Articles Posted in Car Accident

Chicago auto accident lawyers are set to represent a Wisconsin resident that was injured in an Illinois car crash. The accident took place back in July of this year.

The plaintiff was driving her 1999 Honda Accord eastbound on Montrose Avenue. In the 4900 block of Montrose she put her turn signal on and slowed to make a left turn. At that time a woman driving a 1994 Pontiac Grand Prix rear-ended her.

Over the next several days the plaintiff developed neck pain and headaches due to the accident. She then sought treatment with a medical doctor in the north suburbs of Chicago. The physician also referred her for a course of physical therapy.

Our Chicago car accident lawyers urge parents to speak to their teens about the dangers of distracted driving during National Teen Driver Safety Week this week, Oct. 17 to 24.

As we reported recently on our Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Blog, parents can have a dramatic impact on a teenager’s safety behind the wheel. Car accidents are the leading cause of death among teenagers ages 15 to 20, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Teenagers are at high risk of virtually every poor driving decision imaginable, including drunk driving, speeding, not wearing seat belts, distracted driving, poor night driving and riding with too many young passengers in the car.The Chicago Breaking News Center reports that AAA and the Illinois Department of Transportation is launching a new website aimed at teenage drivers, www.illinoisteendriving.com/

The Chicago Tribune reports that Allstate Insurance, Verizon Wireless, BMW and Liberty Mutual Insurance are among the organizations designing and implementing safety programs aimed at teaching teenagers about the dangers of distracted driving.

Authorities cite tougher laws and better driver training for a 50 percent reduction in teen driving fatalities, form 146 in 2007 to 71 last year. But there is still much work to be done. A separate study we reported on recently found that teens largely understand the risks of distracted driving, they just ignore them. As a parent, we urge you to speak to your teen driver early and often about the need to stay safe behind the wheel.

The dangers are real; the statistics don’t lie:

-In 2008, about 20 percent of all crashes involved some form of driver distraction.

-More than 5,000 people a year are killed in distracted driving car accidents; about 450,000 are injured.

-Drivers under the age of 20 are most at-risk for being involved in a serious or fatal accident caused by distracted driving. Drivers ages 20 to 29 are the group with the next-highest risk.

-Those using hand-held devices while driving are four times more likely to get into a serious accident.

-Drivers using a cell phone — whether hand-held or hands-free — impair their reactions as much as someone driving with a blood-alcohol level of .08, the legal limit for drunk driving in the United States.

A report by Allstate Insurance found that texting is a teen’s greatest distraction behind the wheel. More than 4 in 5 teens admitted to using a cell phone while driving — fewer than 1 in 4 admitted to drinking and driving.
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Daniel Green, a 36-year-old emergency crew dispatcher for the Department of Water Management became a hero on Sunday night after rescuing someone from a burning car after witnessing a single vehicle Chicago car accident, according to WGN news. Just before 11 PM Green was stopped at a red light at the intersection of Pershing Road and Western Avenue when a northbound pickup truck crashed into a support beam for railroad tracks overhead. After impact, the truck became engulfed in flames.

The City of Chicago worker and another bystander immediately rushed to rescue the driver of the pickup truck . They had to force the driver side door open and carry the unconscious driver away from the vehicle and wait for paramedics to arrive. by the time the car door was opened, several other good Samaritans arrived to help.

Green thought the driver would have died if they didn’t get them out of the vehicle. Police officers that responded to the accident stated the driver was semi conscious when he was taken away by ambulance to Mount Sinai Hospital. He is reportedly in stable condition.

State Farm has released new information that shows October is still a very dangerous month for teens being involved in Illinois car crashes, and accidents nationwide. They made this determination by looking at data collected over the past seven years, and the greatest amount of claims filed by 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds occurs in October. Claims go up around 15% compared to other months.

Approximately one out of four states have October as the most dangerous months for teen crashes, and about 70% of all states show October as being in its top three months. A State Farm spokesperson says that auto accidents are the number one killer of teens.

Research from State Farm shows that while 70% of teenage drivers say they are nervous about being involved in an auto accident or injuring someone, 57% of those teen drivers admit to texting or reading while at the wheel.

The USA Today is the latest to report on the growing chorus of voices that contend the emphasis on text messaging and cell phone use while driving is coming at the expense of focusing on the many other forms of distracted driving.

Our Chicago personal injury attorneys have reported extensively on the cell phone and text messaging debate — Illinois became one of 30 states to forbid drivers from text messaging when its law took effect on Jan. 1.The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety recently released a study that found text messaging bans were actually increasing the number of distracted driving accidents in states where they are in place — perhaps because motorists were attempting to hide their phones in their laps, thereby taking their eyes off the road for an even longer period of time and exacerbating the problem.

The group has become increasingly critical of the government’s focus on text messaging and the use of hand-held devices by drivers.

“They’re focusing on a single manifestation of distracted driving and banning it,” IIHS President Adrian Lund said. “This ignores the endless sources of distraction and relies on banning one source or another to solve the whole problem.”

We have reported on the many other forms of distracted driving, both here and on our sister site, Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer Blog, including the risk of distracted driving accidents while driving with your dog or pet in your vehicle.

Other forms of distracted driving include eating, drinking, smoking, grooming, applying makeup, reading, adjusting the radio or using GPS or other in-car electronics, and talking to passengers.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration blames nearly 5,500 deaths and 450,000 injuries a year on accidents caused by distracted driving. Only speeding and drunk driving are blamed for more traffic fatalities.
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An Illinois auto accident lawyer at Abels & Annes has signed on to represent a local resident that was injured in a collision on the West Side of Chicago. The crash occurred in early September, 2010 at the intersection of Washington & Lamon.

Our client was stopped in traffic moving westbound on Washington Street when she was caught in the middle of a four vehicle chain reaction rear-end accident. Another vehicle that was headed westbound struck a second vehicle that was behind our client, and that second vehicle smashed into the her car. The force of the impact then knocked the plaintiff’s automobile into a vehicle in front of her.

At the scene of the accident she started experiencing severe low back pain. She was seen right after the accident at the Oak Park Hospital emergency room. At the ER, she was examined by nurses and physicians, and x-rays were taken.

Si mira para evitar un accidente de tráfico en Chicago, estese fuera de la carretera o sea muy cauteloso los viernes entre 4 y 8 pm. Eso es estadísticamente el tiempo más probable para un accidente según 2009 datos de choque recientemente publicado por el Departamento de Transporte de Illinois.

Un total de 41,348 accidentes urbanos ocurrieron los viernes el año pasado; el día siguiente más alto fue el jueves, cuando 37,300 accidentes ocurrieron en áreas urbanas. Y seis veces más accidentes ocurrieron en ciudades grandes, principalmente en Chicago, que tuvo lugar en áreas más rurales de Illinois.

Sus oportunidades de un accidente aumentan diariamente entre el domingo y el viernes.