New Jersey Couple, Who Lost Legs In Accident, Sue Driver That Hit Them While On His Cellphone

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Posted on 28th June 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Here’s what I’m sure will be just the beginning of a rash of lawsuits filed in cases where a driver using a cellphone or texting had an accident.  

Here is such a suit filed  just last week: A New Jersey man and woman are suing a teenaged driver who was using he cellphone when he hit their motorcycle, an accident that left both victims without a leg. 

 http://www.nj.com/news/local/index.ssf/2010/06/dover_couple_who_lost_legs_in.html

The lawsuit was filed in Morris County Superior Court by David and Linda Kubert of Dover, N.J., against Kyle Best of Wharton, N.J., and his father, Nickolas Best. The younger Best was 18 at the time of the accident.

The Kuberts were riding on their Harley Davidson in Mine Hill, N.J., on Sept. 21, 2009, when Best hit them with his father’s Chevy pick-up truck, according to The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.  

Both David and Linda lost their left leg as a result of the accident, with his taken off above the knee and her’s amputated below the knee. They both have prosthetic legs now. 

There is currently a bill pending in the New Jersey Legislature that is named after the Kuberts and a woman who was killed by a driver who was using a cellphone. That bill, known as Kulesh and Kubert’s Law, would impose stricter penalties against those who cause an accident because  they were distracted by talking on their cellphone while driving. 

 The Kuberts’ lawsuit, which seeks monetary compensation, says that the couple has undergone severe emotional distress because of the accident and their injuries. 

After the accident Best got a summons for driving while using a cellphone, in violation of New Jersey law, as well as careless driving and making an unsafe lane change.    

 

Proposed New York Car Insurance Law Is About Accident Victims, Not Money-Hungry Trial Lawyers

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Posted on 22nd June 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Leave it to members of the press, themselves generally disdained by the public, to paint lawyers as money-grubbing shylocks as often as they can.

 So it is in the New York Post’s coverage Tuesday of legislation that would make it easier for car-accident victims to sue in New York State. The story’s headline gives us the Post’s angle right away: “Lawyers In Drive For More Car Suits.”

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/lawyers_in_drive_for_more_car_suits_rkupx2c5cB2KFMM1XyvynK

  The story talks about a bill, supported by trial lawyers, that would increase the number of injuries that accident victims can take to court, opting out of New York’s “no-fault” insurance law. As the Post explans, right now accident victims have to get payment from their own insurance companies unless they have sustained a really heinous injury.

Under the proposed legislation, that list of injuries would grow to include things like muscle tears, pinched nerves or any kind of injury that requires surgery. Do most people believe that an injury that requires surgery is not very serious, or believe that a pinched nerve doesn’t cause as much pain as perhaps a broken bone?

The Post then quotes an executive from an insurance company who calls the bill “a full-employment act for the trial lawyers” at the expense of higher premiums for New York drivers. New York’s car insurance rates are already soaring,  ranking No. 3 in cost in the U.S., topped by only New Jersey and Louisiana.  

The article does give lawyers an opportunity to state their case in favor of  the proposed bill. The head of the New York Trial Lawyers Association, Richard Binko, told the Post that the Empire State’s 30-year-old no-fault law needs reform.

  For example,  the no-fault law was written before there were MRIs and CAT scans to ”properly diagnose debilitating injuries — but still used today to deny legitimate claims,” Binko told the tabloid. 

What gets lost in all these arguments are the accident victims.  Forget about us allegedly lousy ambulance-chasing lawyers. 

Don’t accident victims deserve their day in court, even if they haven’t suffered the kind of injury that no-fault law today deems serious — like disfigurement? Why should you have to lose a limb before you can file suit for your injury? 

Let a jury of an accident victim’s peers decide if he or she has a legitimate case. If not, a judge or jury can just essentially toss the case out, by dismissing it or not granting any award.

India Looks To Tighten Up Lax Training For Pilots After Fatal May Crash

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Posted on 21st June 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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There be some good that comes out of the tragic plane crash last month in India that killed more than 150 people:  India may finally set stricter rules for the training of its pilots.

That’s because pilot error, and the poor training of pilots that’s draw international criticism previously, are being blamed now for the crash at a hilltop runway in the southern city of Mangalore, according to The Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050804575318553971705946.html?KEYWORDS=India+plane+crash

The preliminary finding of the investigation of  the May 22 crash is that the pilot didn’t follow basic safety rules during his approach to the landing strip, touching down too far along a hilltop runway and then trying to get the Boeing 737 back in the air again. 

The plane dropped off a cliff, came apart and caught on fire. It was the worse plane crash in more than 10 years in India, and brought to the forefront again criticism of that nation’s training of its pilots.

For example, in India pilots can fly different plane models during a duty period. That presents some safey challenges, as the  pilot has to vary his or her routine for the different kinds of plane types rather than just sticking with the one.

U.S. airlines don’t allow their pilots to vary the types of planes they are flying during a period. 

The crash has raised another issue: That flight crews have members that speak diferent languages and have different cultural traits, which can gum up communications on the plane and ad to the confusion if there is a crash. According to The Journal, the captain of the plane that crashed was British and of Serbian descent, while the co-pilot was an Indian national.

International air-safety experts have been vocal critics of India’s shortcomings in terms of training pilots. In the aftemath of the May crash, Indian officials said they are making their rules for pilots stricter. For example, one of the proposed changes is that the sole pilot in a cockpit has to stay with his seat belt in his chair, ready to deal with any problems that arise.

That potential directive, according to The Journal, was prompted by a recent incident where a pilot left the cockpit to use the bathroom. The plane hit turbulance when he was gone, and the co-pilot didn’t respond quickly. As a result, the plane plummeted thousands of feet before the pilot got control again. 

 The point is, there were close calls in India before the May 22 crash. Now is the time for India to make the necessary changes so that last month’s disaster isn’t repeated.

 

New Haven Is Connecticut’s Truck Accident Capital

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Posted on 18th June 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Connecticut’s New Haven is a  high-danger zone for trucks, according to an editorial Wednesday in The New Haven Register.

http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/06/16/opinion/doc4c1844d4efcc9348188618.txt

Citing recent data from the state Department of Motor Vehicles, the newspaper said that “drivers of commercial vehicles on highways in New Haven ended up in well over double the number of accidents than than in any other city in the state.”

There were 183 truck accidents in New Haven from November 2008 to October 2009, according to the Motor Vehicle Department.

Hartford only had 70 truck accidents during that period, and Milford had 69.

The Register noted that the state motor vehicle department doesn’t know why these Nutmeg State cities have so many truck accidents. But one theory is that a lot of trucks take I-95 through New Haven rather than Interstate 84 in Hartford, according to the editorial.

Another idea is that construction on two new bridges is distracting truckers, and that the traffic reroutings because of the construction work are causing accidents.

The other “plausible explanation” for all the truck accidents, we are told, is the poor design of local highways and the heavy traffic in the area. The paper points out that ”the intersection of I-91 and I-95 pops up on lists of worst bottlenecks in the country.”

Obviously, these are problems that can’t be solved overnight. But the Register said that police and the motor vehicle  division have kicked up their inspections of trucks, and the paper hopes those increased checks will continue and perhaps make “accident hot spots” safer.   

Eight Killed In Plane Crashes In Arizona, Arkansas

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Posted on 14th June 2010 by gjohnson in Uncategorized

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Eight people were killed, four each in two separate plane crashes, this weekend in Arizona and Arkansas.

In the first fatal accident, a small plane hit an empty high school building in Eagar, Ariz., last Friday. The single engine Piper was going to the Grand Canyon and had just taken off from the Springville, Ariz., airport.    

 http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/06/13/20100613eager-arizona-plane-crash-investigation.html

Authorities found the bodies of four people in the crash wreckage, and they were taken to the Apache County medical examiner’s office. 

The plane had circled above Eagar several times before suddenly nosediving into the Round Valley High School at about 2 p.m. The school was empty because classes are over for the summer.

The second plane crash took place Sunday morning near Umpire, Ark., which is in the southwest part of the state and roughly 90 miles from Texarkana.

 http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jwRpoQ2LuspfgVuu5u8HoFpcT8egD9GAM53G1

A single-engine plane carrying four people had taken off from DeQueen and was on its way to an airport in north Arkansas or southern Missouri. It crashed in a remote part of the Howard County Wildlife Management Area at about 9:30 a.m.