Car Accident

Chicago Pedestrian Killed in Car Accident

February 25, 2009 | By Dave Abels

A pedestrian was hit and killed by a car in Chicago last Saturday while walking across the street near his Chicago home, according to Chicagobreakingnews.com. The victim was Berthel Walters, 69, a South Side resident who lived on the 800 block of East 46th Street.

The accident occurred at approximately 6:30 a.m. when the pedestrian was walking in the area of the 3000 block of South Moe Drive. He was hit by a 2000 Dodge Ram pickup truck. The pedestrian was taken from the scene of the accident to a local Chicago area hospital where he was pronounced dead at approximately 11:00 a.m.

The driver of the pickup truck was also a Chicago resident. As a result of the accident, she was cited for striking a pedestrian in the roadway. Under Illinois law, drivers have a duty to use due care to avoid hitting pedestrians.

Illinois State Trooper Injured In Chicago Traffic-Stop

February 24, 2009 | By Dave Abels

An Illinois State Police Trooper was injured yesterday on the Stevenson Expressway in Chicago, according to chicagobreakingnews.com. The officer’s patrol car was struck during a traffic stop in the southbound lanes of Interstate 55 near Ashland. The car crash involved 3 other vehicles and it blocked all but the left lane of traffic during the morning’s rush.

The officer and one other were taken by ambulance to Rush University Medical Center and Stroger Hospital of Cook County. What caused the accident has not been reported and the injuries are supposed to be none-life-threatening.

This type of accident reminds us that being a police officer can be a very dangerous job for many reasons. Routine traffic stops can become hazardous. It is bad enough that the officer has to worry about the driver he has pulled over, he also has to worry about other negligent drivers on the road.

Valentine’s Day Crash in Bartlett, Illinois — Uninsured DUI Driver Causes 6 Car Accident, Flees The Scene

February 18, 2009 | By Dave Abels

In the Chicago area suburb of Bartlett, Illinois, a DUI driver has caused a six car accident, according to Chicagobreakingnews.com. The accident occurred at the the intersection of Illinois Route 59 and Army Trail Road on Saturday night as the defendant weaved in and out of traffic moving southbound in a 1995 Nissan Maxima.

The at fault driver fled the scene of the accident on foot. However, he was quickly apprehended by Bartlett police not far from the accident. He now faces criminal prosecution for felony aggravated driving under the influence of alcohol, driving with a suspended license, unlawful possession of drug paraphernalia, leaving the scene of a property damage accident, operating an uninsured motor vehicle, and failure to reduce speed to avoid and accident. The defendant was taken into custody and transported to the DuPage County Jail in Wheaton, Illinois.

Often, hit-and-run drivers do not have valid and/or adequate car insurance. If you are the victim of a hit-and-run car accident in Illinois or if you have been hit by a driver who did not have valid automobile insurance, you may still have an opportunity to recover damages caused by the car accident.

Chicago Resident Killed In Car Accident

February 11, 2009 | By Dave Abels

A Chicago resident has been killed in a car crash that occurred at Racine and Garfield Blvd. on the South Side, according to the Chicago Tribune. The collision occurred on February 8, 2009 at around 9:30 am.

The victim, age 65, was driving southbound on Racine when his car was struck by a driver that was westbound on Garfield who allegedly ran a red light. The impact caused the victim’s vehicle to hit a pole.

The at fault driver, a Hoffman Estates resident, was ticketed with running the light and failure to yield. The accident was investigated by the Chicago Police Department.

Chicago, Illinois Car Accident — Hit-and-Run Driver Cited in Fatal Crash

February 5, 2009 | By Dave Abels

A woman who hit a Chicago pedestrian and fled the scene has been located and cited by police. According to CBS 2, the driver was driving through the South Side at around 2 a.m. on Nov. 30 when a 71-year-old man emerged from between two parked cars. She hit him and fled the scene, but was found just an hour and a half later by police. The man died about a half hour later at the hospital. She was cited for multiple traffic violations, including failure to reduce speed, disregarding a traffic signal, driving without insurance and reckless driving, as well as failure to report an accident.

This accident is a good example of why it never, ever pays to hit and run. As you can see from the article, it took the police very little time to locate this woman, which suggests that there may have been a witness or a camera nearby.

Hitting and running can also make things much worse for drivers who are hit with a Chicago auto accident lawsuit. Leaving the scene of an accident doesn’t necessarily mean that a driver is responsible for the crash, but it looks bad in court. Juries are not sympathetic to defendants who seem to refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. If they are caught, hit-and-run drivers who have caused serious injuries are likely to be cited or criminally charged, which is also considered damaging in any related lawsuit. I can see how a person might panic in the heat of the moment and flee, but leaving the scene almost always makes things worse in the long run.

Chicago Victim Of Hit-And-Run Accident In Hospital

January 23, 2009 | By Dave Abels

A Chicago resident that was hit by a vehicle on Monday evening remains in a hospital, according to the Chicago Tribune. The accident happened in the area of Harlem Avenue and Lake Street in River Forest, Illinois.

After the accident, the driver fled the scene. The car was later stopped in Oak Park and the driver, a Chicago resident, was taken into custody.

The severity of the pedestrian’s injuries have not been reported, but the fact that she is still hospitalized is not a good sign. Statistically, pedestrians involved in accidents are seriously injured. Click here to read a recent article we posted on pedestrian injuries.

Family of Chicago DUI Victim Asks for Felony Charges

January 11, 2009 | By Dave Abels

The family of a woman killed in a 2007 drunk-driving accident is pushing for felony DUI charges against the two motorists involved in the accident. According to CBS 7 Chicago, the woman was a passenger on a motorcycle operated by Eugene Bikulcius when a car driven by Carol Miller made an illegal left turn into their path. The two on the motorcycle were coming from a bar, and the pattern of the accident suggested that they were traveling at a high speed. Miller was arrested the night of the accident for misdemeanor DUI, but Bikulcius was not.

The victim’s family suggests that Bikulcius wasn’t charged because he was an off-duty Chicago police officer. In fact, according to the report, Bikulcius wasn’t charged with any crime or breath-tested the night of the accident. It was only after several months of intervention by the victim’s family that the state’s attorney in the case found a hospital blood test showing a blood-alcohol concentration of three times the legal limit, and charged him with misdemeanor DUI. The family believes a felony DUI charge would be more appropriate, since felony charges are usually filed in a DUI case involving a death. But the state’s attorney told the station that an inadequate investigation left them without the evidence they needed for the more serious charge.

Regardless of whether this officer — who is now on paid leave and relieved of duty — is truly the beneficiary of police interference, drinking and driving is always a bad idea. As a Chicago car accident lawyer, I am generally sympathetic to motorcyclists in this type of accident. A car turning left in front of a motorcycle is one of the most common car-motorcycle crash patterns, and it’s often caused by the driver’s failure to look carefully for traffic. However, a BAC reading of 0.24 (three times the 0.08 limit in Illinois) makes a DUI charge appropriate in this case.

Chicago Man Sentenced to Eight Years in Prison for Fatal Hit-and-Run

January 1, 2009 | By Dave Abels

A man who hit a college student with his car and kept on going was sentenced to eight years in prison on Dec. 3, according to CBS2 Chicago. The defendant pleaded guilty to aggravated DUI in the March incident. The victim and a friend had just stopped two men from attacking a woman outside the bar. When they were approached by the men’s friends, the victim and his friend moved toward their car to escape. But before the pedestrian finished crossing the street, the driver ran a stop sign and hit him. The motorist later crashed into a utility pole and abandoned the car. He later told police that he’d had five drinks and smoked marijuana before heading home.

In this case, the driver was charged criminally for the DUI and its results. But when criminal charges aren’t filed, or when they’re not enough, victims may also choose to file a Chicago car accident lawsuit. A lawsuit over a wrongful death — any death caused by someone else’s careless or illegal actions — is always a sensitive matter, because no lawsuit can bring back a lost loved one. But a legal claim can help victims deal with the practical effects of a death that came too soon, including medical and funeral bills, loss of an income and other financial costs caused by the death. It can also help compensate victims for their intangible but very real emotional losses.

And perhaps most importantly, it can hold wrongdoers responsible for their actions in cases where charges aren’t filed, or where they just don’t seem like enough. If you have lost someone to drunk driving accident or another fatal crash caused by someone else’s carelessness, you have the right to pursue a Chicago auto accident lawsuit. Contact us at Abels & Annes today for a free consultation on your case.

Two Illinois Drivers Charged in Separate Edens Expressway Accidents

December 27, 2008 | By Dave Abels

Two different drivers were charged in two different accidents taking place in the same part of the Edens Expressway early on Thanksgiving. According to the Chicago Sun-Times, an Evanston man was arrested and charged with driving under the influence after he swerved into oncoming traffic at around 3:30 a.m., forcing another driver to swerve into a ditch. Both were hospitalized and not believed to be seriously injured.

Just an hour and a half later, a Chicago man fell asleep at the wheel and hit a parked vehicle belonging to an Illinois State Police trooper. Fortunately, nobody was killed, but the driver was cited for failure to yield and improper lane usage, as well as failure to drive cautiously around an emergency vehicle. The last citation stems from Scott’s Law, also known as the “move over law,” which requires drivers to slow down, change lanes if possible and drive with caution when approaching a stopped emergency vehicle with its lights on. The maximum penalty for breaking this law is a $10,000 fine and loss of a driver’s license for up to two years.

These drivers may not feel lucky, but considering what could have happened in both cases, I think they’re lucky. A DUI constitutes major legal trouble, but if this driver had killed someone, he would have had to live the rest of his life with that fact. And even if authorities chose not to charge him with vehicular homicide, the driver would still be liable in an Illinois drunk driving lawsuit brought by the victim’s family.

Weather Blamed for Chicago Women’s Accident with Semi Truck

December 21, 2008 | By Dave Abels

Two older women from Chicago were killed and two others injured in an accident that authorities attribute to snowy conditions on the road. According to the Elgin Courier-News, the women were driving south when their car slid on the pavement and landed in the path of northbound traffic, where it was hit by a semi truck. The truck driver was not injured, but two of the women in the car, both 70, were killed. Two others were hospitalized in critical or serious condition in Rockford.

Unfortunately, this sort of tragedy is a common outcome of an accident between an ordinary passenger car and a large truck (a semi, tractor-trailer or 18-wheeler). Trucks are many times the size and weight of a passenger vehicle. In an accident, simple physics means their greater weight brings greater force to the collision. Their bumpers also tend to be so much higher that cars’ bumpers can’t do their job — absorbing some of the shock of the impact. Rather, trucks’ bumpers are very frequently at the same level as the torsos, necks or heads of the people in the cars.

This can be disastrous for the occupants of the smaller vehicle, who are frequently killed or very seriously injured in accidents with trucks. According to the federal Department of Transportation, only 6% of fatalities in multi-vehicle trucking accidents in 2007 were the deaths of people inside the trucks. That’s true regardless of who was at fault for the accident. Statistically, truck drivers are much safer drivers than average, but when they do make mistakes, the consequences for the victims are very serious.