Articles Posted in Car Accident

Lake County Police are aggressively enforcing laws requiring motorists to move over and slow down for emergency vehicles, according to the Daily Herald

It is a good reminder for all motorists to move over and slow down when approaching emergency vehicles and to yield to emergency vehicles running with lights and sirens.

The Chicago car accident lawyers at Abels & Annes also remind motorists to pay special attention to the vehicles around you in such situations. Driving defensively is the best offense to avoiding an accident that seriously injures you or someone else.

With hand-held cell-phone use by drivers banned in Chicago since 2005 and a law awaiting the signature of Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, our area is among the nation’s leaders in combating distracted drivers, according to a New York Times article that examines the difficulty states are having in passing such legislation.

The Chicago car accident lawyers at Abels & Annes continue to monitor the impact of cell-phone use and distracted driving on Chicago car accidents and personal injury and wrongful death cases.

This year, state legislators introduced about 170 bills to address distracted driving, but passed fewer than 10.

Chicago passed a ban on hand-held cell phones in 2005 and currently issues about 700 tickets a month. The cost of the fine increase from $75 to $100 earlier this year.

And last month we blogged about two laws awaiting the governor’s signature that will make it illegal to read, compose or send electronic messages while driving or to use a cell phone while driving in a school or construction zone.

“With the increased use of technological devices, distracted driving has become a serious problem in our state and in the nation,” said Secretary of State Jesse White, who pushed for the restrictions. “No driver has any business text messaging while they are driving.”

Studies show drivers continue to identify cell-phone use as a serious problem behind the wheel — just not with them.

A survey of 1,506 people last year by Nationwide Mutual Insurance found, 81 percent of cellphone owners acknowledged that they talk on phones while driving. Yet 98 percent considered themselves safe drivers even though nearly half claimed they had been hit or nearly hit by a driver talking on a phone.

“When we ask people to identify the most dangerous distraction on the highway today, about half – correctly – identify cellphones,” said Bill Windsor, associate vice president for safety at Nationwide. “But they think others are dangerous, not themselves.”

A 2003 Harvard study estimated that cellphone distractions caused 2,600 traffic deaths every year, and 330,000 accidents that result in moderate or severe injuries. Yet the use of cell phones has skyrocketed since then and the advent of text messaging is even more dangerous behind the wheel. From 1995 to 2008, the number of wireless subscribers in the United States increased eightfold, to 270 million, and minutes talked rose 58-fold, according to The Times article.

Five states and the District of Columbia require drivers who talk on cellphones to use hands-free devices. A number of cities, like Chicago, have done the same. However, research shows that using headsets can be as dangerous as holding a phone because the conversation distracts drivers from focusing on the road, according to The Times.

Fourteen states have passed measures to ban texting while driving.

While almost all of us are guilty of driving and talking on the phone, the dangers are very real and Chicago personal injury and wrongful death lawyers continue to see cases where serious and fatal accidents were caused by distracted drivers talking on the phone.
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In Chicago, Illinois 6 teens and an infant were hurt in a car accident on the Dan Ryan Expressway this past Friday night, according to the Chicago Sun-Times. It was a single vehicle car crash that took place in the northbound lanes at 87th Street just after 9 pm. Three people were ejected during the auto accident, according to the Illinois State Police.

The Chicago Fire Department transported 3 of the injured to the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital in critical condition, one critical to Stroger Hospital, one person with serious injuries to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and 2 people with serious injuries to Little Company of Mary Hospital. All of the significant injuries were to teens and the infant was not badly hurt.

The Illinois State Police are investigating the crash. The cause of the single car accident has not yet been reported.

Lifting the national 55 mph speed limit ban a decade ago has cost an additional 12,500 lives, according to an article the Chicago Sun-Times.

The Chicago car accident lawyers at Abels & Annes examined the dangers of speeding last month as part of its Summer Safe Driving Series.

Fatality rates for speeders are undisputed and increase exponentially with speed. That means an accident is not twice as likely to be fatal at 50 mph than at 25 mph — federal research shows it is 15 times more likely to be fatal.

The new study from University of Illinois at Chicago School of Health analyzed speed-related traffic fatalities and injuries between 1995 and 2005, the 10-year period after the repeal of the National Maximum Speed Law.

The change in law allowed states to post their own limits on interstate roads.

Automobile deaths related to the increase, which numbered 12,500 over the decade, would shrink significantly with lower speed limits, according to the research.

The study, which was published in U.S. News & World Report, also attributed 36,582 injuries in fatal crashes to higher speed limits implemented during the 1995-2005 study period.

“Our study clearly shows that policy can directly result in more deaths as well as reducing deaths on our country’s roads,” said lead researcher Lee S. Friedman of the division of environmental and occupational health sciences in the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois, Chicago.”I’m not saying that speed will cause a crash. But when you’re in a crash, speed will definitely increase your risk of being injured and increase your risk of severity of injury, as well as your risk of dying.”

Researchers found a 3.2 percent increase in deaths because of higher speed limits on all types of roads in the United States. The largest increase — 9.1 percent — was on rural interstates, followed by urban interstates at 4 percent.

“These roads were the main focus of raised speed limits,” they noted.

Some states had imposed a 65 mph limit. Others went to 70, and still others, 75. The solution, said Friedman, is to bring back the 55 mph speed limit.

“Reduced speed limits would save lives,” Friedman said. “They would also reduce gas consumption, cut emissions of air pollutants, save valuable years of productivity and reduce the societal cost of motor vehicle crashes.”

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