Articles Posted in Car and Auto Accidents

The State of California requires drivers to carry insurance at all times. Many drivers assume that carrying the minimum insurance required should cover damage done to their car in most instances. However, this is not the case. California Insurance Code Section 11580.1b only requires that drivers buy liability insurance that provides at least $15,000 in coverage for injury or death to one person, $30,000 in coverage for injury or death to more than one person, and $5,000 in coverage for property damage. This type of insurance coverage pays medical expenses and vehicle repair costs to the other driver, if the insured is at fault. Therefore, if you find yourself the victim of a hit and run accident, the minimum amount of insurance would not cover any of your costs.

25% of California motorists are driving without insurance. Drivers who carry only liability insurance are not covered in the case of an accident with an uninsured motorist and must pay for medical bills and for repairs to damaged property out of pocket. In California, a hit and run accident where the driver is unidentified is treated by insurance companies as if it were an accident with an uninsured motorist. According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, 11% of accidents are hit and run accidents nationwide. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration puts the number of hit and run accidents in California specifically at 18% of crashes.

There are optional types of coverage that will pay for some or all of the expenses of a victim of a hit and run crash. First, collision coverage will cover damage sustained by the insured’s car, regardless of who is at fault, including hit and run drivers. However, this type of insurance requires the insured to pay a deductible out of pocket and is more expensive than other types of insurance. In addition, a claim to the insurance company may affect the policy holder’s future insurance rate, regardless of who is at fault. A driver would need to take out an additional personal injury policy in order to be covered for medical expenses in the event of a hit and run accident.

Insurance companies in California are also required to offer uninsured motorists coverage. This type of insurance covers the medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering of policy holders who suffer injuries as a result of an accident with an uninsured driver, including hit and run motorists. Additionally, drivers may choose to carry uninsured motorist property damage coverage for damage to their car. Uninsured motorist property damage insurance is advisable as 80% of hit and run accident involve only damage to vehicles. There is no deductible for this type of coverage, however there may be limits placed on the amount paid out.

If you are the victim of a hit and run accident, whether the driver is identifiable or not, it is recommended that you file a police report. You may have to complete a walk-in report at the police department, as some patrols will respond to the accident site, especially if the accident occurred on private property like a grocery store parking lot. A police report is important documentation of your claim and may be required to pursue a claim with your insurance company if you do have collision or uninsured motorists insurance.
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With the arrival of 2012, our Sacramento automobile accident law firm welcomes the continued efforts of our state legislature to ensure the safety of our youngest residents. Among a number of laws that became effective when the calendar turned to January is a provision expanding the coverage of California car seat laws. Under the new legislation, children riding in cars in our state must be restrained in a properly installed booster seat until age eight. The law does make an exception for children under age eight who are taller than four feet nine inches. This is a significant change from the prior statue which required child restraints only until age six or until the child reached sixty pounds.

As car accident lawyers for Sacramento and all of Northern California, our team at The Brod Law Firm has seen too many children’s lives impacted or even tragically ended by a car crash. Passengers not only rely on the safety of the person driving their vehicle but also on the responsibility and attentiveness of every other driver on the road. Proper seatbelt use is essential for all passengers, but especially for children whose small size and still maturing bodies make them particularly vulnerable. According to the California Department of Public Health, injuries in automobile accidents are among the top five causes of hospitalization and death in individuals under age sixteen. A study by the Center for Disease Control found that 179,000 children were injured in car accidents nationwide in 2009. The same study found 1,314 children under age fourteen died in car accidents that year. Further studies found that 8,325 lives were saved in a thirty year period due to the use of child restraints, numbers that don’t include the many more injuries prevented or limited due to proper child car seat usage.

A few key pointers on child safety seat usage:

As another year comes to a close, The Brod Law Firm wants to thank all the clients who entrusted us to help them in their legal matters throughout 2011. We are proud of our work as your San Francisco personal injury law firm. We appreciate every client who trusts our team to provide legal support after a San Francisco car accident or other life-altering event in Northern California. We enjoy our work as victim’s advocates, but we can only help when victims reach out.

This blog often focuses on news stories and examines both legal and safety issues raised by current stories in San Francisco, Oakland, Sacramento, and the surrounding regions. As the calendar flips, we’d like to take a moment to discuss, on a more general and fundamental level, what we do as personal injury attorneys in Northern California. When a potential client reached out to our firm, we will schedule an initial consultation. This meeting is free of charge and allows our attorney to speak with you about your specific and unique case. In this discussion, we will discuss the appropriate approach to your specific circumstances. This is the start of a team effort, one in which the client is always actively involved as our team brings our legal experience to your case.

Many times, personal injury claims can be resolved without trial. Personal injury lawyers are skilled negotiators. The negotiation process is informed by our legal experience which allows us to evaluate the economic value of your claim. Accepting a settlement offer without your own legal advocate is risky because the initial offer rarely represents the true value of your claim. We have the experience to help you determine whether an offer is fair. We provide guidance but the decision to accept or reject an offer is always yours.

One of the best parts about the holiday season is that it gives us the opportunity to truly reflect on those who enrich our lives. In our work as a personal injury law firm in San Francisco and throughout Northern California, we talk to many victims who have recently undergone emergency care and hospital stays. We are proud to serve as attorneys for accident victims in San Francisco, but we know that there is a group of true heroes who make a real difference in the days after an injury. We applaud a recent piece on CNN that recognizes an often under-appreciated part of the medical system, the nurses.

As the CNN article points out, most doctors are able to schedule holiday shifts to accommodate family traditions. While some are on call, most still get to enjoy the season with their families. However, there must always be a full contingent of nurses on duty to care for those who are spending the holiday in a hospital bed recovering from either illness or injury. A hospital patient often spends many more hours with the nurses than with the doctors, but nurses rarely get the credit they are due. They work long shifts, often twelve hours at a time, yet they remain ready to not only care for the health of their patients but also to brighten their spirits with warmth and little acts of kindness.

Thanking nurses is particularly timely this year. As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, nurses at several Bay Area hospitals are participating in a one-day strike this week. The nurses are protesting contract changes that would impact their union representation and their sick day allowance. The hospital system, Sutter Health, was given notice of the strike so they were prepared to bring in replacement workers to limit the impact on patient care.

As Oakland personal injury attorneys, the Brod Law Firm uses this blog to educate and inform Northern Californians about the law and victim’s rights. First and foremost, we hope to remind residents to exercise caution in preventing accidents. Additionally, we seek to educate victims to allow them to protect their rights if they are harmed in an automobile accident in Oakland or otherwise injured due to the actions of others.

We often use area news reports to provide context to our comments and the nature of our field means these stories are usually reports of accidents and other tragedies. Although this note does have a serious message, it is inspired by a fun take on safety in the Oakland Tribune. A Tribune columnist and his readers have been championing a movement to counteract a frequent pet peeve – drivers who neglect to use their turn signals. The column calls for a movement akin to the “Click it or Ticket” campaign, complete with amusing bumper-sticker slogans reminding drivers to signal before making a turn or lane shift. We applaud this column for addressing a habit that not only annoys other drivers but also places every driver at risk.

California’s vehicle code provides that drivers must ensure movement is safe and signal their intent before turning when another vehicle may be impacted by the movement. The driver’s manual reiterates the importance of using signals for a lane change, a circumstance in which many drivers neglect the precaution. There appears to be little data on how many accidents are caused by a driver’s failure to signal. However, an interesting study by the American Transportation Institute reports that one of the best predictors of future accidents involving truck drivers was a prior citation for failure to signal. The study found the likelihood of a future crash increased by a whopping 97 percent when the driver had previously been convicted of a signal-related offense, making it the top predictor of future collisions.

Road construction and maintenance is a necessary part of life in our times, especially here in California where driving is such a necessary part of our daily lives. At the Brod Law Firm, we represent Northern California automobile accident victims. As Sacramento car accident lawyers, we know that construction zones can be particularly dangerous and that it is especially important to exercise care when driving through work zones or when traffic is detoured to a less travelled route to accommodate road work.

This week Caltrans and the Sacramento Bee urged caution and asked drivers to slow down when using the current Highway 65 detour. Traffic-shifting to accommodate the Lincoln Bypass construction began in June and currently includes a 20mph speed limit in the northbound lanes of the highway in Lincoln near Sterling Parkway. The $325 million project is scheduled to be completed next summer and detours will likely remain in place until the new 11.7 mile span of roadway is opened. When it is finished, the roadway should be an asset to the region’s commuters but the construction process can be frustrating and carries an increased danger of automobile accidents.

According to statistics compiled by federal authorities, there were 680 fatalities in construction zone automobile accidents in 2009, a decrease from 720 the prior year. The studies indicate that at least 46 of the 2009 deaths occurred here in California. Additionally, the 2008 study found 20,000 individuals were injured nationwide in work zone car accidents. Surveys suggest that the most dangerous part of a construction area is the beginning of the designated zone, perhaps due to drivers driving too quickly and having difficulty merging into a new traffic pattern.

As your Oakland automobile accident attorneys, the Brod Law Firm team knows that many factors go into an automobile accident. Impaired or distracted drivers, aggressive maneuvering and poor road conditions can all increase the chance of a tragic outcome. Our Oakland car accident lawyer knows that one of the most complicated and sensitive factors in automobile accidents in the age of the driver. While age affects each individual differently, advancing years can impact reflexes and otherwise impair driving skills resulting in an increased danger of an inadvertent collision.

This week, The Vallejo Times-Herald reported on a car accident that may have age-related roots. In this incident, an 80 year-old driver reported that his foot slipped off the brake and landed on the accelerator. The slip caused the pickup truck to crash into the Safeway store located at 122 Robbles Way. Thankfully, no one was hurt when the truck went through the glass doors, passed by the register lanes and ended up plowing through the aisles until stopping at the far end of the aisles. As of the time of the report, the driver (also unharmed) had not been cited by the police.

With a large population of aging individuals across the nation, concerns about elderly drivers are on the rise. In June 2009, the National Highway Traffic Safety Association conducted a study of older drivers, based on data from 2002 to 2006. The study notes that, in many regards, seniors are often very safe drivers. Drivers over sixty are less likely to be involved in accidents involving alcohol or speeding. However, the study noted that drivers over seventy were more likely to be involved in accidents than their younger counterparts when faced with complex driving situations. This category includes tasks such as making left turns, navigating intersections, or responding to an imminent collision. The study noted this danger increased significantly at age seventy and was less prominent for drivers in their sixties. Drivers over seventy also had greater difficulty driving at dusk, in contrast to higher accident rates at dawn for younger drivers.

Road rage, also called aggressive driving, is particularly dangerous because it combines feverish emotion with bad decision-making. While most of us know what road rage looks like, it is more difficult to construct a concise definition for it, as aggressive driving usually involves multiple or sequential actions. Some states have attempted to create a statutory definition of aggressive driving to allow law enforcement to pull over drivers engaging in such bad behavior. As of November 2010, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, Nevada, North Carolina, Rhode Island and Virginia had enacted aggressive driving laws. The Rhode Island definition of aggressive driving is representative of most states who have created road rage legislation. It states:

“Aggressive Driving” is defined as operating a motor vehicle in violation of any speed law and a violation of two or more of the following traffic law provisions: (1) obedience to traffic control devices; (2) overtaking on the right; (3) driving within a traffic lane; (4) following too closely-interval between vehicles; (5) yielding right of way; (6) entering the roadway; (7) use of turn signals; (8) relating to school buses, special stops, stop signs and yield signs; and, (9) use of emergency break-down lane for travel.

The problem with the definition is it simply lists behavior that is already in violation of the vehicle code and lumps it under one phrase, although it does allow for one citation instead of burdening officers with issuing two or three at one time. The fines imposed for aggressive driving by different states varies widely- from $100 to $5000 (Such high fines are only imposed if the driver caused bodily injury through disregard for others’ safety).

Indiana has one of the strictest aggressive driving policies, making it a Class A misdemeanor to intentionally harass or intimidate a person in another vehicle and engages in aggressive driving as defined by the statute.

By comparison, California has not pursued specific road rage legislation. However, Vehicle Code Section 23103 does prohibit “reckless driving”, defined as “A person who drives a vehicle upon a highway [or off-street parking facility] in willful or wanton disregard for the safety of persons or property is guilty of reckless driving.” Instead of requiring the driver to violate two or more Vehicle Code sections, the California definition of reckless driving allows law enforcement to look at the totality of the circumstances, including intention, when taking action against an aggressive driver.

In 1999, the Department of Transportation held an event called Aggressive Driving and the Law: A Symposium. Its goal was to promote enforcement against aggressive driving at the state level. In addition, the Department of Transportation conduction two studies- The Aggression Suppression Program in Milwaukee, Wisconsin completed in May 2001 and Ticketing Aggressive Cars and Trucks in Washington State: High Visibility Enforcement Applied to Share the Road Safely from May 2006. The symposium and the studies came to the same conclusion that enforcement is key to reducing aggressive driving and resulting accidents.

More than ten years after the Department of Transportation’s symposium, California and the country as a whole is still struggling with road rage. The AAA: Foundation for Traffic Safety’s 2010 Traffic Safety Culture Index states that 52% of drivers said driving feels less safe today than it did 5 years ago, a 17-percentage-point increase over 2009. The Aggression Suppression Program study encouraged law enforcement to look beyond speeding citations and widen their enforcement of bad driver behavior. It found that areas with increased enforcement saw a significant decline in aggressive driving in the future. Further, it encouraged states to advertise widened efforts to crack down on aggressive driving and to increase driver education about the dangers of road rage. Legislation that prohibits aggressive driving is a good step, but publicizing these laws and increased enforcement is essential to have a real impact on the safety of our streets.
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