Washington Injury Law Blog

As the 4th of July holiday starts the Washington State Patrol has formed a crack “A-Team” of DUI enforcement troopers to track down more drunk drivers. The new task force will cover three Washington counties: King, Snohomish and Pierce County. The WSP teams only job is to arrest drunk drivers.  The goal is to eliminate all Washington DUI related car accident deaths by 2030.

WSP is actually calling the task force “Target Teams.” The teams are made of the 21 WSP Troopers with the best track record of DUI arrests. The crack teams will be on the roads 7 days a week according to the WSP, with extra man-power on the weekends.

Since 2002 there has been on average a total of 220 people killed per year in Washington car accidents involving drunk drivers. Police are going to be targeting hot spots for DUI drivers. Can anyone say Kirkland!

Do yourself and other drivers a favor and take a cab if you’ve been drinking. The life you may save is more than worth the $30 dollar cab ride.

There was a nice little video clip about 5 things to do if in a car accident.  Take a look:

With federal grant money burning a hole in their pocket Washington law-enforcement agencies are launching a state wide crack down on drivers who speed.  The special enforcement emphasis on speeding will begin this Friday, April 9, 2010 and is being dubbed “Slow Down or Pay Up.”  Over the next four weekends police will be lurking around the roadways of Washington hunting for drivers going over the posted speed limit.  You can expect your local speed traps be be manned during the month of April.

I like to drive fast just as much as the next guy, but it can be a very dangerous activity.  Speeding is almost equal to drunk driving as a cause of death in Washington car accidents.  A difference of 10 mph can double the risk of death in an accident because of the higher impact forces and longer stopping distances required at higher speeds.  From 2004 – 2008 there were 2,941 traffic deaths in Washington, of which 1,166 or 40% were determined to be caused by high speed driving, according to Fatality Analysis Reporting System data.

The special patrols will runs mainly on afternoons and early evening on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays when statistics show drivers speed the most.  Fines for speeding range from $22 to $177.

Be careful out there and drive safe!

Toyota has recalled some 8.4 million vehicles.  Although new reports surface almost daily detailing how Toyota new it had a safety defect in its accelerator pedals but did nothing for years.  Toyota’s failure to warn its customers or recall the defective gas pedals has at last count cost 34 people their lives and lesser injuries to hundreds more.  Outrageous!  That’s 34 wrongful death lawsuit Toyota can expect to be defending.

An what’s worse is that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), which regulates auto makers, knew about it for the last year and did not force Toyota to recall its cars.  Doubly outrageous!!

It’s corporate gross negligence like Toyota’s that results in huge amounts of litigation.  Companies, like Toyota did, choose profits over human lives all the time.  It’s rare the public gets a glimpse of this under the media spot light. 

I’m obviously a biased Kirkland personal injury trial attorney, but am still amazed at the conduct of Toyota executives.  Trial lawyers get blamed for rampant lawsuits, but is that really the case?  No, of course not.  It’s companies like Toyota blaming others or ignoring the mess hidden behind their front doors that lead to lawsuits. 

A little personal and corporate responsibility would have went a long way in preventing needless injuries and deaths to innocent Toyota customers.  Doing the right thing needs to mean choosing safety over profits.  As a consumer you can send that message loud and clear by putting your dollars behind companies who act responsibly while shunning those who don’t.

In one word, YES!  A crash test by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety was recently performed between a 2009 Chevy Malibu and a 1959 Chevy Bel Air.  The video is dramatic, take a look.

The safety features that have developed over the years have made surviving head on collision with little injury much more likely.  Gotta love those engineers!

Related news story

A recent video by a British police department is getting a huge amount of media coverage.  The police department put together an old school scare tactic driving video with all the blood and gore to scare teens straight about the dangers of text messaging while driving in an effort to stop texting caused car accidents.  Check it out:

The video is definitely a bit cheesy, but that scary stats about the dangers of teen texting while driving are not.  A recent study has indicated that teens are more dangerous when texting and driving than when drinking and driving.  It’s better to have a drunk teenager driving than a texting teenager, that’s scary!

As a Washington Car Accident Attorney I have seen the number of car accidents being caused by cell phone use sky rocket.  Whether you’re distracted by texting, emailing, or talking on your cell phone it all is dangerous to other drivers on the road around you.

Here’s a suggestion.  Turn off all audio chimes that let you know you have a new text, email or anything new on your cell phone.  Check your cell for new stuff on your timeline, not every time it chimes at you.  You’ll be surprised at how much less frequently you look at your cell and how much more productive you can be with your time.

Drive safe!

Max Meyers, Esq.

I was reading the news stories of today and found no less than three different reports of single vehicle car or motorcycle accidents that resulted in fatalities.  At least two of which had speeding as a contributing factor.

There’s been a bit of a heat wave in Seattle and the rest of Washington for a while now.  The long sunny days and warm summer nights can lead people to do things they may not normally do or engage in recreational activities they only do in the summer.

Speeding is a high risk activity and car accidents at high speed normally cause very serious injuries and may even cause death.  An Olympia teenager learned this lesson that hard way yesterday.  The young man is under arrest for vehicular homicide and assault after a car accident killed his front seat passenger Silas Turner, 18, of Olympia and sent his rear seat passenger to the hospital with injuries.  Summer nights, inexperienced drivers and speed often equals tragedy.  My sincere condolences go out to the Turner family.

A Vancouver, Washington man died after he crashed his motorcycle in Yakima over the weekend.  The man was riding a 2007 Harley-Davidson on U.S. Highway 12 when he rode onto the shoulder and hit an embankment causing him to flip his bike.  The man suffered fatal injuries despite wearing a helmet.  A moments inattention or mistake on a motorcycle can lead to a devastating motorcycle crash.

We love to enjoy a little extra freedom here in the Northwest when the long hot days of summer hit.  But please keep safety in the forefront of your mind.  It’s great to have fun, but one mistake can lead to a life altering tragedy if you push the limits too far.

Be safe!

Max Meyers, Esq.

A recent national survey by federal safety officials on alcohol and drug use by drivers found 16% of drivers tested on weekend nights were positive for drugs, including marijuana, cocaine and prescription sedatives.  Scary!  But really, you kind of suspected this anyway.  If you’re driving on a Friday or Saturday night don’t you already expect a fair amount of the drivers may be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. 

There is some good news, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration survey for 2007 found 2.2% of weekend drivers were over the alcohol limit of 0.08%.  This is down from 1996 where the weekend drunk drivers were 4.4% of all drivers.  Alcohol related fatal car accidents has also gone down by half in the last decade.

The survey also found that men are 42% more likely to be a drunk driver than women.  Early morning hours, 1 a.m. to 3 a.m., was the time drivers were most likely to be drunk.  This is a bit obvious, but confirmed by the survey none the less.

Many of my Kirkland car accident clients have been hit by drunk drivers.  My clients often suffer serious injuries while the drunk walks away injury free.  Although, in the end hopefully the drunk driver is held accountable for his negligence and recklessness in causing the accident.   

You might think that if you have an injury case involving a drunk driver you’re case must be better than most.  And yes on its face it is, but the insurance company will likely admit to liability for causing the accident and your injuries.  An injury case is divided into two legal parts, liability and damages.  The liability part is where it is determine who is at fault for causing the accident, i.s. who was negligent.  The damages part is where it’s determine how badly you were injured, i.e. medical bills, lost wages, out of packet expense, physical pain endured, and mental suffering endured.

When the insurance company for the drunk admits fault, then as a general rule you don’t get to talk about what caused the accident in any lawsuit that may follow.  Shockingly, judges routinely order me to not talk about or ever mention my client was hit by a drunk.  Insurance company lawyers argue and judges often agree, that it is too prejudicial to the drunk driver to mention that he/she was drunk when fault has been admitted.  They fear the jury will punish the drunk driver for driving drunk alone and ingnore how badly you were or weren’t injured.  I believe this under estimates the capacity and intelligence of jurors. 

Where does that leave you the injured person?  You are left only with the ability to talk about the extent of your injuries and all you had to go through during recovery.  There is an exception for people who have suffered emotional trauma as a result of being hit by a drunk.  If you have received mental health counseling to deal with your trauma from being hit by a drunk driver, then it may be possible to mention the fact that the driver was drunk to the jury.  It depends on the specific facts of your situation and you should speak with an experienced personal injury attorney who has handled drunk driver car accidents in the past.

For now, when driving on Friday or Saturday night keep in mind that a fair number of the other cars on the road are likely being driven by people under the influence.  Drive safe!

Max J. Meyers, Esq.

Mr. Noble drove the wrong way down I-5 on January 18, 2009 and caused a violent car accident that resulted in the serious injury of two women.  He is expected to plead guilty to a felony charge today stemming from that car accident and DUI.   Mr. Noble had a blood alcohol level of 0.22, which is almost three times the legal limit of 0.08.

The two women suffered broken bones in the car accident and Mr. Noble also suffered serious injuries.  Mr. Noble will likely plead guilty to vehicular assault that carries a 3 to 9 month jail sentence for first time offenders.

At 5:00 a.m. 19 year-old Amanada Young was driving on Highway 167 in Puyallop, Washington with a 14 year-old girl as a passenger when she veared into the oncoming lanes of traffic.  Thge resulting car accident was horrific.  The 1987 Mercedes Amanda was driving was splint in two ejecting her and her passenger from the car. Ammanda was found dead and her passenger was to Children’s Hopistal in tacoma.

One car hit by the Mercedes was driven by Kenneth Harter, of Buckley, who also suffered critical injuries and was taken to Tacoma General Hospital.  A second car hit by the Mercedes was driven by Jacob D. Jones, of Bonney Lake, who received minor injuries.

It sounds like Amanda fell asleep at the wheel and crossed into on coming traffic.  Fatigue is one of the biggest causes of car accident fatalities.  If you find yourself falling a sleep at the wheel, pull over and take a quick 15 minute nap.  It may just save your life and that of the drivers on the road with you.

Max Meyers, Esq.