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10 Considerations If You Are In An Accident
With the onset of warmer weather, people are taking to the roads more frequently for vacations, errands or just a casual Sunday drive. This increase in driving habits can also increase your risk for accidents ranging from minor fender benders to serious collisions. With this in mind, we have compiled a list of ten considerations to keep in mind if you find yourself in an accident situation.
1. Ensure that everyone is okay - Your first concern should always be the health and well being of all individuals involved in the accident. Things can be replaced, but people cannot.
2. Get medical attention for those in need if necessary - Once you are able to ascertain everyone's medical condition, do not hesitate to take care of those who need help before you worry about property damage. Remember that in some accident situations, minutes can make the difference in the final outcome.
Identifying Unforeseen Car Accident Costs
Car accidents occur unexpectedly and even with insurance, property damage and personal injury costs can cause strain on any financial situation. One of the goals of a personal injury attorney is to help alleviate this burden. According to the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, an average of over 100,000 car accidents occur each year with tens of thousands of people suffering from injuries. Unfortunately, a car accident can be a painful experience not just physically, but financially as well.
Costs begin as soon as a car accident victim requires emergency room treatment. A reported stated last year that, on average, an emergency room visit costs 40 percent more than a month’s rent. Additional medical costs vary based on the severity of the injury and treatment prescribed. Costs you can recover in a personal injury action or claim can include:
Responding to a Hit and Run Accident
Car accidents are a stressful experience that no one wants to be involved in. However, to ensure that everyone is as safe as possible, the law requires people involved in a car accident to remain on the scene and render aid if possible. Unfortunately, not everyone follows this requirement. This can lead to hit and run accidents. These are accidents where one of the drivers flees the scene, leaving the other driver to deal with the aftermath alone.
A report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reveals that these types of accidents result in over a thousand deaths each year. Fortunately, there are steps that victims of a hit and run accident can take in order to recover for their injuries. Many of these steps involve attempting to track down the driver through witnesses and security camera footage, but even if they cannot be found, there may be other options, such as using the police or the victim's insurance company.
Wisconsin Crash Reports Now Available Online
Traffic accidents are, at their worst, serious events with life altering consequences, but even less severe accidents can be frustrating experiences. Dealing with the courts, the insurance companies, the police, and the body shop can quickly eat up large parts of a day. Fortunately, a new program developed by the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) can make the administrative details of a traffic accident a little easier. The Department has released a new web program that allows people involved in traffic accidents to order their crash reports on a computer or through the use of a smartphone.
Accessing a Crash Report
The new system is already active and running on the DOT's website, as well as through the Department of Motor Vehicles. Accident victims can search the web system using one of three details: They can use their DOT document form number; the DOT accident number; or a combination of the accident date and the driver's license number of one of the parties involved in the crash.
Proper Documents Needed for Auto Accident Claim in Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation reported 109,385 total crashes and 39,369 injuries in its last crash report in 2012. Car accidents occur unexpectedly and even if there are no injuries involved, an accident can still prove to be painful due to unforeseen costs, hassle, and stress.
There are several details that go into filing an auto accident claim, which include requesting reports, gathering information from medical providers, and ensuring that all of documents are received and recorded in a timely manner. Wisconsin maintains a statute of limitations on recovering personal injury damages that cannot exceed three years from the date of the accident.
Increase in Car Accidents Predicted for Holiday Season
Last year the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel named Highway 100, northwest Milwaukee, and area malls as having intersections with the most car accidents in Milwaukee County from 2007-2011. It should come as no surprise that the high volume of cars in mall parking lots is what has led to the annually high number of crashes. With the upcoming holiday season inviting an influx of shoppers, collisions should remain constant as reflected in recent years.
Fender benders are common in congested places and what might seem like a minor accident can turn into a major headache down the road. Understanding the claim process is helpful in order to correctly gather all pertinent information necessary for requesting compensation for damages.
Drivers who have been involved in a car accident need to collect all documentation of the incident, including any records pertaining to required medical care. There is a statute of limitations when filing a claim that personal injury victims should also keep in mind.
New Interactive Map Shows Traffic Fatalities
It seems like every day the news has a report about a tragic traffic accident, but hearing about them just one at at time can make it difficult to visualize the full scale of the problem caused by careless drivers. However, there is now a tool available that can change that. The University of Wisconsin Madison's Traffic Operations and Safety Lab, with the help of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and a local news website, has created a map that allows the public to view the traffic fatalities across the state.
How the Map Works
The software, which appears to be built on top of Google's framework, displays markers representing traffic fatalities over an interactive map of the state of Wisconsin. Clicking on a marker yields more information about the crash, such as when it happened, the number of deaths, and any factors that may have caused the accident.
Police Find Texting and Driving Bans Difficult to Enforce
The advent of text messaging and the rapid spread of smartphones has led to a common problem, texting and driving. People who are texting and driving take their eyes and concentration off the road and that can cause deadly accidents. In response, numerous states have passed laws making it illegal to text and drive; however, these bans are proving challenging for police officers to enforce. In fact, a local Wisconsin news station recently compiled the citation statistics for the four years that the ban has been in place. It turns out that the state police have only issued 229 citations during that entire period.
The Problem with Texting and Driving
The core problem with texting and driving, apart from the fact that it takes people's eyes off the road, is in the way the human brain multitasks. Although the expression “multitasking” is common enough and many people brag about their skill at it, the actual phenomenon itself is something of a myth. People can certainly do multiple things at once, but the brain cannot. Instead, the brain rapidly switches back and forth between the two tasks. At the speed that it does this switching, it seems like multitasking, but the problem is that the constant switching takes a toll on the brain's abilities. What this means for texting and driving is that even when a person is looking at the road, his or her divided attention is preventing him or her from seeing about half of what is going on in his or her visual field. This sort of carelessness can cause accidents, and it is what led the state legislature to pass the texting ban.
Wearable Computers: Anything You Wear Can and Will Be Used against You in a Court of Law
Wearable computers have been hailed as a major technology breakthrough over the past few years, and the technology industry has been betting heavily on their success. From the Google Glass to the Apple Watch, these new computers are slowly making their way into people's lives. Now, they have started making their way into the courtroom. A plaintiff in a personal injury case in Canada is now using evidence from a Fitbit, a wearable computer that tracks a person's activity level, to prove that a person's quality of life changed after an accident.
What Fitbits Are
Fitbits are a wristband that contains a small computer display. Fitbit was designed as an exercise and weight loss aid, a sort of pedometer plus. It links up with a person's smartphone to measure his or her activity, how he or she eats, how he or she exercises, and even his or her quality of sleep. This essentially creates a record of how active someone is throughout the day.
Transportation Projects Commission Recommends Three Major Highway Projects
Preventing the deadly crashes that lead to personal injury lawsuits is the responsibility of a lot of different parties. Drivers have a duty to use caution whenever they get behind the wheel. Automotive manufacturers are obliged to design and build safe cars for the drivers to use. Even state and local governments play a role, making sure that the roads and bridges are up to proper safety standards.
As a part of that ongoing effort, the Transportation Projects Commission has recently recommended three separate highway projects to the governor and the legislature. These three projects each focus on roads that have accident rates that exceed the national average. All told, the total price tag for the projects would be $670 million.
The Transportation Projects Commission
