Tennessee Injury Lawyer Blog

If there is one thing that New Year’s Eve is famous for, it is the fact that it is probably the heaviest night of the year for partying. For whatever reason, nothing puts people in a festive mood like the fact that the date will forevermore contain a different number tomorrow than it did today. When people decide to get festive, they often decide to consume alcohol or other intoxicants. Unfortunately, many of those people will then get behind the wheel of a vehicle and make the unfortunate decision to drive drunk in an effort to get back home or to the next party destination.

It is no secret that accidents resulting from drunk driving have been the cause of a multitude of deaths and injuries on America’s roadways. The unfortunate fact for victims of these accidents is that there is little they can do to avoid being hit and injured by a drunk driver. Those who are driving when conditions are increasingly favorable for drunk drivers to be on the roadways, late tonight and early into tomorrow morning for example, will do well to be extra careful and keep a vigilant lookout for other drivers on the road who may be driving in an impaired state. Sometimes, however, such accidents will simply be unavoidable.

Continue reading " New Year's Eve Brings Dangerous Driving Conditions " »

Things turned sour in Portersville, Pennsylvania on Monday when a semi that was reportedly being driven by an intoxicated driver tipped over, spilling a flood of grape juice onto Route 79. Like many accidents involving semi trucks, this one caused the road to be shut down for an extended period of time while road crews worked to clean up the debris. The driver of the semi was arrested for having a blood-alcohol level of three times the legal limit. The company who employed the driver meanwhile issued a statement saying they do not condone such behavior.

While the company may not condone the behavior, they may very well be liable for any damages caused by the driver’s actions. Semi trucks generally carry heavy loads that have the potential to cause lots of damage to the roadway, other vehicles, or other persons if they are driven in a negligent or reckless manner. Victims who suffer injuries as a result of accidents such as the one described above need to know not only how to recover for their losses but who they can recover from.

Continue reading " Semi Tips, Floods Road with Grape Juice " »

A three year-old from Aurora, Colorado was reportedly rushing to pick up a coin in a parking space in a Wal-Mart parking lot last Saturday when he was ran over by a driver who was trying to pull into the parking space. Apparently, the lady pulling into the space did not see the toddler, who was in the process of bending over to pick up the coin, and ran over the little boy and dragged him for a short distance before coming to a stop. The boy is currently in intensive care as he tries to recover from his injuries.

At first glance this may seem like a pretty clear-cut case of a small child running out in front of an unsuspecting driver, but that may not necessarily be the case from a personal injury standpoint. Drivers who are navigating a parking lot are under a duty to keep a proper lookout for any obstacles that would be commonplace to the area. A jury could reasonably decide that someone driving through a Wal-Mart parking lot could have a duty to keep an extra careful lookout for children, who are frequently seen at Wal-Mart and can behave unpredictably. It is not an extremely rare occurrence that a child darts in front of a vehicle in a parking lot or at least makes an attempt to do so before being reined in by an attentive parent. In a comparative fault state like Tennessee, a jury could determine that at least a small percentage of liability for the accident should be attributed to the driver’s negligence, making the driver responsible for at least a portion of the damages suffered by the victim.

Continue reading " Toddler Injured While Picking Up Penny in Parking Space " »

A new study finds that drivers who text while driving are six times more likely to crash than drivers who do not. The study was conducted in a driving simulator and provides evidence that texting while driving is actually more dangerous than talking on a mobile phone while driving and is possibly even more dangerous than driving while intoxicated. The study showed that drivers who texted while driving tended to decrease their minimum following distance while also experiencing delayed reaction times, which is almost certainly a recipe for disaster. Following too closely and hitting the brakes too slowly are two behaviors that constitute negligent driving in Tennessee and will lead to the driver at fault being responsible for any damages caused by the negligent conduct.

The study indicated that reaction time slows by approximately thirty percent when a driver texts while driving. This is apparently primarily due to the fact that the driver has to divert his or her attention back and forth between the tasks of texting and driving and has to take extra time to re-focus his or her attention on the road ahead. Since negligent driving in Tennessee is basically defined as driving in the manner that a reasonably prudent person would drive, it is clear that any activity that both causes the driver to drive less safely and causes the driver to react more slowly than normal would constitute negligent driving. Texting while driving is so dangerous, in fact, that many state legislatures are reportedly considering banning such activity completely.

It may seem shocking that texting while driving can be more dangerous than an activity such as driving under the influence, which is prohibited by law. However, texting while driving requires the driver to completely focus his or her attention elsewhere, if only for a moment, rather than on the road ahead. Such activity will be an increasing source of auto accidents and lawsuits ahead, as over 60% of teens text while driving. It is an extremely dangerous activity that should be avoided whenever possible.

Sources: http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20091221/sc_livescience/driverswhotextaresixtimesmorelikelytocrash

The Tennessee Highway Patrol is scheduling over 100 checkpoints across the State of Tennessee during the rest of this year to arrest drivers who may be driving under the influence and committing other violations. This effort stems from the THP’s recognition that the holiday season, especially the period of time between Christmas and New Year’s Day, is a prime period for the occurrence of parties and other events at which drivers are more likely than usual to consume some sort of intoxicant and get behind the wheel of a vehicle. Drivers who are found to be in violation of any law while driving a vehicle in Tennessee face a host of fines and penalties, ranging from extended periods of imprisonment to small citations. However, drivers who violate the law but do not get caught put themselves at a risk of loss as well.

This time of year is a time during which the roads are more crowded than usual as people travel from place to place to celebrate the holidays. With increased traffic on the roads comes an increased chance that negligent or reckless conduct, such as driving while intoxicated, will result in injury to the driver or some other party. Often accidents caused by drivers who are under the influence turn out to be fatal for at least one of the parties involved. In such accidents, if a party at fault survives the crash he or she could be looking at a substantial prison sentence and having to pay a large amount of damages in a personal injury lawsuit.

Everyone likes to celebrate the holidays, but do so responsibly. The THP checkpoints will not be able to catch every driver who may be driving under the influence or committing some other reckless act, making the roads and highways of Tennessee more dangerous than normal. Drivers who plan on using some sort of intoxicant at home or at an event or party should make the appropriate accommodations to ensure that they do not have to drive home.

Sources: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091221/NEWS03/91221007/1001/NEWS/THP+schedules+100+checkpoints+for+rest+of+year+

The holiday season brings with it a lot of different types of stress. One particular type that is felt by everyone is the stress that accompanies the seeming inability to find a parking spot within one hundred miles of the store you are trying to shop at. The general chaos that surrounds parking lots at this time of year can lead to fights and arguments of all sorts as drivers jockey for premium parking spots. One such fight took a painful turn last Sunday as an eighteen year-old woman stabbed a man in the chest with an ice pick outside a Springfield, Missouri restaurant because she felt that the man had taken her parking space. He was taken to the hospital, but his injuries were not life-threatening. The criminal consequences of the woman’s actions are discussed here.

This scenario illustrates that driving a vehicle with the wrong mindset can lead to liability both from actions taken while driving a car and from actions taken once a driver has stepped out of the car. Plainly put, reasonable people do not attack strangers with ice picks for stealing “their” parking space. Drivers who become so enraged at the thought of someone taking their space that they feel the need to physically assault someone probably should not be driving and should take special care to avoid trying to park on weekends before the holiday season, as it can be strenuous. It is important to remember that although you may have your turn signal on, may have your brother-in-law standing in the space, or may have waited for fifteen minutes for someone to load four kids and one large bicycle into a compact car before pulling out of a parking space, that space does not belong to you. If someone else, as rude as it may seem, manages to get their vehicle into that space before your vehicle gets there, there is not a whole lot you can do about it. Overreacting in the manner described above will go no further toward getting drivers a better parking space, although it may very well land them a free ride to jail. Drivers will also be liable in tort for any damages caused as a result of the unreasonable assaultive conduct. It is simply better to walk an extra few yards in order to save the potential embarrassment and expense.

Source: http://www.news-leader.com/article/20091221/NEWS01/912210340/1007/Man-stabbed-by-ice-pick-in-beef-over-parking-spot

In one of the more unique roadway accidents one will probably ever see, a Pennsylvania man died after his snowmobile crashed into a horse and buggy around 3:30 p.m. last Saturday in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. A fourteen year-old boy was also a passenger on the snowmobile at the time of the accident but was treated at a nearby hospital and released. None of the passengers on board the horse and buggy were injured. The snowmobile was apparently driving north along a road in Lancaster County as the horse and buggy had just turned and began traveling south along that same road. The snowmobile crashed into the front-left end of the buggy and continued north over two-hundred feet, throwing the snowmobile riders from the vehicle. Police have not stated who was at fault for the accident.

This situation illustrates the importance of keeping a lookout for all types of vehicles on the roadway. While one would rarely expect to encounter a snowmobile or horse and buggy in Tennessee, unexpectedly meeting one on the roadway could cause serious problems including a deadly accident for which one or more of the parties could be held liable in a personal injury suit. Many forms of transportation can be quieter or less noticeable than automobiles and thus may not provide ample warning of their approach to nearby drivers. In addition, many of these vehicles, such as a horse and buggy, are not easily maneuverable and may not be well-suited to quickly moving out of the way of an oncoming vehicle. Thus, Tennessee drivers need to take extra care to be aware of the possibility of encountering such roadway obstacles and be prepared to deal with them. Failure by one party to drive cautiously and reasonably can cost someone his or her life, as it did here, or can lead to a personal injury lawsuit seeking damages for torts such as negligence and wrongful death.

Source: http://www.fox43.com/news/wpmt-pmnews-snowmobilebuggyax-12-19-2009,0,3495393.story

A family in Karns, Tennessee got a rude awakening around 1:30 a.m. on Monday morning when a car crashed through their porch and into their home, causing about five thousand dollars worth of damage. Police do not yet know the cause of the wreck, but it is suspected that the primary cause may have been malfunction of the vehicle. If malfunction turns out to be a cause of the accident, the manufacturer of the vehicle, rather than the driver who was driving at the time of the accident, may be liable for the damages.

Tennessee’s Products Liability Act allows a party who is involved in an accident, whether that party is the plaintiff or the defendant, to bring suit against the manufacturer of a product (in this case, the manufacturer of the defective vehicle) to recover damages caused by the negligent manufacture of that product. To be successful in such an action, the person bringing suit against the manufacturer will need to prove that the product was “in a defective condition or unreasonably dangerous at the time it left the control of the manufacturer” under T.C.A. §29-28-105. In making this determination, the statute provides that the state of scientific and technical knowledge available to the manufacturer at the time of the making of the product is determinative rather than the state of such knowledge at the time of the accident. Thus, someone wishing to sue a vehicle manufacturer for negligent manufacture would have to prove that the product was in a defective condition or unreasonably dangerous when it left the hands of the manufacturer based on what the manufacturer should have known at the time the product was made.

The Tennessee Products Liability Act provides several different methods, of which negligence is only one, by which a manufacturer of a defective product can be held liable for damages caused by that product. Products liability suits can be extremely complex and thus will almost always require the expertise of an attorney. However, Tennessee drivers should be aware that they may not be the sole party responsible for accidents such as the one described above.

Source: http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=108466&catid=2

A New Zealand teen recently provided a perfect example of how liability for automobile accidents does not always derive from what someone does while driving. The teen, apparently under the influence of alcohol, decided that it might be fun to stand in the median of a four-lane highway and expose herself to drivers that passed. While this may seem like a plan that could not possibly go wrong, the prank turned a little less funny for the teen after she was hit by a driver who was distracted by her exhibition as she was trying to cross the road. The police inspector assigned to the case told the press that the girl was extremely lucky that the driver who hit her had slowed down because of her behavior. Although the girl rolled up onto the hood of the car and cracked the car’s windshield, she suffered only minor injuries. She was charged with disorderly behavior for her efforts. The criminal consequences of her conduct are discussed on our criminal law blog: http://www.tennesseecriminallawyerblog.com.

Tennesseans should be aware that roadside distractions can give rise to liability for negligence just as easily as actual negligent driving on the roadway can lead to negligence liability. Distracting roadside conduct sufficient to constitute negligence does not always rise to the extreme of spontaneous nudity. Conduct such as dressing up like a cartoon character and flagging down drivers in an attempt to get them to come to your business would also be deemed negligent conduct if it was distracting enough to cause a driver to be involved in an auto accident. While it may seem like a good strategy for restaurants, car washes, or other businesses to get the attention of passing drivers in order to increase profits, one should be careful not to be too good at catching drivers’ attention or the person or business responsible for the roadside distraction could end up paying a hefty amount of damages in a personal injury lawsuit.

Source: http://www.denverpost.com/watercooler/ci_14010425

Negligent driving in a construction zone created a sticky situation near Nashville Friday, after a tractor-trailer crashed into a TDOT truck that was carrying adhesive used to lay down roadway reflectors. Apparently the driver of the tractor-trailer had noticed the signs indicating that he needed to get over to the left lane because he was going through a construction zone and had done so. However, he thought the construction zone had ended before it actually had and got back over to the right-hand lane, at which point he crashed into the TDOT truck, pushing it into the median. The driver of the TDOT truck was taken to the hospital with injuries, but is expected to recover. Crews worked feverishly to remove the adhesive from the road, a task which was made difficult by freezing temperatures and the fact that the substance is made specifically to adhere to the road.

This situation illustrates the need for drivers to be especially aware when driving through construction zones, not only of where such zones start and stop but also where construction workers and vehicles are located throughout the construction zone. When in doubt, it is simply safer to remain in the appointed lane until one is completely sure he or she is free and clear of the construction zone. The driver of the TDOT truck was injured, but he got somewhat lucky in that he was actually sitting in a vehicle and not on foot like many workers in construction zones frequently are.

Continue reading " TDOT Truck Rear-ended by Tractor-Trailer, Driver Injured " »

One of the great things about the fall season for many people is the prospect of going on a hayride, which is usually accomplished by decorating an open-bed truck or wagon with an assemblage of farm-related objects such as hay, corn stalks, or pumpkins and letting people ride around in it for one reason or another.

Hayrides are organized for various reasons. Often around Halloween, people will go on “haunted hayrides” that serve the primary purpose of trying to scare the hayride enthusiasts. Although they were not taking part in a haunted hayride, several hayride-goers from Stanley, Virginia recently got a scare of their own at about 8 p.m. on Tuesday when a vehicle rear-ended their horse-drawn wagon, causing the horses to spook and drag the wagon another 100 yards before it crashed into an electric pole. In all, about a dozen people were hurt in the incident, with one being airlifted to the hospital with a broken leg and four others sent to hospitals with various injuries.

Continue reading " Car Rear-ends Hayride, Twelve Injured " »

In what has to be one of the strangest automobile accidents in recent memory, fifty vehicles were involved in a chain reaction collision around noon last Sunday in Shelton, Connecticut. The road was apparently wet and beginning to turn icy, causing it to be extremely slick. These conditions prevented cars from stopping when they saw that the vehicles in front of them were involved in the wreck, leading to the massive pileup. Forty-six people reported at least minor injuries from the collision and six people were taken to the hospital, but none of the injuries were reported as life-threatening.

This accident is a good example of how road conditions can change in an instant. Once the conditions started to turn colder, the wet road began to turn to ice, causing it to be extremely slick. As this situation shows, being aware of changing conditions does not always help to avoid accidents (as it seems likely that once twenty or so people had piled up on the road ahead of them drivers knew that they needed to try to stop their vehicle) but such awareness often does serve to avoid accidents or mitigate injuries.

Continue reading " Dozens Injured in Fifty Car Pileup " »

Tennesseans experienced some unfavorable driving conditions late Sunday night and early Monday morning when a dense fog covered the eastern portion of the state, leading to dense fog advisories in many Tennessee counties. Fog is one of the few adverse driving conditions that are simply unavoidable, as there is little that drivers can do to counteract the reduced visibility that accompanies foggy weather. Such conditions present a multitude of dangers to those who have to traverse the roadways in heavy fog. Along with these dangers comes an increased burden of extra care that drivers must bear in order to ensure that they do not drive in a negligent manner.

The primary danger that fog presents to drivers is decreased visibility. Thick fog impairs the ability of drivers to see roadway obstacles, other vehicles, and the actual road itself. Drivers who have to travel through foggy areas thus run the risk of not only hitting another vehicle, object, person, or animal in the road but they also run the risk of driving off of the road completely and subjecting themselves and their passengers to whatever dangers lie off of the beaten path. Drivers will thus have to take account of the reduced visibility presented by foggy conditions and drive accordingly. This may encompass slowing down considerably or maybe even choosing not to drive in a certain area at all if visibility is completely diminished.

Drivers are clearly at risk any time visibility is reduced. While foggy conditions are absolutely beyond the driver’s control, choosing how and when to drive in such conditions is not. Choosing to drive recklessly or too fast in such conditions can lead to serious injuries and East Tennessee personal injury lawsuits. Drivers should always be aware that extra care is required when they cannot discern what lies down the road ahead.

Authorities say a female driver may have been both drunk and trying to text while driving when she crashed her car into a roadside sign on Kingston Pike. Making matters worse is the fact that at the time of the crash a twenty-one day-old infant was riding in the car and was not properly restrained in a child restraint device. The child was injured in the wreck and was taken to the hospital for treatment. Multiple charges have been filed against the driver, including Child Restraint Violation.

Tennessee law requires that children be restrained in various methods while in a moving vehicle according to their weight, age, and height. Information about exactly how a child or children that may ride with you should be restrained can be found at the Tennessee Department of Safety’s website. Children under one year of age must be placed in a rear-facing child restraint system in the rear seat of the vehicle if the vehicle has a rear seat (although the child may be placed differently if the child restraint system or vehicle manufacturer’s instructions provide otherwise).

Continue reading " Woman Crashes with Unrestrained Infant in Car " »

Tennessee recently suffered through a barrage of dangerous winds over the past couple of days, with winds reaching as much as eighty miles per hour in some higher elevations. The high winds caused a lot of damage to houses, buildings and vehicles, not to mention destroying the Christmas tree at the State Capitol Building in Nashville. Drivers of sport utility vehicles, tractor trailers, and other tall vehicles that present an increased risk of rolling over need to be increasingly careful in such conditions, as very heavy winds increase rollover risk dramatically. Such winds also topple trees and other objects, creating obstacles in the roadway.

Clearly, there is nothing a driver can do to avoid windy conditions, but there is something that can be done to avoid accidents likely created by such conditions. Perhaps the best way for a driver to avoid negligence under such circumstances is to keep a proper lookout. While it is highly unlikely that a tree will blow over directly on top of your vehicle, sending you to your doom, high winds make it probable that trees or other objects will end up in the middle of the road, creating roadway obstacles.

Continue reading " High Winds Batter Tennessee Drivers " »

With recent heavy rains followed by temperatures dipping into the teens in the early part of Thursday morning, the conditions were ripe for black ice on some East Tennessee roads. Black ice was reportedly responsible for at least a handful of auto wrecks in Knoxville alone. Black ice, by nature, is extremely difficult if not impossible to detect which means that drivers are not going to be able to ensure that they avoid patches of black ice regardless of how carefully they drive. However, it is advisable to make an effort to avoid places where ice patches are more likely to form when weather conditions are favorable for icy roads, such as shady spots on back roads and bridges and overpasses.

Driving slowly and carefully is an obvious way to avoid liability for negligence when conditions are favorable for black ice. Driving carefully will not ensure that a driver will avoid black ice-related accidents, but it will serve to potentially minimize the damage should such ice lead to an accident. More importantly, a driver could be found negligent for driving too fast in such conditions, so driving in a careful manner will eliminate that possibility.

Continue reading " Black Ice Causes Problems in East Tennessee This Morning " »

Two people were injured Tuesday afternoon when a man driving a Ford Tempo tried to improperly pass another car by crossing double yellow lines. While attempting this maneuver, the driver of the Tempo lost control of his vehicle and hit an oncoming truck head-on. Both drivers of the vehicles involved in the accident were taken to the hospital.

Improper passing is a common form of negligent driving and one can see it almost every day on the roadways. Crossing double yellow lines to pass is just one of the methods invoked by impatient drivers in order to get ahead of traffic to attend to what must surely be matters of great importance. Another method of improper passing frequently observed is passing cars who are attempting to turn left by driving on the shoulder. Yet another method of improper passing is driving down a turn lane or shoulder in order to pass cars that are sitting in traffic.

Continue reading " Improper Passing " »

When weather forecasters predicted only a quarter-inch of snow for the city of Indianapolis yesterday, the city immediately began preparations by salting the roads to deal with the expected amount of snowfall. Unfortunately, the forecast was slightly off and the city got four times the amount of snow it was expecting, which rendered its pre-treatment efforts useless and led to virtually every road in the Indianapolis area being covered with ice and extremely slick, causing a multitude of wrecks and horrific traffic conditions. With the roads already being iced over, it was too late for the road crews to do very much about it and they simply had to wait until the temperatures warmed up and the ice melted before they could begin to properly salt the roads again.

Drivers in Tennessee (and everywhere else) should always be wary that roads and bridges can ice over quickly and create impassable and dangerous conditions. While main highways and roadways are usually pretreated when there is adequate advance notice of the conditions, such is not always the case.

Continue reading " Bad Forecast Leads to Icy Roads " »

The City of Methuen, Massachusetts is facing a lawsuit after one of its policemen illegally started a high speed chase last year which resulted in serious injuries to a teenage bystander. Although the Methuen police department has a policy of only becoming involved in a high-speed chase if an officer sees a felony take place and determines that there is a risk of imminent harm to the public, a Methuen policeman decided in spite of the policy to become involved in such a chase after a truck he attempted to pull over for a traffic stop sped away from the scene. The truck driver crashed into the car of the nineteen year-old bystander while running from the policeman, causing serious injuries to the girl. She alleges that she has sustained over $600,000 in injuries, and has filed a lawsuit against the city of Methuen based on the policeman’s negligence. One of the city’s theories of defense is that the injuries to the bystander were caused by her own negligence because she was breaking various unidentified laws at the time.

Massachusetts is then similar to Tennessee in that it is a contributory negligence state, which means that liability for damages arising from an incident can be assessed against the parties involved in the lawsuit in accordance with their degree of responsibility for the injuries. For example, if it was determined that the plaintiff sustained $100,000 worth of damages and that the city was 75% liable for those damages as a result of its conduct while the girl was 25% liable for the damages as a result of her conduct, the city would have to pay the plaintiff $75,000.

Continue reading " Policeman Illegally Starts High Speed Chase, Injures Bystander " »

There are an almost endless number of ways to drive a vehicle in a negligent manner. In a state of naked ambition, twenty three-year old Nicole Smith of Council Bluffs, Iowa recently set out to do almost all of them. At once. Ms. Smith was apparently driving while intoxicated, in the nude, without date tags and with no insurance early Saturday morning when she lost control of her Dodge Durango and slammed into a 1998 Honda and a 1999 Saturn, knocking the cars into a 2002 Ford Ranger. If you are keeping count that is one driver, four wrecked vehicles, zero clothing. The police arrived and she told them that she had been drinking and just wanted to go home. She was taken to the hospital and then released with multiple citations.

Driving under the influence is a method of negligent driving that has been discussed repeatedly on this blog. However, driving in one’s birthday suit is not a topic that comes up with much frequency. Negligence in Tennessee is defined as driving in a manner that a reasonably prudent person would not. For a myriad of reasons, the prudent driver will not drive around in the buff.

Continue reading " How Not to Drive a Vehicle " »

Talk about being unlucky. A fifteen year-old from Jacksonville, Florida was home recuperating from a deadly crash involving an SUV on Tuesday when another SUV plowed through her house and into her room, aggravating her previous injuries and causing several new ones. The driver who plowed through the home was allegedly looking at his cell phone while driving, which caused him to veer off the road, run through a fence, and crash into the home. He has been cited for careless driving.

This is a textbook example of negligent driving. Looking at one’s cell phone instead of the road while driving is not something a reasonably prudent driver would do, as demonstrated by the fact that it can cause a driver to run off the road, bulldoze a fence, and mow down an innocent teenager in her bedroom. The activity the driver was participating in is known as distracted driving and is becoming increasingly common as mobile devices like cell phones become increasingly advanced and able to harbor more distractions. While some of these distractions are quite entertaining, they aren’t an indulgence that works well with the act of driving. The simple fact of the matter is that looking at the road while you are driving is far more important than tabulating the amount of times your girlfriend told you she loved you in your last text message or checking how much your stocks fluctuated during the trip from your driveway to McDonald’s. In the context of personal injury law, one of the worst actions a driver can take in a vehicle is to take his or her eyes off of the road.

Continue reading " Victim Recuperating from SUV Crash Injured When another SUV Crashes Into Home " »

One little-considered aspect of driving in the context of personal injury law is that it’s not just how you drive your car that can lead a lawsuit, but also where you leave it when you are finished driving it. There are certain places you cannot leave a parked vehicle, like in the middle of the road for instance, because it can pose a danger to other vehicles. Recently someone in Massachusetts decided that leaving their vehicle parked on railroad tracks would be a good idea, which worked out just fine until a train came along. The train was traveling about sixty miles per hour when it smashed into the car, but luckily none of the forty-eight passengers on board the train were injured.

While it is highly unlikely that someone intentionally left their car parked on a set of railroad tracks, leaving a car parked anywhere other than a driveway or parking lot can be a dicey decision. Parking a car in such a manner that it can present an unexpected obstacle to someone using the roadway can constitute negligence since reasonable drivers do not park their cars in spots that would cause hazards to others using the roadway.

Continue reading " Train Hits Car Abandoned on Tracks " »

Some couples are so in love they just want to do everything together. For example, a married couple from Defiance, Ohio was recently arrested for simultaneous DUIs while driving separate vehicles, each with a child in the car. Apparently police saw the husband driving in a suspicious manner and pulled him over around 2 a.m. on Saturday, and the wife was spotted sometime later parked on the road nearby. Both of them were found to have a blood-alcohol content over the legal limit, and they were both arrested. Each of the drunken drivers had one of the couple’s daughters in the car, seemingly playing the odds that they both would not crash while trying to drive drunk.

Driving drunk is obviously a bad idea, which is made worse by the decision to drive drunk with children in the vehicle. This kind of conduct will lead not only to criminal charges, but could also potentially lead to personal injury lawsuits. Driving drunk is automatically considered negligent in Tennessee, and a driver will be responsible for any actual damages caused by the decision to drive drunk.

Continue reading " Couple Arrested for DUI with Kids in Vehicles " »