Toyota Crisis Just One Example of Why Indiana Needs Trial Lawyers
In all the attention that the Toyota acceleration crisis has received, one fact has become clear – the role of trial lawyers in protecting consumers when companies fail to respond to safety concerns, and federal agencies entrusted with protecting the consumer, dither in their duty to keep defective products off the market.
In Toyota’s case, reports of unintended acceleration in its vehicles began surfacing as far back as 2002, when the company first introduced its bestselling electronic throttle control systems. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration however, failed to find the issue serious enough to warrant a recall. It took the deaths of four people in a San Diego accident involving a Lexus for the NHTSA and Toyota to admit that there was a problem.
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Patients still struggle to determine a hospital’s safety based on its infection rates. However, things are slowly changing for the better. More and more hospitals are beginning to report their infection rates. Approximately, 1,500 hospitals report infection data to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, these reports are strictly confidential. The Agency of Health Care Research and Quality also collects data from hospitals in 42 states, but these hospitals are not named. 
Every year, one particular type of medical infection kills approximately 30 percent of the estimated 99,000 people who died from hospital infections. 
New radiation technologies are offering patients more focused and precise treatment, but as a series of investigative reports in the New York Times shows, lack of safeguards, software flaws, faulty programming, poor safety procedures or inadequate staffing and training are causing these technologies to harm the very patients they are meant to treat. 
Indianapolis resident, Alice Helterbrand woke to a shock early Sunday morning when her furnace exploded, causing the total destruction of her home and the loss of several exotic birds. The explosion was so destructive that Ms. Helterbrand had to be rescued by neighbors through a hole in her wall. The home was determined to be a total loss, estimated at a value of $140,000. A neighboring home suffered about $20,000 in damage due to the flames and heat.
You can have laws against using cell phones while driving to prevent auto accidents. In fact, if all goes well, Indiana will soon have a ban on text messaging while driving. However, what do you do about the nonstop distractions parents face every day as they drive their children to school, and elsewhere? 
Indiana residents were again reminded of the devastation caused by 
Last week, a safety group handed out 
Indiana State Police responded to a call concerning a near fatal accident on the Indianapolis east side this past Tuesday morning. The accident occurred around 9:00 am when the driver of a van hit a tow-truck driver on westbound I-70.
As 
The New Year promises to usher in new state and federal laws of the kind that Indiana personal injury lawyers would really like to see. Our state continues to lag behind many in its approach to the safety issues arising from motorists texting and using cell phones while driving. We currently have a ban on all cell phone use by motorists below the age of 18. However, there is no law yet that bans texting while driving for all. 
