California Injury Blog

Published on: December 25, 2007

Sharp Spike in Motorcycle Accident Deaths Shown Nationwide

By Brian Chase

Motorcycle accident fatalities are very much a reality in California and across the United States. In fact, a recent article in the San Diego Union-Tribune points out that with more and more baby boomers riding motorcycles, serious injury and fatality accidents are on the rise.

The article talks about the spike in motorcycle accident deaths in North San Diego County. According to the report, the California Highway Patrol has already investigated 15 fatal motorcycle crashes this year, compared to eight last year – that’s almost a 100 percent increase over just one year. CHP officials say they don’t know what’s causing these incidents and what can be done to stop these deaths.

This reflects a nationwide trend as well, according to a recent report from the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), which shows that motorcycle fatalities last year made up 11 percent of all traffic deaths in the United States. That number was only at 5 percent in 1997.
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Published on: December 24, 2007

Nursing Home Violations/Abuse Report Round-Up

By Brian Chase

Nursing home abuse and negligence has become one of the most serious forms of personal injury plaguing our senior population in the United States today. Here is a list of nursing home abuse-related stories that were in the news lately:

AA Citation: Pacific Coast Manor, a nursing home in Santa Cruz, was fined $100,000 after a state investigation concluded that inadequate care led to the death of a 71-year-old woman, the Santa Cruz Sentinel reported. The nursing home reportedly failed to monitor the woman’s narcotic medications, which led to her death. The facility received the AA citation, the most severe penalty for a nursing home violation.

Resident dropped: Sky Harbor Care Center in Yucca Valley is also facing a $100,000 fine after state investigators determined that a female resident died from complications as a result of being dropped on her knees by a nursing home employee, according to the Riverside Press Enterprise. This was the second big fine in one week for this nursing home. The other one had to do with a 91-year-old woman, who had been dropped on her head by another employee.

Accident: Only weeks after its license was fully restored, a Pennsylvania nursing home was slapped with another $3,000 fine after a female resident was dropped while being lifted by a mechanical device. Laurel Cresh had been on provisional license for nearly 24 deficiencies found during an inspection in March.

Fighting back: A Tennessee nursing home is fighting a state fine and ban from accepting new patients. The state’s health department had found numerous violations during investigations at the Hermitage nursing home in October and November.
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Published on: December 23, 2007

Big Rig Drivers’ Hours Of Operation Could Be Increased

By Brian Chase

This is unbelievable. A U.S. Court of Appeals twice struck down the Bush administration’s regulation giving truck drivers more time behind the wheel. But last week, the Department of Transportation (DOT), a federal agency paid for with our tax dollars, decides to reinstate this regulation, which is controversial because it doesn’t make sense.

The Department of Transportation (DOT) not only brought the regulation back, but in the process increased truck drivers’ Hours of Service (HOS) to 11 continuous driving hours and 88 hours in an eight-day period (http://www.theautochannel.com/news/2007/12/17/073670.html). The new rule significantly increases truck drivers’ workdays by 40 percent, more hours over an eight-day period and allows them to drive 28 percent more hours over the same eight-day time period.

This beats logic because it is a known fact that tired truckers cause a majority of big rig crashes around the nation. These are crashes that mostly result in fatalities or catastrophic injuries and 97 percent of the time, the people in the other vehicle (not the big rig) are the most injured or affected.

Fatigue is known to be a major contributor to fatal truck crashes. The National
Transportation Safety Board and other safety research groups all over the world, have found that nearly 40 percent of big truck crashes are caused by driver fatigue. After 17 to19 hours without sleep, a driver’s reaction time is up to 50 percent slower, which is apparently the same as having a .05 percent blood alcohol level.
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Published on: December 22, 2007

Drunk Driving Auto Accidents At All-Time High During the Holidays, Study Finds

By Brian Chase

The Department of Transportation last week released new statistics, which show that the daily death toll from drunk driving crashes is significantly higher during the holiday season.

Data released by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration shows that between 2001 and 2005, there were about 36 deaths a day as a result of an alcohol-impaired driver. That number increases to 45 per day during the Christmas holidays and skyrockets to 54 per day during the New Year’s holiday, the report says. It also states that 38 percent of all traffic fatalities during Christmas involved someone driving under the influence and that number went up to 41 percent during New Year’s.

Driving with a blood alcohol level of .08 or higher is illegal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. This study has kicked of a $7 million nationwide public awareness campaign telling people about the crackdown on drunk drivers during the holiday season by local law enforcement agencies.

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Published on: December 21, 2007

Georgia Jury Awards Family $3 Million in Ford Seat Back Defect Case

By Brian Chase

A Georgia jury has awarded $3 million in compensatory damages against Ford Motor Co. in the case of a 76-year-old woman who died after the seat back of her car broke in a rear-end accident. Mary Reese of Augusta, Ga. was driving a Ford Tempo when she was struck from behind by a big truck that was carrying gravel, the article said.

Her car plummeted down a steep embankment. Reese was taken to the hospital with severe spinal and head injuries. She died 23 days later, the article reported. Reese’s adult children filed the product liability lawsuit against Ford alleging that the seatback failure in the Ford Tempo caused their mother’s lethal injuries. The jury awarded compensatory damages, but not punitive damages in this case.

And what do Ford officials have to say about the verdict? They’re going to appeal the $3-million award, according to a spokeswoman. Ford maintained during the trial that the seats were “made to protect front-seat passengers by yielding and absorbing the energy of a rear-end crash.” The company maintained that the intensity and severity of the crash caused Reese’s death, not the car seat.
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Published on: December 20, 2007

Girls’ Parents Settle For $ 9 Million in Fatal Big Rig Crash

By Brian Chase

The parents of two young girls who were killed in a big rig crash in Madera County last year, have reached a $9 million settlement with the trucking company, the Fresno Bee reported. The accident occurred June 9, 2006 when a concrete pumper truck rear-ended the family car on Highway 41, the article said.

The sisters – Korren Radke, 7, and Chloe Baker, 2, died in the chain reaction crash. The speeding big rig hit the family’s car, which was among several stopped for a disabled vehicle on the freeway. Chloe’s parents – Charles Baker and Amber Allen-Baker — will receive $7.5 million in the wrongful death lawsuit while Korren’s dad, Craig Radke, will get about $1.5 million. Amber is also Korren’s mother.

Another woman, whose car was hit by the big rig after it hit the Bakers’ car, will get $75,000 from the settlement, the newspaper reported. A settlement usually means that the trucking company pays without admitting fault. But California Highway Patrol officials reportedly said that the driver employed by Brundage-Bone Concrete Pumping was driving at an unsafe speed and was not able to stop.
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Published on: December 19, 2007

DUI Crash in Orange County Kills 1, Injured Three

By Brian Chase

This holiday season has already witnessed a multitude of DUI fatality crashes in Los Angeles and Orange counties. A lot of times, the person who is killed is not the drunk driver, but the passenger or the driver of the car that is struck. This time, it happened in the case of a 26-year-old Mission Viejo woman who died in a single-vehicle rollover crash when the vehicle she was riding in crashed into a tree, The Orange County Register reported.

The driver of the 1994 Toyota Land Cruiser, Ann Velasquez, 25 of San Juan Capistrano, was reportedly driving under the influence. The victim, Yesenia Orozco who was not wearing her seatbelt, was ejected from the vehicle on impact and died of blunt force trauma to the chest. The Register reports that she was only four days shy of her 27th birthday. Velasquez, who was also not buckled up, did not suffer life-threatening injuries, but was charged with gross vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence. Two men, who were sitting in the back seat buckled up, suffered only minor injuries, the newspaper reported.
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Published on: December 18, 2007

BLOG EXTRA: Family Hit By An Avalanche of Tragedies

By Brian Chase

Just as a Long Beach family was mourning the death of three girls in a fire caused by a space heater Friday, the girls’ aunt was wounded in a shooting not far from the home where her three nieces died, the Los Angeles Times reported. The 21-year-old woman was reportedly shot in the lower leg when she was standing near the burned detached garage. Stephanie Aviles, 6, and her sister Jasmine, 10 died Friday while another sister Jocelin, 7, died Saturday. Let’s pray for this family that has been hit with one tragedy after another over such a short period of time. And let’s hope investigators zero in on how this horrific tragedy unfolded and who is responsible for it.

Published on: December 18, 2007

Ford Recalls 1.2 Million Trucks, Vans and SUVs

By Brian Chase

Ford Motor Co. is recalling almost 1.2 million vans, sport utility vehicles and heavy-duty pickup trucks because of a faulty engine sensor that could cause sudden stalling and cause drivers to lose control of their vehicles, according to a news report in the watchdog Web site Consumeraffairs.com.

The automaker reported to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) that these defective vehicles could stall without a warning very likely causing a crash, the Web site article said. It also cited an NHTSA report that says that the Ford vehicles’ camshaft position sensor located on the engine could function intermittently and lead to an engine stall and potential auto accident. The sensor in question is an electrical component that helps control the fuel flow into the engine.

This most recent recall reportedly includes vehicles built between 1997 and 2003. Among the recalled vehicles are Ford’s E-Series full-size van, the Excursion SUV and the F-450 Super Duty pickup truck. This hardly comes as a surprise to our personal injury law firm, which has been conducting independent and expensive crash tests on Ford vehicles for many years now. At Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys, we’ve tested Explorers, Expeditions and Excursions and found that these vehicles have dangerous defects.
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Published on: December 17, 2007

15 Passenger Van Crash in New York Leaves One Child Critically Injured

By Brian Chase

Eight children were injured – one critically – in a 15-passenger van crash in Queens. The students were being transported to school illegally because the bus driver did not have the required license, according to an article in the New York Daily News.

Nine-year-old Rebecca Frazier suffered severe head injuries and underwent surgery after the crash while seven other children suffered minor injuries, the newspaper reported. The van’s driver, 60-year-old Gene Boyd, was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment and endangering the welfare of a child, the article said.

New York State prohibits the use of 15 passenger vans to transport school children. The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) has repeatedly issued alerts about the dangers of these vans, which are still used by some schools, universities and church groups to transport larger groups of people. Click here for a complete report by the NHTSA outlining the danger of these vans. Also on this site is streaming video showing crash test results. We would be surprised if anyone gets into one of these death traps after watching these videos.
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