Vehicle Collisions

The attorneys at Mason, Snodgrass & Ostovich have a special interest in representing victims of motor vehicle collisions. The carnage on our streets and highways constitutes a public health crisis. In 2000 there was a total of 41,821 traffic fatalities in the United States. And, every year millions of people are injured in motor vehicle accidents even though the vehicle manufacturers have made safety improvements to their vehicles including air bags, rollover bars, reinforced frames, better tires, etc. Additionally, many states have passed tougher drunk driving laws. As a result, many lives may have been spared. However, with an ever-increasing number of vehicles on the road, motor vehicle accidents still occur with alarming frequency. Motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of injury in the United States for people ages 1-34. Our children are especially vulnerable. According to the latest mortality data available from the National Center for Health Statistics, motor vehicle crashes are the leading cause of death for children of every age from 4-14 years old. In the United States, an average of 6 children 0-14 years old were killed and 797 were injured every day in motor vehicle crashes during 2000. Twenty percent of these childhood fatalities were killed in alcohol-related crashes.

AT MASON, SNODGRASS & OSTOVICH OUR MISSION IS TO HOLD NEGLIGENT DRIVERS ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE DEVASTATING LOSSES THEY INFLICT UPON THE INNOCENT.

In our experience, the most frequent types of negligence causing serious bodily injury to our clients are:

SPEEDING:

EXCESSIVE SPEED IS A KILLER: Speeding reduces the time drivers have to avoid crashes and lengthens stopping distances, increasing both the likelihood of crashing and the severity of the crashes that do occur. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), speeding is one of the most prevalent reported factors associates with crashes. Speed is a factor in 29 percent of all fatal crashes, killing an average of 1,000 Americans every month. In 2000, more than 12,000 people died in speed-related crashes. NHTSA estimates the economic cost to society of speed-related crashes to be more than $27 billion each year. Health care costs alone are about $4 billion each year.

In a high-speed crash, a passenger vehicle is subjected to forces so severe that the vehicle structure can’t withstand the force of the crash and thus can’t sufficiently protect occupants from serious injury. Likewise, the performance of restraint systems such as airbags and safety belts are compromised in high-speed crashes. This also is true of roadside hardware and safety features such as barriers, crash cushions, and bridge rails, which are designed to reduce crash severity by absorbing crash energy or redirecting errant vehicles away from stationary roadside objects. Infrastructure design standards accommodate a range of vehicle impacts, but they can’t provide adequate protection for people in vehicles traveling at very high speeds. Higher truck speeds bring additional problems including increased tire tread wear, a rise in tire-weakening operation temperature, longer stopping distances, and increased brake wear.

Roadway design factors, including how far ahead a driver can see, are compromised if vehicles travel faster than circumstances warrant. Other vehicles and pedestrians are put at risk by speeding drivers whose distances they may not be able to judge accurately. Studies have shown that drivers who run red lights are likely to be speeding and that motorcyclists who crash with other vehicles making left turns also are likely to be speeding.

The higher the travel speed, the greater the risk of serious injury or death in a crash. Vehicles and their occupants in motion have kinetic energy that is dissipated in a crash. The greater the energy that must be dissipated, the greater the chances of sever injury or death. The laws of physics tell us that crash severity increases disproportionately with vehicle speed. A frontal impact at 35 mph, for example, is one-third more violent than one at 30 mph.

Speed influences crashes in four basic ways:

• It increases the distance a vehicle travels from when a driver detects an emergency until the driver reacts.

• It increases the distance needed to stop a vehicle once an emergency is perceived.

• Crash severity increases by the square of the speed so that, when speed increases from 40 to 60 mph, speed goes up 50 percent while the energy released in a crash more than doubles.

• Higher crash speeds reduce the ability of vehicles, restraint systems, and roadway hardware such as guardrails, barriers, and impact attenuators to protect occupants. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

SPEEDING TRUCKS ARE ESPECIALLY DANGEROUS: Large trucks require much longer distances than cars to stop. Lower speed limits for trucks make heavy vehicle stopping distances closer to those of lighter vehicles. Slower truck speeds also allow automobile drivers to pass trucks more easily. Crashes involving large trucks put other road users at great risk—98 percent of the people killed in two-vehicle crashes involving a passenger vehicle and a large truck are occupants of the passenger vehicles. Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

CARELESSNESS, DRIVER INATTENTION AND DISTRACTION: Recent government and private sector studies have documented the devastating effects of driver distraction due to cell phone use. We have found that increasingly rear-end collisions are caused by the driver of the rear vehicle being distracted by his cell phone. Frequently the negligent driver initially denies use of his telephone. We find that garden-variety inattention and carelessness causes the negligent driver in many intersection collision cases to fail to yield the right-of-way. Similarly, a high percentage of deadly collisions could have been avoided if the negligent driver had only kept a proper lookout or made a timely application of his brakes. THE VICTIM’S LAWYER’S JOB IS TO UNCOVER THE REAL CAUSE OF THE COLLISION AND PERSUADE A JURY THAT THE NEGLIGENT DRIVER DID IN FACT FAIL TO EXERCISE ORDINARY CARE.

John Mason, Don Snodgrass and Carolyn Ostovich have devoted themselves, over many years, to prosecuting vehicular collision cases on behalf of their injured clients. Sometimes their investigations lead to unexpected, subtle causes of catastrophic vehicle crashes. For example, fully 27 percent of passenger cars of U.S. roadways are driven with one or more substantially under-inflated tires, according to a major survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA. Moreover, 32 percent of light trucks (including sport utility vehicles, vans and pickup trucks) are driven with one or more substantially under-inflated tires, according to the first study of its kind to be conducted by the government in two decades. A radial tire can loose much of its air pressure and still appear to be fully inflated.

Operating a vehicle with substantially under-inflated tires can result in a premature tire failure, such as instances of tread separation and blowouts, with the potential for a loss of control of the vehicle. Under-inflated tires also shorten tire life and increase fuel consumption. Tires should be inflated in accord with the vehicle manufacturer’s recommendations. These can be found in the owner’s manual or on a placard usually located on the driver’s doorjamb. Motorists should not rely on visual tire inspections to determine whether a tire is properly inflated but should use a tire pressure gauge to do so. Tire pressure should be checked at least once a month and before a long trip. The study was based on information gathered by 67 data collectors who measured the inflation pressure of tires on 11, 530 passenger vehicles during a 14-day period in February 2001. The information was collected with the cooperation of motorists who visited service stations for refueling at 300 sites in urban, suburban and rural settings located throughout the country.

Key findings of the NHTSA study include these estimates:

• Six percent of light trucks (sport utility vehicles, vans and pickup trucks) are driven with all four of their tires under-inflated by 8 or more psi, compared with 3 percent of passenger cars.

• Ten percent of light trucks are driven with three or more tires under-inflated by 8 or more psi, compared with 6 percent of passenger cars.

• Twenty percent of light trucks have two or more tires under-inflated by 8 or more psi, compared with 13 percent of passenger cars.

The survey results also indicate that older vehicles are notably more likely to be operated with substantially under-inflated tires than are newer vehicles. NHTSA estimates that 49 to 79 deaths and 6,585 to 10,635 injuries could be prevented annually if all vehicles were properly monitored for proper tire pressure.

TRUCK ACCIDENTS: For many years our attorneys have concentrated on collisions involving large trucks. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, in 2000, 457,000 large trucks (gross vehicle weight rating greater than 10,000 pounds) were involved in traffic crashes in the United States; 4,930 were involved in fatal crashes. A total of 5,211 people died (12 percent of all the traffic fatalities reported in 2000) and an additional 140,000 were injured in those crashes. In 2000, large trucks accounted for 9 percent of all vehicles involved in fatal crashes. One out of eight traffic fatalities in 2000 resulted from a collision involving a large truck.

Because of the vigor with which truck cases are defended and the complexity of the technical issues involved, it is frequently necessary to employ accident reconstruction experts to determine causation and effectively present them to a jury.

Automobile accident litigation is an area of the law in which adequate and speedy recoveries for victims are the result of hard work, total attorney involvement and years of hands-on experience. At Mason, Snodgrass and Ostovich we focus our considerable resources on one thing – Maximizing our clients monetary recovery.

If you or a loved one has suffered an injury as a result of a motor vehicle accident, contact us.