Texas Injury Law Blog

Truck accidents involving trailer underriding or under-running -- where a car or other passenger vehicle passes under a trailer being pulled by a truck tractor or "big rig" -- remain severe personal injury accident hazards to automobile passengers in Texas and elsewhere. Over the years, I have seen that catastrophic injuries -- including occupant death by decapitation, closed-head or brain injury, and spinal paralysis -- almost always result from these common tractor-trailer accidents.

Further, the trucking industry has taken the position that since no federal law specifically requires side underride protection, there is no need for same -- despite the clear risk of serious injury or death from side underride collisions, which are more frequent than rear underrides. Thus, the law still fails, in large part, to protect the motoring public from this devastating auto accident hazard.

Criticism that the trucking industry has ignored these dangers to motorists came to light recently in a Texas court, when a Panola County jury found that a tractor-trailer manufacturer was negligent in failing to protect the occupants of a car that rode under the side of a trailer as the trucker pulled out in front of oncoming traffic. The collision caused the death of the car driver, as well as serious closed-head (brain) injuries and paralysis to a passenger. The negligence or fault of the trucking company was based on its failure to block side underrides -- a relatively novel and mostly untested theory -- and resulted in a jury verdict of almost $39,000,000 in personal injury damages.

Sadly, despite a federal law requiring truck trailers to have a rear underride guard or bar, many older trailers on our highways still lack this basic safety feature. Too, a scary reality is that, with the spread inland of Mexico-based truck traffic from the Mexico border, Texas, other border states, and eventually most of the country likely will see an increase in these always-serious wrecks. But, without stricter federal laws, jury verdicts will continue to be the only engine for change and improved motorist protection from these crashes.

For an excellent resource for learning more about these tragic, yet all-too-frequent, types of auto accidents, as well as for research into many other highway safety issues, I recommend the IIHS (http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/trucks.html), or Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, as a place to start your research.

Continue reading "Texas Truck Accident Underride Kills & Paralyzes" »

Truck driver fatigue is a factor in 15% of truck accidents involving deaths and other injuries, according to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration -- the government agency generally in charge of promoting trucking safety. Despite that sad reality, in 2004 the federal government catered to the trucking industry and its lobby by changing the rules concerning hours that a trucker may drive, actually increasing the hours and resulting trucker fatigue hazard. Soon, even car accidents and SUV rollovers could be surpassed in frequency in Texas by fatigue-related truck accidents. In fact, I would not be surprised to see an increase in driver fatigue-related wrecks, particularly considering the influx of substandard Mexico trucks and their Mexico-trained (if at all) drivers.

A recent Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) website article (http://www.iihs.org/research/topics/trucks.html -- see Vol. 41, No. 8) points out that since those new hours-in-service rules went into effect, truckers have been driving more hours and falling asleep more frequently. In fact, the IIHS stated that, in 2005, the proportion of truckers who reported falling asleep in the preceding month increased to 21%, from about 13% in 2003.

In a related note, the IIHS also reported that the FMCSA has announced plans to require electronic recorders on trucks. Such a "black box" device will monitor hours that its truck driver is driving, thereby making it much more difficult for the trucker to hide his real driving time by "doctoring" or altering his logbook entries of hours driven, rests taken, and so on. (Ironically, the safety-minded IIHS itself has been pushing the federal government to require recorders in trucks for some 20 years.)

With ever-increasing truck traffic as a result of "just-in-time" inventories, NAFTA rules allowing Mexico-based tractor-trailers onto American roads, and the further decline of the rail industry, I believe that the government should take immediate steps to lower -- and not raise -- the number of hours that a trucker can drive without rest. Please do feel free to contact me at any time (help@YantaLaw.com or 800-313-2555) if you would like more information on how you can join the fight against trucker fatigue and for improved trucking safety.

Continue reading "Truck Accidents from Driver Fatigue Increasing" »

Car accidents causing the most severe personal injuries continue to occur in Texas at an increasing frequency in the form of SUV rollovers and similar auto accidents. Car accident rollovers occur in roughly 20% of vehicles in fatal crashes in the U.S., although they account for only about 3% of vehicles in reported wrecks; see National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2006-Traffic Safety Facts, 2004; Report no. DOT HS-809-919, published by the federal government. In fact, I recently read that, according to one report (http://www.iihs.org/research/fatality_facts/occupants.html) by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), more than one-half of all single-vehicle crash fatalities are rollover victims.

Sport utility vehicle or SUV rollovers are the most common rollover wrecks; in fact, 62% of fatalities in SUV's were involved in SUV rollovers, compared to only 23% for car deaths and 45% for pickup truck deaths. With the huge increase in popularity of SUV's, there has been a commensurate increase in rollover crashes and personal injuries. However, until several recent south Texas (Duval County, Starr County and Zavala County, to name a few) jury awards of millions of dollars to victims of SUV rollovers and pickup rollovers became highly publicized, the auto industry seemed to take little action to utilize long-available technology to remedy the problem it long had known to exist.

Now, to reduce rollover tendencies, some vehicles come equipped with electronic stability control (ESC) systems, basically consisting of sensors tied to brakes and engine control units that, along with a computer that constantly monitors the vehicle's responses to the driver's steering actions, apply the brakes to individual wheels when needed to bring the vehicle back to its intended path. I find it amazing that one study has found that ESC systems have reduced single-vehicle fatal crash involvement by 56% (http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/rollover.html at fn. 7). I see hope in such an improvement.

Continue reading "Car Accident Rollovers Cause Severe Personal Injuries" »

Severe personal injuries -- often including spinal paralysis, closed head injury brain damage, and even death -- frequently result from roof crush that is sustained in rollover car accidents in Texas. In fact, of the more than 26,000 people seriously injured in rollover automobile accidents annually in our country, about one in four sustain their injuries in wrecks involving roof crush -- many in SUV rollovers. See the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) submission to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration dated December 19, 2001. Nonetheless, I believe that the auto industry seems to have accomplished little in making passenger vehicles' roofs stronger and safer for the motoring public.

Even though the industry often blames occupant injury on the occupants' "dive into" the overturned roof in a SUV rollover crash, strength of the "safety cage" -- the structural elements in the perimeter of the passenger compartment -- still is an essential crashworthiness design component -- particularly in roof crush rollover accidents: Limiting intrusion -- whether at the roof, doors, firewall, floorboard or elsewhere -- into the passenger compartment's safety cage always is necessary to allow airbag and seatbelt restraint systems the space needed to prevent serious injury. For more data and details, and other safety-related facts, see the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) article at http://www.iihs.org/research/qanda/rollover.html, fn. 10.

Especially in high-speed rollovers -- such as those common along the thousands of miles of Texas freeways and those of other states with speed limits of 70 miles per hour or more -- roof crush often causes catastrophic injuries with tragic results. And, with speed limits unlikely to be reduced any time soon because of the ever-increasing "rush" mentality of today's society, anything done to reduce the likelihood of roof crush would be a welcome development.

Now, I want to share some good news, in the form of the fairly new and increasingly popular electronic stability control (ESC) systems, which basically consist of sensors tied to brakes and engine control units that, along with a microcomputer constantly monitoring the vehicle's responses to its driver's steering actions, apply the brakes to individual wheels when needed to bring the vehicle back to its desired, safe path. This ESC, when combined with improved roof crush strength plus effective restraint (seatbelt and airbag) systems, actually may end up being a giant step towards eliminating the most serious of injuries in roof crush accidents following rollovers.

Continue reading "Roof Crush in Texas SUV Rollovers & Car Accidents" »

Truck accidents on Texas freeways -- from the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo to San Antonio to El Paso -- continue to leave a legacy of death, paralysis, closed-head brain damage and other personal injuries for numerous innocent victims. NAFTA, with its ever-increasing Mexico truck traffic, is expected to usher in a frightful lot of substandard, older Mexican trucks onto our Texas highways and byways. In fact, according to the San Antonio Toll Party's recent article quoting legal analyst Noah Sachs (http://satollparty.com/post/?p=293), "Mexican trucks...are generally older, more polluting, and less safe than their U.S. counterparts"; and "eighty to ninety percent of the Mexican truck fleet was manufactured before 1994." I suggest that it is only a matter of time before Mexico's more unsafe trucks -- driven by their drivers with little, if any, formal training in American truck safety rules and regulations -- render the southernmost sector of I-35, the future I-69 in the Rio Grande Valley, as well as the El Paso sector of I-10, all into virtual incubators of personal injury death, paralysis and brain damage injuries -- and routes to be avoided.

Already, "[a]lmost 5,000 people are killed each year in truck-related crashes. Because of their size and often dangerous payloads, automobile accidents involving commercial trucks are devastating to pedestrians and occupants of other vehicles." Public Citizen's "Truck Safety" (http://www.citizen.org/autosafety/Truck_Safety/index.cfm) (emphasis added). As Mexican truck traffic increasingly goes through Laredo -- as well as through Brownsville, McAllen, Rio Grande City and the entire Rio Grande Valley -- and via Eagle Pass, Del Rio, El Paso and other Texas ports-of-entry, expect more Texas car accidents with Mexican camiones.

Stretching some 1,700 miles from Laredo, Texas on the Mexico border, and then all the way to Canada, Interstate 35 has made Laredo the trucking industry's gateway from Mexico and the rest of Central America into the United States. As a result, "[a]long...IH 35 from Mexico to Canada, the highest levels of fatalities, the worst congestion, the slowest average speed per mile, the lowest levels of service and the highest levels of air pollution all occur in the Austin-San Antonio Corridor" just up the road from Laredo. 2003 Annual Report of the Austin-San Antonio Intermunicipal Commuter Rail District (http://asarail.org/ASA_Annual_Report.pdf), quoting the Federal Highway Administration-Funded Study, 1999 (emphasis added). With greater truck traffic only increasing the frequency of truck-car accidents, expect a dramatic increase in severe personal injuries -- paralysis, brain damage, and even death -- from catastrophic truck accidents, especially where traffic is heaviest -- the Rio Grande Valley and Laredo to San Antonio, and El Paso inward into the U.S.

Let me share with you this brief history: A 1982 U.S. ban kept Mexican trucks off most of the highways of Texas and other states, leaving truck accidents to the domestic trucking industry. However, even after NAFTA -- the North American Free Trade Agreement -- took effect in 1994, the ban held until a 2004 U.S. Supreme Court ruling removed the ban and opened wide the gates to Mexican truck traffic. Despite valiant efforts by consumer organizations concerned about truck accidents, car accidents, exhaust pollution and other public-safety issues, eventually Mexico-based trucks were allowed freely onto Texas roads. That is today's sad reality -- leaving us all at greater risk of car-truck accidents.

Continue reading "Truck Accident Personal Injuries: Rio Grande Valley, Laredo, San Antonio & El Paso Freeways" »

It's just not right: Not only must Texas car accident, truck accident and other personal injury victims fight the insurance companies to get a fair shake, but nowadays they also must swim against the tide of so-called "tort reform." Brainwashed by propaganda bought and paid for by the most dangerous industries and their insurers, potential jurors naturally come into court believing that all injured litigants are exaggerating -- or worse. Sadly, we taxpayers often end up paying the medical and other bills that the wantonly careless and dangerous today escape having to pay, thanks to "tort reform." I believe it's time for the public learn the true facts, and not the spin doctors' propaganda.

Car accident and other personal injury victims normally require expensive health care, and lose paychecks while unable to work. If the insurer for the careless driver, dangerous company, defective product manufacturer or other "injury-causer" is not held liable for the injury, then the victim likely will have no choice but to let Medicaid pick up the health care tab, and let the Social Security System pay disability benefits to replace earnings. The bottom line is that either the "injury-causer" pays, or you and I do. In fairness, whom do you think should pay?

Another reality, unknown to most of the public, is that juries are kept in the dark about insurance companies' involvement in almost all personal injury trials. Even though an insurer actually is behind the entire fight in almost all personal injury cases -- paying for the defense lawyer and any judgment ultimately collected -- the jurors never are told this in a typical personal injury trial. Furthermore, the injured person has to sue the actual "injury-causer" himself, and not his insurance company.

Rather than believe the distortions that continue to be spoon-fed to the public, just as I do in court, I searched for hard evidence -- data that is not "spin" from some Madison Avenue marketer. Along those lines, one article that appears to be an extensive and well-documented resource on the truth about "tort reform" is "The Frivolous Case for Tort Law Change" (http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/bp157), published in May of 2005 by the Economic Policy Institute. In it are many other references documenting this simple fact: "Tort reform" clearly is a very elaborate, and successful, propaganda war being waged by those who maim and kill others -- a marketing jihad to see to it that the guilty never have to pay for those victims' losses. It's just not right!

Continue reading "Car Accidents, Personal Injury & Tort Reform: "Mything the Mark"" »

I know a well-kept secret of the insurance industry—one unknown to most personal injury victims of car accidents, truck accidents, SUV rollovers and other motor vehicle crashes: namely, Texas state law (and likely that of some other states) automatically includes "personal injury protection" (PIP) insurance coverage and “uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage” (UM/UIM) in the typical family auto liability insurance policy. However, in Texas that is not the case if the policyholder rejects that coverage in writing at the time the liability coverage is purchased or renewed. This personal injury help note discusses some basic legal rights involving auto insurance policies in Texas.

Usually, PIP coverage will provide fairly quick reimbursement for medical and other health care expenditures, as well as for certain lost income and other common financial setbacks or “inconveniences” to the Texas car accident injury victim. Additionally, the PIP claims process is a rather simple one. Each Texas policy should have a $2,500 minimum of coverage.

UM/UIM, on the other hand, exists to provide the policyholder (and certain others) with protection from “the other guy” who either has no liability insurance coverage, or has less coverage than the total of all of the personal injury victim's legal losses -- called "damages" -- such as pain and suffering, mental anguish and so on. In Texas, each policy should have a $20,000 minimum of such UM/UIM coverage.

Importantly, because PIP and UM/UIM coverages usually are quite cheap, I strongly believe that there rarely is any excuse for not buying as much coverage as possible from your insurance agency. Thus, I first would decide how much you are willing to pay to protect yourself and your family; next, ask the price of the highest limits you can afford for UM/UIM coverage (and for liability coverage, which in Texas cannot have a coverage limit less than that of the UM/UIM coverage); then, choose wisely, for you or a loved one just might need those extra insurance benefits for the rapidly mounting medical expenses, lost earnings or other losses. Remember, it’s too late to buy that extra protection after the wreck.

Continue reading "Texas Car Accident, Truck Accident & SUV Rollover Tips" »