Prevent Work Zone Accidents in Texas This April – Houston Injury Lawyers
The week between 4 April and 10 April is being commemorated as National Work Zone Awareness Week. Few states need more awareness about work zone safety as much as the state of Texas. In 2009, 181 people died in accidents that occurred in work zones in Texas. That was a decrease of 35% over the past two years. However, the Texas Department of Transportation is taking Work Zone Awareness Week, especially seriously this year.
The Department of Transportation is calling on all motorists to exercise extra caution while traveling through a work zone, to prevent injuries to motorists and construction workers. According to the Texas Department of Transportation, much of the decrease in work zone fatalities in Texas has been due to increased outreach efforts and better safety measures. For instance, the Department of Transportation has tried to raise awareness about the need to drive safely through a work zone. However, any Houston car accident attorney will tell you that there are too many people out there who fail to look out for warning signs posted at the beginning of a work zone. These people speed through a work zone, increasing the risk of injury to the construction workers toiling on the road, and enhancing the potential for a crash inside the zone.
According to the Texas Department of Transportation, worker fatalities every year would reduce further if people paid attention when they entered a work zone, and maintained low speeds as they traveled through the work zone. Most work zones will have signs posted at the entrance, and motorists must drop speeds when they see these signs. Avoid all distractions when you’re inside a zone, and look out not just for motorists and other construction workers, but also construction debris and equipment lying around.
Car Seats May Not Always Protect against Injuries in an Accident – Houston Injury Lawyers
Houston car accident attorneys advise all parents to always restrain their children in car seats to prevent injuries in an accident. However, not all car seats can protect your child from serious injuries. According to a report by the Washington Post, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration simply does not have the capabilities to test certain car seats, including those that are designed for obese children. It also does not have facilities for testing the effectiveness of car seats during side impact accidents, rollover accidents and rear end accidents.
In fact, most car seats that are approved by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are only tested for effectiveness in preventing injuries during front impact accidents. Most serious injuries in accidents every year involve rollover accidents and side impact crashes. Besides, whiplash and serious spinal cord injuries can result from rear end accidents. Children, who are strapped into car seats, may be at a special risk of injuries during a rear end accident. However, the NHTSA does not test the effectiveness of car seats in these accidents.
Moreover, the NHTSA does not have crash test dummies to test the effectiveness of car seats that are designed for children who are above 65 pounds in weight. Some children may reach 40 pounds by the end of 2 ½ years, and increasingly Houston injury attorneys are coming across children who are overweight. Parents of such children need large-size car seats, but the NHTSA has no proper testing procedures for these car seats. These children are too big for normal sized car seats, and too young to be secured by seatbelts.
What is even worse is that the NHTSA has been developing a plus-sized crash test dummy for children at least since 2002. There is no word from the agency about when this test dummy will be ready. In the meantime, parents need to be vigilant about the kind of car seats they buy for their children. Look up rankings by safety organizations like Consumer Reports, which do their own testing for car seats and booster seats.
Close to Half of All Recalls in 2010 Were Children’s Product Recalls – Houston Injury Lawyers
We are not just Houston defective product attorneys, but also parents of four little ones, and therefore have a special interest in children’s product safety. The last few years have been bad for parents and Houston personal injury attorneys, because of the large number of children’s product recalls, and injuries and fatalities related to these products. Child safety group Kids in Danger has now released an interesting new report into children’s product safety in 2010, titled Moving Towards Safety.
According to the report, children’s product recalls accounted for 45% of the total number of recalls last year, or a total of 160 products. Out of these, nursery products were the most often recalled products accounting for 29% of recalls. These products also seemed to involve the most number of injuries before a recall. There were five products that had more than 100 reported incidents of injuries and other adverse incidents before the recall. Out of these, four involved nursery products.
The largest recall in 2010 was the recall of 12 million McDonald’s drinking glasses recall because of cadmium content in the glasses. There were also a number of recalls related to children’s sleep environment-related products, including cribs and beds. The kind of penalties that the Consumer Product Safety Commission levied on manufacturers of products for safety violations last year was quite meager, and amounted to just $2.7 million.
However, the CPSC did take a few other steps to warn parents about possibly dangerous products. For instance, the CPSC did warn parents against using bag-style infant slings. These slings have become very fashionable in recent years, but have been traced to several incidents of infant suffocation deaths. The CPSC also warned consumers about the use of sleep positioners. The biggest accomplishment of the CPSC last year was the announcement of a federal consumer product safety database that parents can refer to when they want to look up complaints about specific children’s products. However, there is more that the CPSC can do, including reviewing crib bumper pads that have been linked to at least two fatalities last year.
Texas Accident Death Rate Higher Than National Average – Houston Injury Lawyers
A new report recently published in USA Today shows that Texas has an accident death rate that is higher than the national average. According to the report, Texas has an accident death rate per 100,000 population of 12.4, compared to the national average of 11 per 100,000 population. As Houston car accident lawyers, we can’t help but be saddened that our state lags far behind Massachusetts with a death rate of 5.1 per 100,000 population, and California with a death rate of 8.3 per 100,000 population.
Texas’ relatively higher accident rate has much to do with the number of accidents that occur on rural roads here. By and large, most of the states that seem to have some sort of control over their accident death rate have larger urban communities and more urban roads. Urban roads are generally much safer, because they are better designed and maintained, and because they are typically equipped with dividers and other safety aids. Besides, urban roads also see more numbers of DWI and seatbelt crackdowns by local police, thereby lowering those death rates further.
There’s yet another tragic reason why urban roads are safer than rural roads. It’s because rural areas have limited access to emergency trauma care facilities in the event of an accident. The closer an accident victim is to an emergency trauma care center soon after an accident, the higher his chances of survival.
Unfortunately, there are parts of Texas that continue to have limited access to emergency trauma care, and for many of them, this makes the difference between life and death. Those of us who live and work in Houston and other Texas cities, take our easy accessibility to high-quality emergency medical care for granted. But such trauma care can increase your chances of surviving a crash.
Texas lawmakers should be looking at increasing accessibility to life saving trauma care in rural areas, to save more lives in accidents every year.
Houston Truck Accident Lawyers Call for Stronger Under-ride Guards
Under-ride guards are installed at the back of a tractor-trailer, and are designed to prevent the front of a passenger vehicle from sliding under the trailer during a rear-ender accident. These have a great role to play in preventing crushing, blunt force injuries when a smaller vehicle crashes into the back of an 18-wheeler. In fact, in such accidents, an under-ride guard can be the only thing standing between the occupants of the smaller vehicle and severe fatalities/deaths.
However, a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety finds that these under-ride guards are not as effective in preventing fatalities or serious injuries in low-speed rear end accidents. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety researchers analyzed more than 1,000 truck accidents between 2001 and 2003. They found that there were 28 fatal accidents that involved a smaller passenger vehicle crashing into the back of a tractor-trailer. Out of these, 23 involved complete destruction of the front of the passenger vehicle, because of failure of the under-ride guard.
Researchers are now calling on the federal administration to strengthen regulations to ensure that under ride guards save lives and prevent serious injuries even in low-speed accidents. Besides, Houston truck accident lawyers are also concerned about the number of trucks that continue to ply our highways without adequate under ride guards in place. There are too many loopholes in our federal trucking regulations that allow truckers to drive 18-wheelers on some of our busiest highways, with no rear-ender protection for passenger vehicle occupants. The federal administration also needs to ensure that trucking companies install under-ride guards in all 18-wheelers and tractor trailers.
Hunt for Houston Day Care Operator Continues After Fire Tragedy – Houston Injury Lawyers
As parents and Houston injury attorneys, we have been shocked at the deadly Houston day care fire last week that killed four toddlers, and have been monitoring developments in this tragedy. An Interpol alert has been sounded for the operator of a Houston day care involved in a deadly fire accident last week. This is even as prosecutors announced new charges against the operator.
The day care operator, 22-year-old Jessica Tata has since fled the country to Nigeria. She has already been charged with reckless injury to a child, and three new charges of abandoning a child have been added to that list. The tragedy occurred on 24 February at a day care located out of a home in west Houston.
By all accounts, Tata left the children in her care alone, and went out grocery shopping. There were seven children alone in the home at the time. Indications are that she had left something cooking on the stove, which caused the fire. When the doctor came back home, the house was in flames, with the children inside. Four of the children died, and three more have suffered serious injuries.
After the fire, Tata told neighbors that the fire had broken out while she was in the bathroom. However, surveillance videos from a nearby Target store told a different story. She was spotted shopping there while the fire was raging in her home. Tata had been operating the day care with seven children, when she was only licensed to have a maximum of six kids in her care.
Meanwhile, there has been much criticism about the way authorities have handled this terrible tragedy. According to Houston Fire Department investigators, they had to visit prosecutors at least six times before charges could be filed against Tata. The Houston Fire Department also had a tip that Tata could possibly flee the country back to Nigeria, and yet, when they brought this to the attention of prosecutors, they believed that the information wasn’t sufficient to take action.
FDA Was Aware of Contaminated Wipes Linked to Houston Boy’s Fatal Infection – Houston Child Injury Lawyers
Last month, Houston personal injury lawyers learned about a lawsuit filed by the family of a two-year boy killed by a deadly bacterial meningitis infection while he was recovering in a hospital. Harrison Kothari’s parents did not realize that the infection could possibly be linked to contaminated wipes used by the boy, who was in the hospital recovering from another unrelated condition. Now, we have learned that the Food and Drug Administration was aware that there were contaminated, tainted alcohol wipes in the market, but failed to take action.
Earlier this year, Triad Group announced a recall of millions of alcohol pads, because of the risk of bacterial infection. The company downplayed the risks of infection, by saying that it had received just one report of a skin infection related to the alcohol wipes. It was only when the recall was announced that Harrison’s parents realized that the infection was possibly linked to the wipes.
Now, MSNBC has obtained documents from the Food and Drug Administration which show that the agency was aware of contamination and sterility problems at the Triad Medical Group facility in Wisconsin. According to inspection reports, procedures to prevent contamination of products were not being followed at the facility. However, the FDFA failed to send out warning letters to the company. Typically, the FDA warns companies about safety problems, and forces them to comply with regulations. That did not happen in this case.
Since Harrison’s parents filed the lawsuit, many patients from other states have stepped forward to claim that their injuries and illnesses were caused by the contaminated pads. Houston product liability attorneys are possibly looking at just the tip of the iceberg here, as more people understand that their infections were caused by the contaminated pads.
Dallas Truck Accident Leaves Three People Injured – Texas Injury Lawyers
At least three people were injured in a fiery tractor-trailer accident this month near Dallas. The accident involved a truck and at least one passenger vehicle. According to witness reports, the accident, which occurred eastbound on I-21 on Friday, January 7, involved an out-of-control truck that struck a passenger vehicle and a median, and exploded. The truck driver and at least two people in the passenger vehicle were rushed to the hospital. All three have sustained injuries, but these are not reported to be life-threatening.
The impact of the accident was devastating. The sound of the explosion could be heard for miles away, even in downtown Dallas, about 3 miles away. The accident led to the closing of Interstate 30 in both directions. Police are investigating the accident, but there’s no information yet about why the truck driver lost control of his vehicle.
Any accident involving a passenger vehicle and a commercial truck has the potential to be fatal or devastating. There is no indication yet here that the truck driver was distracted, speeding, or engaging in any other behavior that increases the risk of an accident. However, the fact is that commercial truck drivers have a much higher responsibility to drive safely because of the incredible force that their vehicles generate, and the kind of impact a crash involving these rigs can have.
Unfortunately, as Houston truck accident lawyers we see that too many truck accidents are caused by drivers who are driving at speeds that are too high, or trucks not concentrating 100% on the road ahead. The former are responsible for some of the highest numbers of truck accident fatalities in the country. In 2009, speeding was the number one cause of truck accident fatalities in the US.
String of Accidents Puts Spotlight on Dangerous Crosby Road – Houston Accident Lawyers
Often, Houston accident lawyers see that auto accidents are the result of poor road planning and design which fails to take into consideration growing vehicular traffic. A string of fatal and serious accidents recently on a stretch of Houston’s FM 2100 has raised concerns about this dangerous road, and the need for more safety enhancements to the stretch. According to the Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT), there has been a spike in the number of accidents occurring on the stretch of FM 2100 between FM 1960 and US 90.
On the last day of school this year, a 16-year-old girl was killed in an accident on this particular stretch of FM 2100. This week, yet another accident involving a Crosby school bus and a Ford Explorer, again raised concerns about the high risks to motorists traveling on the highway. Tuesday’s accident led to the death of the Explorer driver, noted Texas Blues guitarist Gene Kelton. Several children on the school bus suffered injuries, including bumps, cuts and bruises.
The number of accidents on this stretch has been increasing over the past couple of years from 83 accidents in 2009 to 132 accidents up to November this year. Last year, there was one fatal accident on the stretch, while they were four fatalities till November 2010.
After the death that killed the 16-year-old schoolgirl, transportation authorities have finally been galvanized into action. They have conducted a study of the intersection where the accident occurred, as well as other intersections on FM 2100 that have been notoriously accident prone. One of the recommendations coming out of that safety study is the need for traffic lights to be installed at the 2100/Stoker Road intersection. Transportation officials are recommending a caution light at the Spanish Cove/ FM 2100 intersection.
There’s definitely a need for more traffic signals, considering that the vehicular population on this stretch has increased by more than 1,000 cars between 2008 and 2009. There are approximately 22,300 cars moving daily on this stretch of road.
Prescription Drugs Most Commonly Linked to Violent Crimes – Houston Criminal Lawyers
Most of the drug-fueled violent crimes that Houston criminal defense attorneys come across are linked to heroin, cocaine and other illegal drugs. However, a study by the Institute for Safe Medication Practices shows that even legal prescription drugs can cause behavioral changes that might incite violent reactions and behavior.
The study is based on data from the Food and Drug Administration’s Adverse Event Reporting System. There are some known culprits on the list like Paxil, the antidepressant which has also been linked to birth defects, as well as one of the most widely used antidepressants Prozac, which has also been linked to a high risk of violence.
Tellingly, most of the drugs on the list are antidepressants. These include Desvenlafaxine sold under the brand name Pristiq, and linked to a 7.9 times higher risk of violent behavior, Venlafaxine sold under the brand name Effexor, and linked to a 8.3 times higher risk of violent behavior, Fluvoxamine sold under the brand name Luvox, and with a 8.5 times higher risk of being involved in violent behavior.
Also on the list are Triazolam, a benzodiazepine which is used to treat insomnia. This medication can be addictive, and can increase the risk of violent behavior by about 8.7 times. Also featuring on the list are two drugs used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder- Atomoxetine with a nine times higher risk of violent crimes and amphetamines with a 9.6 times higher risk of violent behavior. The antimalarial drug Mefoquine has a 9.5 times higher risk of violent behavior. SSRI antidepressant Paroxetine has a 10.3 times higher risk of violent behavior, while Fluoxetine or Prozac has a 10.9 times higher risk of violent behavior.
The most dangerous drug on the list as far as violent behavior is concerned is undoubtedly the antismoking medication, Chantix. This drug has already been tracked by Houston product liability lawyers has a link with violence that is about 18 times higher than for any other medication.
