Traffic Safety

Baltimore Traffic Injury Update: Car-Truck Crashes Can Be Traumatic, Not to Mention Life-Threatening

December 18, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Anyone who has been involved in any kind of serious traffic accident knows how dangerous a car or trucking-related collision can be. As Maryland injury specialists, I and my colleagues are all too aware of the bodily injuries that can result from a collision between a passenger vehicle and a commercial delivery truck or semi tractor-trailer. (We won’t even talk about the fatal consequences that face individuals who become involved in a motorcycle-related roadway accident that entails a collision between a large commercial motor vehicle and a much smaller motorcycle, scooter or bicycle.)

Being automobile accident lawyers, we have seen the aftermath of many a traffic accident, here in the Baltimore area as well as other parts of Maryland and the District of Columbia. There are few roadway wrecks that can truly match the deadly and frightening effects of an 18-wheeler striking a smaller family sedan, sport utility vehicle or minivan. Unfortunately, in this day and age, trucking-related traffic accidents are an unavoidable part of modern life in large metropolitan areas.

Sharing the roadway with box trucks, construction vehicles, city buses and big rigs is just par for the course for many Maryland drivers. Despite the dangers — and remembering that every year, thousands of innocent victims are killed or injured in commercial vehicle accidents — drivers and passengers must go about their lives in the hope that nothing bad will transpire while they are on the road.

Baltimore Auto Accident News: Could Future Autonomous Vehicles Eliminate Traffic Wrecks on Maryland Roadways?

November 29, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

With tens of thousands of innocent victims being sent to emergency rooms all over the U.S. every year as a result of untold numbers of car, truck and motorcycle accidents, it’s reasonable to ask why so many people are being hurt, maimed and killed more than one hundred years after the invention of the automobile. As Maryland personal injury lawyers, my firm is dedicated to helping those who been involved in a car crash or who experienced the loss of a loved one killed in a senseless traffic collision. But why do these incidents continue to happen?

While we can go on and on about how society should have moved on from the carnage of the 20th Century, at least in terms of roadway accidents and the related bodily injuries and wrongful deaths that occur on a daily basis throughout our country, we likely must resign ourselves to the fact that human nature is still a factor in many auto wrecks, commercial trucking crashes, pedestrian accidents and bicycle collisions. As long as human beings are behind the wheel of motor vehicles, there will always be mistakes and errors in judgment, all of which add up to people being hurt and killed in traffic accidents.

Yet, with nearly 90-percent of all automobile and trucking-related collisions on our public roads being preventable, at least according to safety experts, one would hope that there might be a way to reduce those senseless crashes and the injuries they cause. If we could drastically cut the number of closed-head injuries, broken and fractured bones, damage to internal organs and irreversible spinal cord damage, life for tens and hundreds of thousands of injured individuals and those soon-to-be injured could be vastly improved.

Personal Injury News: Could Maryland Motorists be Some of the Worst Drivers in the Country?

November 28, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Here in the Baltimore area one has many opportunities to observe, or sometimes be involved in a variety of accidents that cause some kind of personal injury. The trick, it would seem, is to not be in the wrong place at the wrong time. As Maryland auto and trucking accident attorneys, my firm is experienced helping those people who have become victims of someone else’s negligent or thoughtless actions.

When it comes to roadway collisions, it could be said that Maryland drivers are right up there in terms of being involved in mild to severe car-, trucking- and motorcycle-related wrecks on a fairly regular basis. Of course, nobody asks to be involved in any kind of traffic-related accident situation. And on a similar note, no one would ever want to be sent to the hospital with life-threatening injuries as a result. Regardless, every month dozens of innocent men, women and children are hurt or killed as a result of a bad car, SUV or minivan crash.

As the people at the Allstate insurance company have illustrated with their annual report of cities with the worst drivers, many Marylanders live and work in the epicenter of national car accidents. In a way, Washington, D.C., is the capital of more than just our nation; the District is also number one, according to Allstate, in traffic wrecks. Anyone who might be thinking that only D.C. residents have to worry about increased rates of car accidents just has to look at the number two position: Baltimore City.

Danger is Everywhere, But When a Roadside Car Accident is Evident, Extra Caution is Advised

November 21, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

We have spoken of distractions on many occasions and we’d like to reiterate the potential for severe bodily injury when the warning signs just outside a driver’s windshield are not heeded because one is too fixated on reading or sending a text message or doing some other highly distracting activity. Automobile and commercial trucking wrecks occur daily, both on our highways and along city streets. There are few men or women out there who can multi-task on a superhuman basis to the point that driver distraction is not a deadly threat to both driver and passengers.

Being personal injury attorneys here in Baltimore and serving greater Maryland and the District of Columbia, we understand how easy it is to become sidetracked by a phone call or enticing email from a friend or relative. But when these interruptions happen from the driver’s seat of a passenger car, or worse, a commercial delivery vehicle or semi tractor-trailer, the ingredients for a potentially deadly traffic collision are all there.

We’ve already seen what a possibly distracted teen driver wrought out in Worcester County a while back. But it is incumbent on every driver to maintain 100 percent of his or her attention to the job at hand: operating a two-ton motor vehicle on public roads while maintaining to the best of their ability the safety of their car, themselves and the innocent people all around them. To paraphrase a now well-known saw, “It takes a village to maintain a peaceful roadway.” And while that may seem a little silly, the fact is a highway or crowded city street is a kind of rolling village, and we are all, for a time, responsible for the harmony or chaos at any one moment.

Are Maryland’s Older Drivers Safe On the Road, Or Is Stricter Licensing Needed for Seniors?

November 12, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

While it may seem discriminatory to suggest that some older motorists could constitute a danger to the driving public based solely on their age, the question is one that many traffic safety experts grapple with on a regular basis. The problem is that the older we get there is opportunity for reductions in physical strength, mental ability and reaction time, all of which can conspire to increase the chances of a traffic accident for senior citizens of advanced age. When it comes to cutting the frequency of injuries caused by auto, truck and motorcycle accidents, shouldn’t every avenue be explored?

As Maryland personal injury attorneys, I and my team of legal professionals are dedicated to assisting victims of traffic accidents in the Baltimore area, Rockville, Annapolis and even the District of Columbia. What is common for this state, as well as our nation’s capital and the balance of the U.S. is that tens of thousands of people are killed, maimed and injured in roadway collisions, many of which could be avoided or lessened in severity through improved traffic safety efforts, driver training, or vehicle maintenance.

Since injuries to victims of car and trucking-related crashes include some extremely debilitating conditions caused by closed-head trauma, neck and back injury, trauma to internal organs and other critical medical complications, efforts to reduce or eliminate the incidence of car and truck collisions should continue to be a priority.

Baltimore Traffic Safety Update: Nationwide More Than 1,000 People Injured Daily by Distracted Driving

October 31, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

It is probably a kind of self-preservation that people go about their lives thinking that bad things — such as car accidents, household injuries, heart attacks, even dog bites — will not happen to them. Which might be a good thing considering if any one of us worried constantly about the possibility of injury or death, we probably would not get much done, much less get out of bed in the morning. Having health, car and life insurance helps people to at least protect themselves and their families from serious accidents that can have a life-changing effect on an individual and his or her loved ones.

On the flipside, not worrying or thinking about something doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Take automobile and commercial truck collisions; these events take place every day here in Maryland. Whether one lives or works in Rockville, Bowie, Columbia or even the District, odds are you or someone you know has been in a traffic-related accident sometime in the past. The same goes for pedestrian accidents and bicycling mishaps; of course, they happen every day, just not to us… right up to the point when they do happen to us.

As Maryland personal injury attorneys, we know that the actuarial tables paint a statistical picture of who might be involved in a life-altering event today, tomorrow, next week or next year. One of the constant contributors to accidents on the road over the years has been driver distraction. Decades ago, this probably meant spending too much time trying to “dial in” a radio station on an analog receiver, or having a heated discussion with one’s relatives while in dense traffic.

Maryland Personal Injury News: Late Night Car Accidents with Wildlife Can Be Serious

October 8, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

As Maryland auto and trucking accident attorneys, we can appreciate the implications of striking another vehicle or stationary object at any speed. While automobile safety technologies have made remarkable advances over the past several decades, there is only so much one can do to design a conventional passenger car to be safe and still be useful and attractive to buyers. Although fashion should never trump safety, in a free market this is still a consideration for manufacturers of cars and light trucks.

Drivers and passengers surely benefitted during those early years following the beginning of an industry-wide effort to include basic seatbelts in most motor vehicles, starting in the late ‘50s. With the advent of airbags in the 1980s, occupants involved in traffic collisions had additional protection on their side, though some people incorrectly took that opportunity to forego seatbelt use altogether, assuming that the airbags in their automobile were the only protection they needed. Nevertheless, with additional education on the concerted use of safety belts AND airbags, most people car fairly well protected from most mid- to low-speed roadway accidents.

That said, as speeds increase, such as when driving on the expressway, there are still no guarantees. Especially at speeds approaching 70mph or more, expecting to walk away from any serious high-speed collision with another car or a commercial truck is more of a wish than a certainty. Since the dawn of the automobile, the physics of car accidents has always been a great equalizer between those who respect and follow traffic laws and those who flout them. Push the limits of reasonable driving and one could end up in the hospital, or worse.

Maryland Auto Accident News: Could Distracted Driving Due to Loose Dogs, Cats Become Chargeable Offense?

September 30, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

While it’s not hard to think of all the potential distractions facing drivers these days, one area that probably slips under the radar — as far as the legal system goes — is the commotion caused in a passenger car, not by children or other noisy human passenger, but by pets. Now it goes without saying that dogs and cats are as often occupants of vehicles as one’s relatives, so the opportunity for relatively frequent disruptions inside a car, SUV or minivan is probably quite high. Still, it is interesting that among the myriad of legislative efforts to curb distracted driving, we haven’t seen much about cat and dog distractions… until now, at least.

With cellphone and smartphones, talking and texting while driving have become rather specific problems affecting traffic safety here in Maryland and across the United States. In fact, the threat of distracted driving has become such an serious issue that officials at the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Washington, D.C., issued a recommendation late last year to ban personal electronic devices in motor vehicles nationwide. With upward of 3,000 people a year killed as a result of these types of distractions, it’s not surprising that many safety experts have weighed in on the topic.

Being Baltimore personal injury attorneys at law, my colleagues and I have years of experience in helping victims of car, truck and motorcycle accidents recover costs and other monetary loses associated with traffic accidents that may have left them or a loved one seriously. Closed head injuries, trauma to the back, neck and spinal cord, internal injuries, broken bones and compound fractures are all results of bad roadway collisions between passenger cars and commercial trucks. Any opportunity to reduce the relative carnage on our highways and surface streets would to be a net gain for potential auto accident victims.

For Maryland Drivers Who Think that Traffic Accidents Are Not a Threat, Check the Stats

September 29, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

Every year, here in Baltimore, over in Washington, D.C., and almost anywhere across this vast nation of ours, drivers and other occupants of cars and trucks, pedestrians, cyclists and riders of motorcycles are hurt or killed in traffic accidents every hour of every day for all twelve months of the year. As automobile and truck accident lawyers, I and my colleagues have met people who have received debilitating injuries thanks to a negligent drivers.

And the injuries are not reserved for just the driving public; many, and we mean, MANY commercial truck drivers are hurt on the job as a result of someone else’s negligence, mistakes made by third parties, and even through their own carelessness or recklessness. But the statement is often made, especially by those who have never been involved in a car or trucking-related accident that roadway collisions only happen to amateurs and poorly trained drivers. Frankly, this is not quite correct.

As Maryland personal injury attorneys, we understand the ways in which an individual can be injured in even the most innocuous of fender-benders, not to mention a full-blown, head-on collision with another motor vehicle. These types of traffic wrecks can be quite unpredictable and tragically random, especially for those who are killed by a negligent driver or through the careless actions of another individual.

Maryland Police Take Measured Approach to Aggressive Drivers; “Take 30” Created to Reduce Car Accidents

August 10, 2012 | Lebowitz & Mzhen

We’ve seen it for years, the effects of aggressive driving and the toll it can take on victims involved in altercations on the highways and surface streets. The sad fact is, aggressive driving is probably one of the more “preventable” causes of traffic wrecks here in Maryland. As Baltimore personal injury attorneys, we believe that innocent victims of negligent acts, such as road rage, deserve they day in court, if only to recover the costs of medical and financial loss due to another driver’s actions.

More than one person has been put in the hospital with a serious or life-threatening medical condition due at least in part to an incident of aggressive driving that escalated into a fit of road rage. With the number of people on Maryland’s public roadways, it is no surprise that every year dozens upon dozens of people are killed or maimed in car, truck and motorcycle crashes. This number could likely be reduced by quelling the epidemic of road rage, or driving while angry.

As injury lawyers representing those hurt in car and commercial trucking collisions, both here in Maryland as well as over in the District, we understand the ease with which a driver and his or her passengers can become embroiled in someone else’s “bad day.” This is really nothing new. Since the early days of the automobile, there surely were instances of one driver becoming annoyed with another motorist. Honking horns, cutting another car off, or intentionally trying to inconvenience another person in retribution of some assumed slight; these are all versions of what people refer to as road rage.