Articles Tagged with accident

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Blackwell Law Firm: Alabama Accident & Injury LawyersI’ve written several past articles about Huntsville area road construction and safety. With the tremendous growth in our area, construction zone safety is a big issue. Over the next few years, we will continue to see major road construction on some of our main highways including Interstate 565, Highway 72 and Highway 53. These projects are needed but will impact traffic.

Since road construction safety is a major issue in the Tennessee Valley, I thought I would briefly mention a AAA research article I read this week. The article is titled Attention Grabbing:  Helping Motorists Spot Roadside Workers. One quote from the article really caught my attention:

Of those surveyed, 60% had experienced a near miss working at the roadside, while an astonishing 15% had survived being hit by a passing vehicle.

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Pedestrian Accident Attorneys Of Blackwell Law FirmI’ve written several articles about car accidents involving pedestrians. Over the years, I’ve also investigated and represented many clients as their pedestrian accident attorney. Pedestrian cases are very difficult in Alabama due to some of our specific laws. They are also difficult due to perceptions that favor car drivers. Because of these difficulties, pedestrian accident cases require a skilled approach for success. You can read some of my prior articles on the topic on this blog.

If you read any of my posts, you know I talk a lot about traffic and accident studies. A recent study by Smart Growth America reveals a continued trend in the wrong direction — Accidents and deaths involving pedestrians struck by cars continue to increase.

You can read the Smart Growth America study HERE. I’ll discuss a couple observations from the study in this post. First, I wanted to quote one of the introductory paragraphs from the study. It’s very interesting:

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Alabama Accident & Injury Lawyers At Blackwell Law FirmThe United States has a much higher rate of car accident deaths than other highly developed countries. Recent Centers for Disease Control (CDC) research paints a difficult and disturbing picture of our nation’s highway fatality rates compared to other similar countries.

In fact, the CDC data shows the rate of highway deaths in the United States is the very highest among all high-income countries studied. That’s not all. The data gets even worse. Unlike many other countries which saw declining rates of fatal highway accidents, the rate of deaths in the United States actually increased in the years studied. From a safety standpoint, we are headed in the wrong direction!

I’ve seen a couple other posts quoting this troubling road data. The data is disturbing. But, I don’t want simply to quote statistics. Instead of simply quoting research, we should use the data to discuss safety. Here are two key questions I have from this recent research:

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Huntsville Workers Compensation AttorneysAccording to the new Amazon CEO, the company’s “injury rates are sometimes misunderstood.” I guess that’s his “spin” on the high numbers. In modern society, “I’m just misunderstood” seems to be the first defense for people who do NOT want accountability for their bad or dangerous decisions!

The Amazon CEO’s letter reminds me of a construction injury case I worked several years ago. I represented a steel worker who suffered disabling injuries in a worksite fall on a Huntsville project. The contractor did nothing for safety — No real safety plan. No real safety meetings. No real safety equipment. At trial, the construction company’s executive claimed his company was safe and my case was just a “misunderstanding” of their safety culture. The executive then bragged from the witness stand about a safety award the company won (and proudly displayed on its website). Here’s the problem with their so-called award — It was a complete spin. They had multiple accidents and even deaths on their worksites. The award only counted project managers. It did not count the workers doing the real (and dangerous) jobs. It was a fake award. If any “misunderstanding” existed, it was because the company was trying to spin its safety failures. Fortunately, the truth came out in our trial. We were able to hold the company accountable for all our client’s personal injuries and damages.

Is safety a real concern or not? Do some companies manipulate the numbers to lie about their safety record? Are these companies simply “misunderstood” as Amazon’s CEO claims? What’s the real truth?

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We can help with the workers' compensation benefits you need after an injury.I recently read a blog post titled, Does Workers’ Compensation Cover Injured Truck Drivers? It’s an important question. The Huntsville law firm posting that content asked the right question. But, that firm’s post failed to provide a real or helpful answer! It really failed to answer the question at all. It was just clickbait with keywords and a call to action!

The article was simply generic content stuffed full of keywords listing different injuries with a call to action asking readers to call the lawyers. The generic answer provided by this firm — “a truck driver must be legally categorized as an employee. If a truck driver is classified as an independent contractor, he or she is not eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits.” What? Sure, employees are entitled to benefits while independent contractors are not. Because employees are entitled to workers compensation, a real answer is very important.

But, the vague answer in the firm’s post tells the reader nothing about Alabama law and how it actually classifies workers. The vague answer provides injured truck drivers with no real information to help. The lawyers in that firm are really good but they’ve outsourced their content to a non-lawyer ghostwriter. That’s bad for legal consumers. Let’s look at truck drivers and actually explore the classification issue.

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I recently wrote a post that discussed four of the most common accidents involving worksite trenches. You can read the post by clicking HERE. I wrote my earlier article because of the frequent number of deadly trench-related accidents across Alabama. In just the last couple years, we’ve suffered deadly trench collapses in Huntsville, Madison and Hoover. In addition to those fatal accidents, a Tuscaloosa company lost workers when a trench in Mississippi collapsed.

With a little safety effort, most deadly trench accidents could be prevented. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has published standards and a clear fact sheet related to trenches on worksites. Safety professionals are well-aware of the hazards and the easy steps which would prevent disasters.

For detailed information, you can read my prior article. After writing that earlier article, I created the following slideshow on the issue:

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Huntsville Accident & Injury Lawyers / Blackwell Law FirmI watched the wheelchair move slowly down the middle of the road. I often saw the same wheelchair as I drove home from my Huntsville office. Frequently, the wheelchair was in the middle of the road, with no lights, after dark. I worried that someone unfamiliar with the roadway may not expect or see him. It was a dangerous situation.

What if an accident occurs? What if a driver hit the wheelchair? How is the wheelchair classified? Pedestrian or Motor Vehicle?

I know, lawyers parse terms. Lawyers argue details. Lawyers harp on legal classifications. Only a lawyer would openly ponder whether someone was classified as pedestrian or motor vehicle. Yet, in Alabama accident cases, the distinction can be very important. Very important. The rules for pedestrians and cars are very different.

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Last month, I wrote a lengthy post on road rage in Alabama. We live in angry and difficult times. Some drivers allow their anger to put others at risk on our highways.

Although recent months have seen fewer cars on Alabama roads due to the coronavirus, we still see almost weekly headlines reporting a road rage incident. Just in 2020, headlines have even reported road rage related stabbings and shootings in Alabama.

While incidents with weapons grab headlines, we face a larger problem. It’s a daily problem of impatience and anger that impacts driver behavior. At its extreme, an angry driver may recklessly or intentionally harm someone. When not at its extreme, driver anger and frustration still cause reckless and risky behavior. Road rage is a problem that leads to injury on our roads.

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Blackwell Law Firm - Helping The Injured In AlabamaIn a December 2018 post, I asked the question — Is the Alabama Supreme Court Biased Against Car Accident Victims on Venue Issues? At our office, we file and prepare many car accident and injury cases for trial. Where can a case properly be filed? Where is venue proper? Sometimes, venue is proper in more than one county. Sometimes, you have a choice. When you do, venue can be a huge issue. When we have a choice, we consider carefully which county may be better for the case.

How is our Supreme Court wading into the venue issue? In recent years, our Supreme Court issued several decisions using a principle called “forum non conveniens” to transfer cases. Forum non conveniens allows courts to transfer a case from the proper venue where filed to another proper venue for “the interest of justice” or the “convenience of parties and witnesses.” Should the court make subjective decisions on “convenience” to overrule a plaintiff’s chosen venue? Historically, the bar has been high. Historically, courts would defer to the chosen venue unless it had little or no connection at all to the case. I think courts should defer to the plaintiff’s proper choice of venue.

In its recent decisions, the Supreme Court forgot the deference which should be extended to the plaintiff’s choice of venue. Our Supreme Court repeatedly used the principal of forum non conveniens to transfer personal injury cases. In my 2018 post, I criticized the willingness of our Supreme Court to impose its subjective choice of venue on a plaintiff.

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Distracted driving is a frequent topic on my blog. In the last few years, I’ve written numerous articles on the issue. In some articles, I’ve discussed the basic types of distracted driving and how we can work together to reduce this highway danger in Alabama. In other articles, I’ve written more specifically about distracted driving as it relates to commercial drivers or teenage drivers. At the Blackwell Law Firm, we will continue to discuss this important safety topic in future posts.

Because it is National Distracted Driving Awareness Month, we have created a short slideshow on the issue. We hope you find it educational. Like many of our articles, we discuss several ways to combat this problem. As with any post, we welcome constructive commentary!

https://www.slideshare.net/JeffBlackwell16/distracted-driving-awareness-month-139875671

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