San Francisco Injury Lawyer Blog

San Jose Accident Attorney on the Danger of Impaired Driving

April 18, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

From fender-benders to fatal pile-ups, car crashes can often be traced back to one fundamentally dangerous decision, a truth we are reminded of daily as your San Jose car accident injury law firm. Opting to drive under the influence of alcohol or drugs is a choice that endangers countless lives. We are proud of our work helping victims of impaired driving and we are also committed to making these accidents a thing of the past.

Police Eye Alcohol-Involvement in San Jose Crash

Authorities believe alcohol consumption contributed to a serious crash in San Jose early Thursday morning. According to the San Jose Mercury News, it was just after midnight when a Chevy Suburban and Honda CRV collided near Almaden Expressway and Coleman Avenue. The Chevy driver was taken to the hospital with life threatening injuries. Police report that the other driver, who also incurred serious injuries, will be arrested on charges including suspicion of driving under the influence.

Recall Highlights the Importance of Child Safety Seats

April 16, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Child safety seats, now standard fare, are a fairly new innovation. Many adults, especially those who came of age in the 1970s or prior, recall having free reign to roam the back seat, a freedom today’s children couldn’t imagine. Today, we know that proper restraints can save lives and prevent serious injury. This blog entry focuses on the proper use of child safety seats to keep our youngest travelers secure. It also provides an important reminder that even “safety equipment” can be unsafe. If a defective car seat contributed to an injury or a fatality, our San Francisco child injury attorney is prepared to help.

1.3 Million Child Safety Seats Recalled for Latch Problem

Evenflo Company Inc. recently issued a voluntarily recall for buckles used in more than 1.3 million child safety seats manufactured between 2011 and 2014. As the San Francisco Chronicle reports, the buckle may become stuck in the seat’s latch. This could be dangerous, even life-threatening, if it hampers a caregiver’s ability to get the child out of the seat in the event of an emergency. The article details the specific seats involved in the recall (not all seats made by Evenflo in the time frame are affected). Evenflo asserts that the malfunction only occurs when the buckle/latch has been exposed to contaminants such as food particles and says they have not received any reports of actual injury due to the problem. The company plans to alert all appropriate registered owners of the recall and to supply replacement parts.

Major Initiatives Are Launched to Encourage Railroad Safety in Wake of Tragedies

April 12, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

This week saw a couple of important developments concerning safety on the rails emanating from the federal government and railroads. The initiatives, a campaign from a nonprofit backed by railroads, a trade group and the government that stresses the dangers of being near train tracks and a set of proposed rules from the Federal Railroad Administration, are welcome measures. And San Francisco train accident attorney Gregory J. Brod joins safety advocates in hoping that these steps will help stem the rising number of deaths on railroad tracks.

On Tuesday, ads began appearing on television for a campaign that has been dubbed “See Tracks? Think Train,” in which a young man is shown walking on railroad tracks while wearing headphones and not realizing that a train is approaching. According to KTVU News, the CEO of the campaign sponsor, Joyce Rose of Operation Lifesaver, which is a nonprofit focused on educating people about the hazards of railroads, believes that the uptick in deaths on the rails in 2013 may be tied to the increased use of smartphones and other electronic devices.

“We’re a distracted population,” Rose said.

Causal factors behind the rail deaths can be the subject for debate, but there is no doubt that there was an increase in fatalities from 2012 to 2013. After a period of declines in derailments and crossing accidents, the number of trespassing deaths jumped by 47, or 11 percent, to 476 last year; the number of deaths in accidents rose by nearly 8 percent to 250 last year.

The campaign is also supported by the Association of American Railroads trade group, major railroads and the FRA. Interestingly enough, the “See Tracks? Think Train” initiative comes on the heels of the tragic death late last month in Marysville, California, where a teenager died on train tracks after being hit by a train when trying to save his girlfriend.

According to the Sacramento Bee, Mateus Moore, a student at the Marysville Charter Academy for the Arts and his girlfriend, Mickayla Friend, both 16, were walking on railroad tracks on March 21 and didn’t realize that a train was fast approaching them from behind. Although the train sounded a warning horn and tried to stop it was too late; Moore died after being hit by the train but not before making the fateful decision to shove Friend away, which helped spare her from the brunt of the collision.

Property owners have a duty of care to remove or mitigate conditions that may cause harm to an individual who uses their property for legitimate purposes. And that duty extends to children who may be trespassers but are attracted out of curiosity to investigate the hazardous conditions of a property, i.e., an “attractive nuisance,” which may be grounds for a premises liability and may or may not be relevant in the Marysville case.

The FRA, which is an agency of the Department of Transportation, says that the number of injuries and deaths changes from year to year depending on factors such as construction near train tracks or stepped-up vehicle and pedestrian traffic.

On Wednesday, the FRA announced that it was issuing a proposed rule requiring two-man crews on trains carrying crude oil and setting minimum crew size standards for most freight and passenger trains. Additional FRA guidelines are expected on securing unattended freight cars, requiring railroads to verify securement of those cars for emergency responders, and mandating that locomotive cabs be locked and reversers to be removed and secured.

There have been several incidents involving the spilling of hazardous materials from trains in recent years, but one that triggered an emergency session of the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee that resulted in the government’s recommendations was the deadly derailment of an unattended freight train carrying crude oil in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, Canada, on July 6, 2013.

“Safety is our highest priority, and we are committed to taking the necessary steps to assure the safety of those who work for railroads and shippers, and the residents and communities along shipping routes,” said U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx. “The proposed rulemaking on crew size is the latest effort in our comprehensive strategy to ensure crude oil is transported as safely as possible.”
Continue Reading ›

As Trucking Accidents Have Gone Up, Authorities Seek Answers in Crash with Bus

April 11, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

It was supposed to be a get-acquainted trip for students from Southern California who had been accepted at Humboldt State University. But the bus trip to the Northern California college turned deadly on Interstate 5 near the Glenn County town of Orland on Thursday when a FedEx tractor-trailer crossed the grassy center divider, slammed into the chartered vehicle, and created a fireball that resulted in 10 deaths and dozens of injuries. The horrific collision has San Francisco trucking accident attorney Gregory J. Brod noting that the tragedy took place in the midst of an upswing in accidents involving trucks in California.

According to The New York Times, state authorities have said that it could take months to determine what caused the driver of the FedEx truck to cross over the divider and hit the bus, a collision that took the lives of five of the students on board among the 10 deceased that included the drivers of both vehicles; 31 more passengers were taken to seven hospitals. In the chaotic scene that unfolded, panicked children, attempted to flee the bus from its windows or the rear emergency door. Many of the children were limping and bleeding from cuts to their faces.

Meanwhile, the bus and tractor-trailer were engulfed in a huge conflagration from the impact that could be heard from as far as one-quarter mile away, according to Glenn County Sheriff Larry Jones, and the collision resulted in I-5 being shut down on both sides of the highway.

“This was a horrific collision,” said Jones, who is also the county coroner. A fire “with very high temperatures” broke out almost immediately after the impact, he said.
There were 47 people on board the bus, including high school students and their chaperones who were from Southern California school districts, including Los Angeles, Long Beach and Riverside. The high school teens were visiting Humboldt State as part of a spring program for admitted students.

A couple of unsettling factors that investigators will be looking into as to why the driver of the southbound FedEx truck veered out of control before striking the northbound bus will be whether the truck driver fell asleep or whether the truck had mechanical problems. The California Highway Patrol noted that prior to colliding with the bus, the truck sideswiped another vehicle, although the CHP said that it was not immediately clear what role that may have played in the subsequent disaster.

One thing that is clear, unfortunately, is that accidents in California involving commercial trucks have been on the upswing lately, with deadly consequences. According to KTVU News, in 2012 there were 1,015 collisions involving commercial trucks in the state, up from 951 in 2009. Indeed, the crash numbers have been on the rise for the last five years, and fatalities and injuries have also gone up during the same period.

Some of the trucking accidents may have been attributable to improperly maintained vehicles – commercial vehicle license holders are required to properly maintain their trucks in California – or the crashes may have been due to an increased number of trucks on the highway due to an improving economy. But another culprit may have been the pressures of meeting deadlines and longer hauls that may be a contributory factor to driver fatigue, which may have been an issue in the Glenn County crash on Thursday.
Continue Reading ›

As Collisions with Cars Prove Relentless, Pedestrians Suffer Deadly Week

April 10, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Since Sunday, it has been a deadly week in the Bay Area for pedestrians who have been hit by motor vehicles, with fatalities in San Francisco, San Jose, Alameda and Sebastopol, and life-threatening injuries for a boy in San Francisco. The rash of deaths and severe injuries has several community advocates as well as San Francisco pedestrian accident attorney Gregory J. Brod hoping that the spate of bad news is not a trend that is sustained through the rest of the year and calling for measures to improve pedestrian safety.

Late Sunday night, a man was struck and killed on Van Ness and and Golden Gate avenues near City Hall in San Francisco. The death was the seventh recorded in San Francisco in 2014, in spite of the fact that the San Francisco Police Department has stepped up its issuing of traffic citations through the first three months of this year in an attempt to curb the uptick in pedestrian deaths in the city.

Wednesday was a particularly deadly day for pedestrians in the Bay Area, with one fatality in San Jose, another in Alameda and yet another in Sebastopol.

In San Jose on Wednesday, a man died after being struck on the East Capitol Expressway in an incident that the San Jose Police Department is investigating as a hit-and-run incident. According to KTVU News, Officers arrived on the scene to find the victim mortally wounded after the suspect vehicle struck him and fled the scene.

In Alameda on Wednesday, a woman died on Otis Drive in front of the South Shore Shopping Center while crossing the street after being stuck by a minivan. According to KTVU News, the woman was pronounced dead at the scene.

In Sebastopol on Wednesday, a man taking a stroll on Healdsburg Avenue was struck while in a crosswalk by an automobile. According to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, the man died in the impact.

crosswalk%20sign-1431140-m.jpg
And on Thursday in San Francisco’s Richmond district, a 3-year-old boy who was either walking or riding his bicycle in a crosswalk at Fulton Street just outside Golden Gate Park was struck by a light truck, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The boy, who was run over by the light truck and dragged several feet, was taken to San Francisco General Hospital with life-threatening injuries.

2013 was a particularly deadly year for pedestrians in the Bay Area. In the region’s three largest cities, San Jose, San Francisco and Oakland, there were a total of 50 pedestrian deaths, including 26 in San Jose, 17 in San Francisco and seven in Oakland. Unfortunately, those figures dovetail with a trend that has been recorded nationwide: pedestrians have been one of the few groups of people using roadways who experienced an increase in fatalities in the United States in 2011 to 4,432, according to the most recent statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Continue Reading ›

Tailgating Accidents: California Lawyer on Prevention and Representation

April 9, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Tailgating ranks high on the list of most-common driving pet peeves. There are few safe drivers who haven’t experienced another driver following so close you swear you could reach out and touch the other vehicle’s bumper, even from the front seat! In some cases, the driver compounds the annoyance by flashing their lights, honking their horn, or making rude gestures. Our San Jose car accident lawyer knows that tailgating is not only annoying, it is also incredibly dangerous. Today’s post looks to remind readers of this danger and also to provide tips on coping with a tailgater. As always, our team is ready to represent the victims of tailgating accidents, helping injured and grieving Californians recover money damages from those at-fault.

Murder Charges Against Teen in Fatal Tailgating Crash that Claimed Life of Pleasanton Cyclist

In a Pleasanton courtroom, prosecutors are presenting a story emphasizing the grave dangers associated with tailgating. As detailed in The Oakland Tribune, the incident at issue occurred on June 9 on a rural road located by Pleasant Ridge Regional Park. According to prosecutors, nineteen year-old Cody Hall was driving a Dodge Neon when he began tailgating a bicycle rider and attempted an unsafe pass on the curvy roadway. Hall then lost control of his vehicle and hit 58 year-old Diana Hersevoort, killing the Dublin cyclist. Hersevoort’s husband was also injured by the Neon.

Questions Linger in Tragic Head-On Crash in Wine Country That Claims Life of Boy

April 8, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

Motorists face enough perils on the road, from unsafe driving conditions to distracted or drunken drivers and more to make driving an inherently risky proposition. Whenever there is a collision involving a motor vehicle it is often the passengers who bear the brunt of such incidents. And, as Santa Rosa automobile accident attorney Gregory J. Brod would point out, children are often the most vulnerable persons in a collision, a fact that was sadly evident in a deadly head-on collision in Carneros on Sunday.

According to the Napa Valley Register, the collision occurred when a Chevrolet Equinox sport utility vehicle collided with an oncoming Lexus RX 450 SUV at about 3:30 p.m. on Highway 12/121. Both vehicles were reportedly traveling at the posted speed limit of 55 mph when, witnesses say, the Chevrolet crossed the double-yellow line into the path of the Lexus and the two vehicles collided head-on. The crash occurred on a curved portion of the roadway and its cause is still undetermined.

What we know, however, is that a 4-year-old Napa boy who was a passenger in the Chevrolet died in the crash, while his mother, Ariel Kirk, 25, who was not the driver, was injured. The boy was strapped into a booster seat that had a base-only apparatus, but the lap and shoulder seat belts were in use. The condition of Flavio Castellanos, the 23-year-old driver of the Chevrolet, is unknown, as are the conditions of John Watanabe, 66, the driver of the Lexus, and his wife and passenger, Cindy Pawlcyn, 58, a well-known St. Helena restaurateur.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, during 2012, there were 33,561 traffic fatalities in the United States, of which 1,168, or 3 percent, were children 14 and younger. The latest data also showed that motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death for children age 4 and every age 11 through 14 in this country.
However, the NHTSA also posted these statistics, some of which were grim while others more encouraging:

An average of three children 14 and younger were killed and 462 injured every day in the United States in motor vehicle crashes in 2012.
From 2003 to 2012, the number of fatalities in the 14-and-younger age group dropped by 45 percent, with the 8- to 14-year-old group showing the largest decrease at 53 percent.
Among children 14 and younger, males accounted for 56 percent of the fatalities and 51 percent of those injured in motor vehicle crashes in 2012.

Part of the reason for the decrease in traffic fatalities among children 14 and younger from 2003 to 2012 may be attributable to the use of restraints, such as lap/shoulder seat belts. In 2012, there were 4,888 passenger vehicle occupants age 14 and younger who died in a motor vehicle crash. In cases where restraint use was known, 18 percent of the children were unrestrained; but among those children who were fatally injured, 40 percent were unrestrained.
Continue Reading ›

Boating Fires: Causes and Seeking Compensation from At-Fault Parties

April 7, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

It isn’t the first danger most people consider when boarding a boat. After all, there’s a touch of irony in the threat of fire when surrounded by water. Still, our San Francisco boating accident attorney knows that boating fires are a very real danger. Fires, fuel and non-fuel-related, were listed by the United States Coast Guard as the primary cause of 264 boating accidents in 2012 , leading to 5 deaths, 99 injuries, and more than $12 million in property damage (see Recreational Boating Statistics 2012, Table 16). When boating fires occur in the waters of Northern California because someone was negligent (for example, an owner, operator, manufacturer, or maintenance provider), we can help victims file personal injury and wrongful death claims and recover critical money damages.

Eight Passengers Escape Burning Boat Off Tiburon

Eight people, five adults and three children, learned about the potential for boating fires firsthand following a Saturday afternoon boat fire off the Tiburon coast. According to KGO-TV ABC7, the owner of a 35-foot fiber glass motor boat noticed smoke about an hour after departing from San Rafael’s Loch Lomond Marina. He alerted the Coast Guard and was told to have everyone don life jackets, jump into the water, and wait for help. The owner fired off flares to get the attention of nearby vessels. While no one spotted the first two flares, a pleasure craft responded to the third and pulled all eight individuals out of the water. Luckily, the riders were rescued after only five minutes in the water and no one was hurt.

Methamphetamine Manufacturing and the Risk of Explosions Threatening Innocent Bystanders

April 4, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

While it isn’t a war in the traditional sense, the War on Drugs has claimed countless victims. In addition to those who’ve died as a result of their own drug use, the War’s victims include babies born addicted, people killed in car accidents caused by drugged drivers, and those caught in the violence of the drug trade. Certain drugs pose their own unique threats, such as the risks tied to methamphetamine (aka “meth”) production. Our San Jose methamphetamine injury lawyer is available to help when a meth explosion injures or kills an innocent bystander in Northern California.

Major Drug Bust Nabs Two, Recovers Meth from Hidden Compartments in Suspects’ Vehicle

Recently, the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office arrested two people in a motor vehicle that contained 37 pounds of methamphetamine stashed in hidden compartments. As reported in the Oakland Tribune, the arrests of Juan Manuel Ponce-Chavez (age 22 of San Jose) and Norma Yolanda Juarez (age 28 of San Jose) followed an investigation that lasted several months. Police believe Ponce-Chavez is a major drug trafficker whose ties run from San Jose to Michoacan, a Mexican state with a reputation for being rife with drug cartels. Investigators place the wholesale value of the seized meth at over $200,000 and note the value is significantly higher when it is split into street-level sale quantities. The suspects are being held in Santa Clara County Jail on bail listed at $1 million for Ponce-Chaves and $500,000 for Juarez.

Gas Leak Prompting S.F. Neighborhood Evacuation Comes on Heels of PG&E Indictment for 2010 San Bruno Explosion

April 3, 2014 | Gregory J. Brod

In the wake of the September 2010 gas pipeline explosion in San Bruno that killed eight people, it would be understandable to expect that residents in the Bay Area who smell natural gas in the air of their neighborhood would be concerned that another such disaster could be in the offing. Out of an abundance of caution that San Francisco personal injury attorney Gregory J. Brod would agree was the prudent course to take, dozens of residents were evacuated briefly Thursday morning in San Francisco’s Western Addition neighborhood after a gas line unexpectedly broke.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, the evacuation was prompted by a rupture in a gas line caused by a construction crew that was working on Divisadero Street near Pine Street. Officials from the San Francisco Fire Department then went door to door in a four-square-block area asking residents to leave their homes. At 11 a.m., one hour after the construction crew’s digging caused the line to rupture, the leak was capped.

“When we arrived on the scene, there was a loud hissing sound and a very strong smell of gas,” SFFD Battalion Chief Khai Ali said.

One could say that there was a hissing of a very different sort connected with the 2010 San Bruno gas explosion in San Francisco on Wednesday from safety advocates and critics of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, their disappointment arose from a criminal indictment that a federal grand jury handed down Tuesday that accused PG&E of 12 violations of the federal Pipeline Safety Act but did not charge any PG&E executives or managers who made crucial decisions leading up to the Sept. 9, 2010, pipeline explosion.

Included among the questionable decisions made by PG&E executives and managers that were cited in the indictment was the use of a pipeline inspection method that failed to detect the problem with the San Bruno line – a badly made seam weld – as well as the operation of a 6,000 mile natural gas transmission system despite the fact that PG&E officials knew records were missing for large sections of the system.

blue%20flame%20609510-m.jpg
“It’s frustrating that it’s just corporate charges and not the individual, because the individuals are hiding behind the corporate veil,” said Carl Weimer, who runs the Pipeline Safety Trust advocacy group in Washington state. “The more you could hold people accountable the better. It really drills down to who really the wrongdoers were. The way it’s left now, it’s just the general corporation, with no individuals accountable.”

The charges listed in the Tuesday indictment carry a maximum penalty of $6 million and the possibility that a judge will appoint a monitor for PG&E’s natural-gas operations.
Continue Reading ›