Indiana Injury Lawyer Blog

Last week, two planes at Washington's Reagan National Airport were forced to land without any assistance from air traffic controllers because the controller in charge was asleep. That's right. The person in charge of guiding jetliners with hundreds of passengers on board safely onto a runway, had dozed off at the controls. This incident is enough for Indiana personal injury attorneys to wonder at the state of aviation safety this country.

The Federal Aviation Administration has taken a stern view of the air traffic controller’s conduct on the job. The agency has begun an investigation into the conduct of the supervisor who apparently fell asleep. The supervisor has been suspended, and drug tests have been conducted. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the supervisor has told them that he was alone and on his fourth consecutive overnight shift when he dozed off.

Continue reading "FAA Suspends Sleeping Air-Traffic Controller" »

Your forward-facing car seat may not necessarily protect your two-year-old from serious injuries in an accident. For years now, industry recommendations have held that children above the age of one must be placed in a forward-facing car seat, instead of a rear-facing one. However, the American Academy of Pediatrics is now revising that recommendation. According to the group, children are safer if they are in a rear-facing seat.

The group has issued a policy statement that it bases on data from a study conducted in 2007 at the University Of Virginia. That study found that children aged two and above are 70% less likely to suffer injuries in an accident when they are in a rear-facing seat. According to the group, the truth is that children's chances of avoiding injuries in accidents declines when you move them from rear-facing seats to front-facing seats.

Continue reading "Car Seats May Not Protect Toddlers from Injuries in Accidents" »

Children’s safety group, Kids in Danger has released a report into children's product safety in 2010. The report is titled Moving toward Safety, and should be a fascinating read for any Indiana parent or Indiana personal injury attorney. Not surprisingly, the report shows that children’s products accounted for a large portion of recalls in 2010.

Specifically, 45% of all product recalls last year were related to children's products, and out of these, nursery products and clothing were the most recalled items. That was a change from the past few years, when toys were the most recalled children's product. Last year however, cribs, strollers, pacifiers and highchairs took over from toys as the most recalled products. In all, nursery products accounted for 29% of all children's product recalls. Most of the nursery products that were recalled were linked to entrapment, strangulation and fall hazards. Clothing accounted for 28% of all children's product recalls last year, and was most often linked to strangulation and choking hazards.

Continue reading "Why Indiana Parents Should Be Concerned about Children's Product Safety " »

Indiana regulators fined Notre Dame $77,500 for six safety violations related to the October death of a 20-year-old student. The studend was killed when the school's hydraulic scissor lift fell in high winds while he was filming football practice.

According to the regulators in the Indiana Department of Labor, the university failed to maintain safe working conditions or heed National Weather Service warnings. The lift toppled in windy conditions. At one point in the day, wind speeds in the area reached 53 mph. The scissor lift should not be used if winds exceed 28 mph. The National Weather Service had issued a high wind warning with winds gusts of 45 mph expected. The school was found negligent for allowing the student to be in the lift after the advisory had been issued.

Other violations listed in the findings include a failure to regularly inspect the lifts and have the operator's manual on the equipment. In addition, some warning labels were missing. Other labels were faded and weathered.

A new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that drowsy or fatigued driving is more prevalent than Indiana personal injury lawyers have known. The study, which focused on unhealthy sleep behaviors in the United States, was based on a random telephone survey of adults above 18 years of age. The researchers found that unhealthy sleeping habits abound in the American population. In fact, 35.3% of respondents reported that they got less than seven hours of sleep a night against the recommendations of the National Sleep Foundation.

When it comes to falling asleep at the wheel, approximately 4.7% of respondents reported that they had fallen asleep at the wheel at least once during the previous 30 days. Persons aged above 65 years of age were less likely to report drowsy driving, and persons in the 25-to-34 year age group were the most likely to report dozing off at the wheel. According to the survey, men were also more susceptible to drowsy driving than women. People with jobs were more likely to doze off compared to students and homemakers. These last figures likely comprise people with stressed jobs and those that work in shift-based jobs who are more likely to doze off while driving.

Continue reading "Indiana Drivers May Be at Greater Risk of Drowsy Driving Accidents Than Feared" »

As Indiana truck accident lawyers, we have found that tractor-trailer underride guards prevent serious damage to a passenger vehicle when the smaller vehicle crashes into the rear of a commercial truck. However, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has found that these underride guards do little to prevent serious injuries to the occupants of a passenger vehicle in low-speed accidents.

In any rear-ender accident, the front of the car is designed to absorb much of the impact from the crash. However, when a passenger vehicle rear ends a tractor-trailer, the front of the smaller vehicle may slide under the trailer, causing serious injuries to the occupants of the smaller vehicle. Researchers at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety analyzed more than 1,000 accidents that occurred between 2001 and 2003. Of these, 113 accidents were rear-ender crashes in which a smaller passenger vehicle crashed into the rear of a semi or truck or trailer. 28 of these accidents ended with fatalities to the occupants of the passenger vehicles. Out of these, 23 accidents involved complete destruction of the front of the passenger vehicle due to failure of the truck’s underride guard. Most of these injuries are direct impact injuries to the head of the driver and front seat passenger, and the impact is almost instantly fatal.

Continue reading "Insurance Institute Calls for Safer Underride Guards to Prevent Serious Indiana Truck Accidents" »

A Tragedy occurred this morning when a 13 year old IPS student was killed when the car in which she was riding pulled into the path of a southbound semi truck.

The accident occurred at Harding Street and I-70 and caused major traffic problems for several hours.

Two additional students were injured in the wreck. Reports from the scene indicate that they were not critically injured but were taken to local hospitals as a precaution.

Continue reading "IPS Student Killed in Truck Crash" »

Suffering a stroke can severely diminish a person's ability to drive safely and avoid accidents. These persons may suffer from motor challenges, diminished vision, reduced hearing, slower mental faculties, and a number of other challenges that increase the risk of being involved in an accident while driving. So how do you help determine whether a person who has just recovered from a stroke, is able to drive on his own? A new study published in the Journal of the American Academy of Neurology finds that a person's ability to drive safely after suffering a stroke can be established by administering a series of three tests.

These three simple tests can be administered in just 15 minutes in your doctor's office. According to the researchers, these tests are fairly accurate and reliable in helping to establish a person's ability to drive safely after a stroke. The first test is a Road Recognition Test, which tests the individual’s traffic knowledge. Individuals need to score a minimum of 8.5 out of 12 on this test. The second is the Compass Test which measures the person's visual perceptual and visual spatial abilities. Individuals need to score 25 out of 32 on this test. The third is a trail making test which measures visual motor activities, and persons are required to complete this task within a period of 90 seconds.

Continue reading "Tests Help Determine Accident Risks after Stroke" »

Shelby County residents were reminded of the devastating results of a crash involving a truck and a passenger car.

News reports indicate that a man and child were killed when their car struck a dump truck head on. A third person was flown to Methodist Hospital with severe injuries. The driver of the dump truck was unharmed.

The accident is a sober reminder of the need to stay alert while on the roads. The size and weight of any truck can cause severe damage but a dump truck fully loaded with gravel is like a concrete wall moving at 60 miles per hour. The end result is severe injuries and even death.