USA-Legal Help Center – Lawyer Blog

Chances are you aren’t worried about your own driver distractions. After all, you’ve made cell phone calls or read text messages or searched for a napkin after spilling food while driving countless times — and you haven’t an accident.

Yet.

That’s the key word in the equation — “yet.” But not having had a cell phone accident — yet –  doesn’t mean distracted driving won’t cause one. In fact, distractions can be fatal. Just ask families of the 6,000 Americans killed in distracted driving car crash accidents per year, or the half a million persons injured.

Or ask the New York air traffic controller who was found to be making a personal call while juggling flight routes, and the distraction proved fatal. The controller was talking with a friend on a headset when crucial errors occurred, and as a result, a plane collided with a tour helicopter over the Hudson River and nine people died.

The same thing happens on our roads every day. But it didn’t use to — not like now. For decades, millions of Americans made phone calls when it was prudent and time to do so. They didn’t interrupt a delightful dinner to field a needless call about what their kid was watching on TV. They didn’t drive with one hand on the wheel while they dialed a neighbor to ask if it was trash night. And they didn’t do their jobs while keeping one ear on a cell phone and half their thoughts on their duty.

But now, Americans are addicted to cell phones just as surely as junkies are hooked on drugs. They call and talk endlessly, which means the things they’re supposed to be doing otherwise — such as driving a car or supervising air traffic, both of which are vital tasks where inattention can mean death — get neglected.

How many deaths, and how many tragedies, will it take for a nation to wake up and recognize the enormously serious problem in its midst? Needless multi-tasking isn’t worth the risk to you, your loved ones or other people on the roads, or in the air. Some things need our full attention. But too many such things aren’t getting it.

We get it at USA Legal Help Center, and we’ll help if you or a family member suffers harm due to a driver’s negligence and driving distractions.

Meanwhile, ask yourself: How many phone calls have you ever made which were life-or-death matters? Chances are it’s been zero. So don’t turn a routine call into a life-or-death car accident. Hang up and drive.

Bruce Westbrook cell phone accident, distracted driving cell phone accident, distracted driving

Drivers of the barreling behemoths known as an 18 wheeler, big rig, semi truck, diesel truck or tractor trailer aren’t that different from those in far smaller cars. That is to say, too many of them are guilty of inattention, when all it takes is a moment to cause a traffic accident fatality or serious injury.

Large trucks have caused many of those lately, including four deaths in a horrific Phoenix, AZ crash when a dump truck driver — who admits he was doing paperwork while driving — slammed into nine motorcycles which had stopped at a red light. Just days earlier, an 18 wheeler in Kentucky careened into a van, killing 11 members of a church.

Also recently, a trucker crashed into a woman’s car when its driver was watching streaming pornography on a laptop computer; a big rig sparked a 50-car pileup in Wyoming; a tractor trailer ran into the rear of a Greyhound Bus in Bowling Green, KY; and a truck smashed into the back of a van in Indiana.

As with car wrecks, the cause of many of these large truck accidents may have been driver distractions, from paperwork and laptops to cell phones and texts. An 80,000 pound truck traveling at 70 miles per hour can go the length of a football field in the time it takes its driver to read a text, and even then such huge vehicles need more time and space to stop than smaller, lighter cars. It’s called physics.

In short, drivers of diesel trucks, tractor trailers, big rigs, semi trucks and 18 wheelers bear a larger responsibility on our roads, due to their larger vehicles which cause such greater damage. Indeed, while only 3 per cent of vehicles on America’s roads are big rigs, they are involved in far more traffic accident fatalities: 12 per cent of those nationally, 10 per cent of those in Illinois, and 15 per cent of those in Missouri.

Long-haul truck drivers also may not get enough sleep, and when they do sleep, they may suffer from a condition called sleep apnea. Such sleep disruption makes them more tired when they’re behind the wheel.

Anything which reduces a trucker’s awareness and alertness for even a second can cause a truck crash that kills and injures horribly. No mere diversion is worth that. Truckers must hold themselves accountable for driving with greater caution, because too many lives are at stake.

If you or a loved one has been harmed by a diesel truck driver or other big rig drivers, alert a semi truck accident lawyer or tractor trailer accident lawyer with USALegalHelpCenter.com. We can provide you with an 18 wheeler accident lawyer or diesel truck accident lawyer in any of America’s 50 states.

Bruce Westbrook 18 wheeler, auto accident, big rig, car accident, distracted driving, semi truck, texting accident, tractor trailer, traffic accident 18 wheeler, big rig, diesel truck, semi truck, tractor trailer

Distracted drivers using cell phones to call or text killed about 6,000 Americans in car crash accidents last year. And more and more states are passing laws banning texting or calling when behind the wheel. Yet some results of such bans are not encouraging.

According to the Highway Loss Data Institute (HLDI), affiliated with the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), no reduction in crashes occurred in New York, Connecticut, California and Washington, D.C. after bans on drivers using handheld cell phones took effect. This was based on assessing insurance claims for car crash damages.

Why? That’s a good question, since the link between cell phones and traffic deaths has been clearly established. One conclusion could be that fewer drivers in those states chose to heed the law and continued texting and talking, anyway.

Read more…

Bruce Westbrook auto accident, car accident, cell phone accident, distracted driving, texting accident cell phone accident, distrated driver, texting accident