Articles Posted in Automobile Accidents

When you’re driving on the Baltimore Beltway, I-695, or any other heavily travelled Maryland interstate or highway — do you obey the posted speed limits? Or do you let your car or truck go 5 or 10 mph over, or maybe more — hoping Maryland state troopers and police officers don’t catch you and slap you with a speeding ticket? What about on our winding Maryland back roads? Do you slow down per the speed limit signs?

Baltimore County car accident injury lawyers like us know that speeding can be a deadly factor in Maryland auto crashes. Now an investigation by The Baltimore Sun sheds some light on Maryland driving patterns — and how fast drivers go before they get ticketed — based on speeding ticket data. Some “I can’t drive 65” motorists in Maryland believe they can add 10 mph to the posted speed limits, without prompting police to issue a traffic citation. The study took a look at that common driver belief with some interesting findings.

The Sun investigation looked at more than 272,000 speeding tickets given to Maryland drivers by state troopers or police during the 2011 fiscal year. (Automatic tickets issued by speed cameras, put in place in Baltimore and other urban areas to curb speed-related Maryland traffic and pedestrian accidents, were excluded from the study.) Of that amount, over 25 percent of tickets were issued to drivers traveling just 1 to 9 mph over the speed limit. That may come as a surprise to some Maryland drivers who think they’re safe if their speedometer says they’re just going a little bit too fast.

The Baltimore Sun reports that police agencies in Harford County, Md., have created a traffic safety task force — with the goal of reducing serious traffic accidents in the suburban and rural region. According to The Sun, 15 people were killed in 10 fatal car crashes in Harford County, Maryland, this year alone.

Harford County car accident injury lawyers work with injured people and grieving families, when serious auto accidents occur in Maryland. The region’s secondary and rural back roads — many of which weren’t designed for the volume of traffic they handle — can be dangerous for drivers. Add speeding and/or driving under the influence of alcohol to the mix, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

Representatives of county, state and municipal police forces gathered at the Harford County Sheriff’s Office Southern Precinct Station in Joppa, Maryland, this week to sign a document creating the Harford County Traffic Task Force. Participants noted that the most serious motor vehicle accidents in the county are due to speeding or drunk driving. Heavy traffic volume on narrow roadways is also a factor: A traffic study out of the county seat of Bel Air, Maryland notes that 40,000 people travel in one direction on Route 24 every day.

A new insurance industry study confirms something Harford County, Maryland car accident injury lawyers know to be true: Teenage drivers can put themselves and other motorists and pedestrians at increased risk for injury and death. With far fewer miles and years under their belts as compared to adult drivers, teenage drivers lack the maturity, driving skills, and experience to always make sound driving decisions.

Add young passengers to the mix, and the auto accident death rate rate for teenage drivers increases even more.

Now a new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) shows that the problem of teens and motor vehicle crash fatalities begins even earlier than once thought. A recent analysis of crash data reveals that the risk for teens involved in fatal car crashes begins years before teenagers get their drivers’ licenses or learners’ permits — at the young age of 13. That’s a sobering thought for both parents of older Maryland teens as well as young teens who’ve barely entered high school year — but who may hang out with older friends or siblings that drive.

While the invention of Internet enabled smartphones has brought a world of information and communication to our fingertips, it’s also created a serious traffic safety challenge — both here in Maryland and across the U.S.

Your grandparents never could have imagined that one day people would be typing messages to and from each other on small hand-held devices — while driving an automobile. However we’re living in an age of instant, wireless communications, and there’s no going back. This poses a never-before seen problem to traffic safety advocates and lawmakers. How do we get drivers to stop talking and texting, put down their cell phones, and FOCUS on the road?

Some high profile cases in the national news this week have shone a harsh light on texting while driving. These include the first homicide texting while driving case on trial in Massachusetts, and a New Jersey case where lawyers representing two motorcyclists who lost limbs in an auto crash sought to name the sender of text messages in a distracted driving lawsuit (a judge determined the text-sending girlfriend of the motor vehicle driver charged in this case cannot be held liable).

Maryland drivers are no strangers to this frightening scenario. You’re stopped at a red light in say, Baltimore. Just as the light turns green and your foot hits the gas pedal — another car shoots through the intersection in front of you, running his or her red light. You slam on your brakes, gasp for breath, and thank your lucky stars you weren’t broadsided and hurt, or worse.

As a Baltimore County car accident injury lawyer, I know from work with injured and grieving clients that not everyone is so fortunate in this all-too-common scenario. Motorists who run red lights can cause devastating crashes resulting in motor vehicle damage, bodily injury, and death — all to save a minute and avoid sitting at the traffic light.

Some national transportation experts believe that extending yellow traffic light times might cut down on the incidence of drivers running red lights, and curb not only traffic violations but intersection auto accidents. Opponents believe that drivers would adapt to longer yellow light times, and those inclined to race through intersections to beat the red lights would do so anyway.

It’s become a tragic and all-too-familiar news story: A driver involved in a fatal car accident was found to be texting or talking on a cell phone right before the deadly crash occurred.

Often the driver is a teenager, an inexperienced youth operator just learning the rules of the road. However studies have shown that adults can be just as guilty of texting while driving as their teenagers. And while the problem of texting and driving may have overshadowed using cell phones while driving, the latter remains a serious traffic safety concern on par with drunk driving.

The U.S. Department of Transportation declared April as National Distracted Driving Awareness month. With good reason.

If you grew up in my generation, going for a Sunday drive along Maryland back roads was a leisurely family pastime. We kids piled in the back of the sedan or station wagon, with dad at the wheel and mom riding shotgun. Life was a lot simpler in those days.

Looking back, it’s a wonder more of us weren’t injured or killed in Maryland car accidents. We had none of today’s driving laws or vehicle safety equipment in place. No child or infant car seats, no air bags, no anti-lock brakes, and no cell phones if you did run into trouble. The cars may have had seat belts, but we weren’t required by law to wear them. When it comes to traffic safety and preventing auto crashes in Maryland, we’ve come a long way since we were kids.

Thanks to adoption of traffic safety laws, public awareness campaigns, and vehicle improvements, national motor vehicle death rates are back down to the 1961 level. The U.S. Census reports that in 2009, a total 33,808 persons were killed in motor vehicle accidents in this country. That’s as low as it’s been since the early 1960s. Maryland had 547 traffic deaths in 2009. Still, every one of these Maryland traffic crash deaths means someone’s life was cut short. A family was left grieving.

Though Baltimore County commuters might beg to differ, Maryland has recently been ranked as one of the safer states in the country for motorists. (See related Maryland Injury Attorney articles below.) Now a new study released by a national highway traffic safety advocacy group ranks Maryland among states given a “green light” for basic traffic laws on the books.

However many aspects of Maryland traffic laws and regulations could use improvement, as the study authors — and experienced Baltimore County car accident injury lawyers — would agree. Let’s take a brief look at the study findings and recommendations.

Maryland’s basic traffic laws were given “green light” passing grades by the Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety. The group is comprised of consumer, insurance, health, safety, and law enforcement representatives and conducts a national survey of traffic laws by state every year. Its report titled 2012 Roadmap to State Highway Safety Laws looks at 15 basic traffic laws covering a range of safety areas, including use of motorcycle helmets and seat belts, texting while driving, Graduated Driver Licensing (GDL) programs, child safety seats, and ignition interlock devices for convicted drunk drivers.

As a new year begins, it’s worth noting some traffic accident statistics and trends for the state of Maryland. There’s some encouraging news, but many Md. traffic safety and driving challenges remain.

A recent story reported by CBS Baltimore noted that Maryland traffic accident fatalities decreased by 10 percent last year. The report pointed to statistics for 2010 released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). According to NHTSA’s findings, 493 motor vehicle crash deaths occurred in Maryland in 2010, compared with 549 in 2009.

A source from the Mid-Atlantic AAA reported that the decrease in Maryland car crash deaths can be credited to a number of factors. These include advances in automotive safety equipment such as air bags and anti-rollover technology, better road signage, as well as public safety campaigns targeting unsafe driving behaviors, including drunk driving in Maryland.

Last week, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) made a bold recommendation — one that urges states to take another look at their driving laws and has the driving public talking about individual rights versus public safety.

In the wake of several fatal distracted driving traffic accidents, the NTSB proposed an all-out, nationwide ban on talking and texting on cell phones while driving. That would mean no talking on either hand-held or hands-free cell phones and no texting, for any drivers of any age, except in the case of an emergency.

The NTSB recommendation came following examination of a 2010 case in Missouri, where a young man who had reportedly been texting for several minutes crashed his pickup truck into a commercial truck that had slowed down for road construction — setting in motion a chain reaction crash that involved two school buses. The pickup truck driver and a teenage passenger on one of the buses were killed, and close to 40 people were injured, some seriously.