Boston Car Accident Lawyer Blog

Officials with the National Transportation Safety Board recently released the Most Wanted List for 2014. The list includes the top awareness and advocacy priorities for the agency this year. For the first time ever, many of these focus points include improving operational safety in rail mass transit.

There are millions of Americans, many right here in Boston, who rely on light rail, subways and commuter rail on a regular basis. In the last year, officials with the NTSB have opened investigations into accidents involving a number of transit authorities throughout the nation. In many of these investigations, officials have found that there’s a serious need for some safety improvements.

Our accident lawyers in Massachusetts understand that each year, there are more than 35,000 fatalities on various transportation systems throughout the nation. That right there is enough to put public transportation on the NTSB’s Most Wanted List. But that’s not the only addition to the list this year. Officials have also added helicopter operations to the list. From January of 2003 to May of 2013, there were close to 1,500 helicopter accidents recorded in the U.S.
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There were more than 20 vehicles that earned the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety‘s Top Safety Pick+ for 2014. Seventeen received the Top Safety Pick by meeting the crashworthiness criteria alone. This year, officials with the IIHS used new and tougher criteria in safety ratings. With a Top Safety Pick, a vehicle had to perform well in the front, side and roof strength as well as head-restraint tests.

“We’ve made it more difficult for manufacturers this year,” says Adrian Lund, IIHS President.

Our auto accident lawyers in Boston know crashworthiness should be one of the most important factors in selecting a new (or used) vehicle. In addition, consumers should also look into rollover safety by model, class and manufacturer, and compare safety ratings. You can do this easily, with the click of a button, through the safercar.gov website. With this resource, you can choose vehicles based on a 5-star rating. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s (NHTSA) New Car Assessment Program (NCAP) created the 5-Star Safety Ratings Program to provide consumers with information about the crash protection and rollover safety of new vehicles beyond what is required by federal law. One star is the lowest rating; five stars is the highest. More stars equal safer cars.
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Most all drivers understand the risks associated with distracted driving. So do teens, at least during the first couple months of having a driver’s license. According to NPR, most teenage drivers will start of very careful and cautious behind the wheel, but after only a few months they’ll start multitasking with the worst of them.

According to a recently study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, an older driver is better able to handle talking to passengers or eating behind the wheel. Teens, with their lack of driving experience, often exacerbate these dangers with inexperience or impulsiveness at the wheel.

Our car accident lawyers in Boston know distracted driving is a leading cause of traffic accidents among drivers of all ages. And traffic collisions continue to be the number one cause of death for teens. Within just the first six months of having a driver’s license, new drivers typically start messing with the radio and texting. These new drivers engage in these activities much more than their older counterparts. This may help to explain the high accident rates among teen drivers.
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A man who was fortunate enough to survive a rollover accident on the Massachusetts Turnpike was unfortunately hit and severely injured by a passing vehicle while crawling from his vehicle in search of help. According to JEMS, he was just one of a number people who were injured in this multi-vehicle accident that happened just before 5:00 a.m. It happened by the Oxford-Charlton line, just two miles from the Auburn exit. The collisions caused serious delays on the highway.

It started when a pickup truck drove into the median and flipped over, landing in the center lane. Both the 26-year-old driver and his 25-year-old passenger were able to escape the upside down truck. An oncoming passenger car passed the pickup on the right just before the tractor-trailer passed and hit one of the men. The driver was taken to the UMass Memorial Medical Center and treated for life-threatening injuries. The passenger of the vehicle wasn’t hit by any passing vehicles, but did sustain injuries from the rollover accident. He was also taken to UMass Memorial.

The tractor-trailer then slammed into a sedan that has just passed the wreckage. Both the driver of the sedan and his passenger suffered serious injuries and were also taken to UMass Memorial. The tractor-trailer came to a final rest along the median’s guardrail, after hitting both the sedan and the pickup in the Oxford traffic accident.
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There is a new course offered at Tewksbury Memorial High School: Distractology 101. This course is to help raise awareness and educate our teenage drivers about the risks associated with distracted driving as teens continue to be some of the worst offenders. This course comes equipped with a simulator tour that gives students a hands-on experience to see just what can happen as a result of distracted driving, according to Wicked Local.

“It is rather a state-of-the-art piece of equipment that gives drivers a real-life look at potential disastrous driving situations,” said Distractology Coordinator Danny Corcoran with the Arbella Insurance Group.

Our car accident lawyers in Boston understand that this crash course in distracted driving uses only 45 minutes to help exposure teenage drivers to 8 very difficult and dangerous scenarios that we see everyday on our roads. Through these scenarios, teens are able to see just how disastrous driving while text messaging can be. According to recent studies, there are about 3,000 people killed in accidents that involve a distracted driver in the U.S. each year. In addition to these fatalities, another 420,000 people are injured in these incidents.
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Recently, students of Malden High School gathered to mourn the death of one of their classmates. They lost the classmate in a two-car accident in Wakefield. The student, her mother and her sister were all driving north on Route 16 just before 10:00 a.m. when their SUV slammed head-on into another SUV, according to Wicked Local. The high school student was pronounced dead on scene.

Officials are still investigating the collision, but so far believe that the oncoming vehicle crossed into the family’s southbound lane as the accident happened. Officials also indicate that icy conditions may have been a factor.

Our Boston car accident lawyers know hundreds of people are killed each year when drivers turn the wrong-way into the face of oncoming traffic on high-speed highways. A significant number of these wrong-way drivers involve drivers who have a blood-alcohol level that is more than twice the legal limit, according to Yahoo News. Aside from the intoxicated drivers, officials also point the finger at older drivers. As a matter of fact, drivers over the age of 70 are commonly found in these kinds of collisions.
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It’s that time of the year. We’ve all said goodbye to 2013 and are working to make 2014 even better. With the beginning of a new year comes a time of reflection and improvement. Resolving to quit smoking or to spend more time in the gym is awesome, but we’re asking you to make a New Year’s resolution that can benefit the entire community — to be a better driver.

Did you know that in over 90 percent of automobile crashes, these ‘accidents’ are the result of human error – and therefore it appears we’ve still got a lot to learn. While there’s no such thing as the ‘perfect’ driver, every motorist could improve an aspect of their driving, whether that’s observation, planning, anticipation or hazard management, and in the process reduce their risk of becoming yet another road casualty statistic.

Our Boston car accident lawyers understand that roughly 10 million people are involved in car accidents annually. It’s also the leading cause of death for teenagers in America according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There’s no denying that car accidents cause needless injury and death, and devastation every year. We’re targeting the big three in 2014, asking drivers to be more aware of drunk driving, speeding and distracted driving.
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Speeding while driving is dangerous behavior that could increase the chances of your vehicle losing control or rolling over when you go around a curve. A driver who is speeding is also going to have to hit the brakes sooner because the added momentum caused by excessive speed can significantly increase the stopping distance of your car.

Because speeding is extremely risky for drivers, it should come as no surprise that going too fast plays a role in around a third of all car accidents that occur within the United States. Far too many serious injuries and deaths happen in these speeding-related car wrecks, with the NHTSA estimating that about 10,000 people across America die in speeding accidents every single year. These deaths could all be prevented if drivers simply drove the speed limit and traveled at a speed that was safe for conditions. Most drivers know the importance of obeying the speed limit, but unfortunately choose not to go at a safe speed even though they are aware of the risks.
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Many major publications including the Boston Globe routinely use the term “car accident” to describe a collision that occurs between two vehicles or that occurs between a vehicle and a pedestrian. The use of this term is readily accepted and most people say “accident” to describe a crash without even really thinking about it.

Recently, however, the DC Streets Blog published an article arguing that the use of the word “accident” was not appropriate to describe a traffic collision. The author’s argument was that the term “accident” can imply ‘that no one was at fault– that traffic injuries and deaths are just random, unpreventable occurrences.” Our Boston injury lawyers know that this is not an accurate representation of what collisions are, since they don’t just happen but are instead caused by defective vehicles, dangerous road designs or bad decisions made by one or more motorists on the road. The use of the term “accident” to describe traffic collisions may not drive this point home, as reports of collisions that use the word “accident” could be seen as letting the responsible driver off the hook for his actions.
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