville tractor-trailer lawyer that this commercial pressure causes more and more commercial drivers to violate the law by driving longer and further to make an extra buck.

Driver fatigue and lack of sleep are at the root of many truck accidents. Driver’s with many companies are paid by the mile driven and are therefore encouraged to try to cheat the system to make more money. This cheating the system results in thousands of serious injuries and deaths nationwide.

One of the best ways to protect your self from these roadway giants is to always remain alert when you are near a tractor-trailer on the highway. Give them plenty of space and remember that they have limited maneuverability and stopping ability as compared to a car. If you see a commercial truck that is slowing down and speeding up, swerving across the centerline, speeding or driving in a dangerous fashion report it to the local police. In Tennessee you can call *847 for the Highway Patrol or 911 for the police or sheriffs department. Make the call and you might very well save a life down the line.

If you or a loved one is injured or killed in a Tennessee car/tractor-trailer accident time is of the essence. Contact an experienced Tennessee truck accident lawyer like those you will find at Phillip Miller & Associate and take advantage of a free consultation.

Alcohol & Medical Conditions

As an experienced Nashville automobile accident attorney it’s essential that I keep up with all sorts of information relating to medical conditions that can lead to automobile accidents. On December 9, 2009, I wrote about elderly drivers and how medications may have a negative effect on their ability to maintain control of their motor vehicle. A recent article From The Sleep Foundation reports on a study about how people who suffer from sleep apnea may be in danger when they drive.

Drinking and driving is always dangerous. Add a life-threatening sleep disorder and you have a recipe for disaster. According to a study in the Annals of Internal Medicine, patients with obstructive sleep apnea are more vulnerable than healthy people to the effects of alcohol while driving. The study, conducted by researchers at the Adelaide Institute for Sleep Health in Australia, followed 38 untreated patients with sleep apnea and 20 control participants. Without getting into the particulars the study found that patients with sleep apnea experienced a 40 percent increase in steering deviation compared with the control group. Patients with sleep apnea also crashed more frequently than control participants after normal sleep and even more after restricted sleep or alcohol consumption compared with the control group. If left untreated, symptoms of sleep apnea can include disturbed sleep and excessive sleepiness during the day.

If you suffer from sleep apnea or have the symptoms, disturbed sleep and sleepiness during the day you ought to check with your doctor. If diagnosed you should be very careful about drinking any alcohol when you are going to operate a motor vehicle.

Situations like this make clear the importance of having a skilled Nashville automobile accident lawyer on your team. If you or a loved one is injured in a Nashville car crash involving a drunk or impaired driver contact the attorney’s at Phillip Miller & Associates and take advantage of a free cpnsultation to learn about your rights and remedies

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.