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Category Archives: Michigan Driver Safety

What to do (and what not to do) when driving in a winter white out

Safety tips: when weather and road conditions change from clear to blinding snow in a matter of seconds

driving in winter white outRecently, there was a 12-minute whiteout on I-75 in southwest Detroit that caused a 30-vehicle accident, killed three people and injured many more.

I spoke to a driver from that crash recently, who described what he had encountered.  The white-out was scary, because whiteouts are so blinding that the drivers involved lost control, crashed into each other and were rear-ended.

What is a whiteout?

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Michigan Amtrak train derailment has serious consequences for passengers

What injured passengers should do while the investigation ensues, and what benefits you’re entitled

Today we spoke with a man who was injured in the dramatic Amtrak train derailment that occurred on October 21, 2012 in Niles, Michigan.  The information is slowly beginning to unfold.

This is our third train accident that we have been involved with, and there are certain lessons that it holds for Michigan lawyers who are starting to receive calls from people who were injured on the train. The most important lesson is patience.  Unlike a car accident, where an investigation is performed immediately, and a UD-10 is available sometimes within hours, accident investigators are expecting that this train derailment investigation could take months. For all the people sent to the hospital and seeking medical attention, that’s a long time to wait.

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AT&T Don’t Text While Driving video

Hat tip to AT&T for its video on texting while driving.  It sends a powerful message.  I know many of you have now seen this commercial (see below) that’s been running on television lately. It features a young man with a serious traumatic brain injury. He is in physical therapy and it’s clear that it is very difficult for him to move to do simple tasks, and to speak. He even says that some days he just wants to give up. This man tells us that his injury is from a car accident and we learn the crash was due to his texting and driving.

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Landmark texting while driving accident case ends in motor vehicle homicide conviction

As attorneys, it has become common to see preventable crashes caused by texting. People still lie, but it is pretty easy to get the records and show they were texting when they caused a car accident.

And one question we are often asked by the people we are helping is what are the penalties for texting while driving in Michigan? I answered this question in a recent blog, and went as far to address what happens if you hurt or kill someone while texting and driving here.

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Tea Party should vote against Chief Justice Robert Young for the Michigan Supreme Court

Partisan, wildly activist, rabidly pro-insurance and anti-consumer defines Justice Young’s record on Court

Shouldn’t Justice Robert P. Young, Jr. be the anti-Tea Party candidate for the Michigan Supreme Court this November? Then how ironic that Justice Robert Young is now attempting to portray himself as standing for the principles of the Tea Party movement before the upcoming election.

If they only knew about the real Justice Young.

There’s a lot I liked about the original Tea Party. Not the one that has lately been kidnapped by Karl Rove, Roger Ailes, and the corporate establishment, but the original grass roots movement. Chief among those admirable qualities was that the tea party seeks to represent ordinary Americans in a world where both political parties seem kidnapped by special interests.

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Are you an out-of-state student attending college in Michigan? Beware of this dangerous car insurance trap!

Carry No-Fault insurance on your car or face severe consequences if you’re involved in a  car accident

Live out-of-state but attending college in Michigan?   Here’s a rather nasty insurance trap that a lot of innocent out-of-state college students fall into every year.

The consequences can be devastating for them.

I’ve been practicing law in Michigan for nearly 20 years, specializing in helping people in car accidents.  And I’ve helped out-of-state students going to school in this state who’ve been injured in car crashes.  Here’s the trap I’ve seen the people I’ve been helping fall into:

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National Stop on Red Week

What happens if you run a red light in Michigan, and tips to prevent red light running car accidents

I always say that car accidents are really not “accidents.” Most car crashes are due to inattention, distracted driving or corporate negligence (especially in truck cases). As a car accident lawyer for nearly 20 years, I can tell you that when people are hurt and killed in “accidents” that involved red light running, it is completely devastating. Imagine hurting or killing someone just because you wanted to save a couple of seconds and carelessly ran a red light…

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Are women more sensitive to pain?

How chronic pain affects women, and why attorneys must understand the difference between men and women who are injured in car accidents

Chronic pain cases are often misunderstood by personal injury attorneys. Gender differences are exploited by defense medical examiners, and used by defense insurance lawyers in car accident cases as a way to blame the victim, or argue that the pain is really in her head, is malingering, is secondary gain, or from a somatoform pain disorder. It’s an ugly game, and as a lawyer helping people injured in car accidents for nearly 20 years, I see it being played nearly every week.

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3 of Oakland County’s worst intersections are roundabouts

Whatever happened to roundabouts being safer? Tips driving safely through roundabouts and reducing roundabout car accidents

Last week, I wrote a blog about the 10 most dangerous intersections in Oakland County, Michigan for 2011. I found this list especially interesting, because three of the worst intersections are roundabouts, which are supposed to reduce car accidents.

According to an article in the Spinal Column, Lake Area home to 3 of 10 highest crash intersections, A study published in the Transportation Research Record reported that converting 23 test intersections throughout the U.S. from traffic signals to roundabouts reduced car accidents causing injuries by 80 percent, and reduced all crashes by 40 percent in those areas.

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Why are women more likely to be hurt in car accidents?

Cars women should buy

Women have smaller bones and less bone density than men. Usually the muscles in and around the neck are weaker. These both put women at greater risk of suffering personal injury or death in a car accident.

This is an incredibly important issue, but women have been ignored for years. From male test subjects to male crash dummies, it’s about time this safety issue is being addressed. As a car accident attorney for nearly 20 years, I can tell you that I’ve also seen defense insurance lawyers abuse women in the courtroom, and watched as defense “experts” deliberately used misleading crash data, based upon male test subjects, to heap doubt on women clients who suffered serious traumatic brain injury and physical injuries.

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