Month: December 2009

If you are in a car accident, or highway accident with a car or truck owned by the government you get hurt just as bad as if the car or truck is owned by a private person.  You can have a back injury, a brain  injury, paralysis, or even wrongful death.  But, what you did not know is that if the car or truck is owned by the government, you may get no compensation for your injuries.

In Indiana, the government gave itself a lot of protections that the little guy is not entitled to.  To do this, the government  created the Tort Claims Act.  This Act, which is a legislative creation, limits the amount of money the government owes in compensation.  So, take for example a person who is in a car accident with a car owned by the government.  Let’s also say the person has a brain injury and is paralyzed.  Let’s also say that the medical bills for this injury total $1,000,000.00.  In that case, the government is only responsible to pay $750,000.00.  This means that the person will owe out of his own pocket $250,000.00 for medical bills even though the accident was not his fault.  He will not be able to send his kids to college because he can’t work, but that makes no difference, the Government protected itself by limiting how much it has to pay.

In addition to this protection the Government gave itself a bunch of other protections.  They are called immunities.  These immunities make it so the government does not owe a dime to the person it is responsible for hurting, even if the government was the sole cause of the car accident or highway accident.  The Tort Claims Act gives the government 16 different immunities.  The little guy gets no immunities.

If you are in a car accident with a government owned car, call Young and Young.   We have represented hurt Hoosiers for more than 55 years.  We know how the government works to protect itself.  We are accident attorneys who know how to protect you.

If you have a car accident or a highway accident, resulting in severe injury such as brain injury, back injury, paralysis, spinal cord injury or wrongful death, you may have to have a trial to sort out who caused the car accident or highway accident.  If this happens, it pays to have experienced accident lawyers on your side.  How do you know if a lawyer is a skilled accident attorney?   Well there are a couple of ways.  Usually an advertisement is not the way to find out.  Most lawyers who advertise cannot get work any other way.  It often means they do not have experience and other lawyers or former clients will not recommend them.  Those lawyers who invade the privacy of a car accident or construction injury victim  appear to be chasing the ambulance. It doesn’t take much to advertise. Experience in the Court room is the key issue.

Go to the website for the National Board of Trial Advocacy.  This group certifies lawyers, in the same way doctors become board certified.  To be board Certified, a lawyer must have a minimum number of trials.  They must also pass a test.  To remain certified, the lawyer must complete a minimum number of trials in the last five years.  A certification from the National Board of Trial Advocacy is good evidence that the accident lawyer you select has the know how to properly represent you if you are injured by a drunk driver, or hurt in a construction accident, or any other type of injury.

Another way to find a good lawyer is to ask a friend who they recommend.  If the first friend does not know, ask a second.  If your friend or family member has gotten good results with a particular lawyer, chances are good the lawyer is able to properly handle your case.  Just because a lawyer says he means business, or its just that easy to recover, does not mean they have the know how to represent you.  Ask the lawyer questions.  Ask about his experience, not the people who work for him, but his experience.  How many trials has he had in the last 10 years?  His experience, not the experience of the people who work for him.  Ask if he will personally handle your case.  Ask if he is board certified.  If he’s not board certified, or promises to handle the case and then doesn’t, or you can’t get him on the phone, then you probably do not have a lawyer who will be able to handle your case.

I spoke about trial experience because a good accident attorney knows from experience what to expect at trial.  In a car accident case, whether against a drunk driver or a sober driver, statutes controlling the use of the road are extremely important to who will win the case at trial.  The rules of the road are there to keep us all safe.  We all have to work together to make the roads safe, and rules of the road do just that.  Good accident attorneys will use the rules of the road to show who was the cause of the accident.  If a driver violates the rules of the road, the law says that violation can be used as evidence as to who caused the collision.  Take for example a person who is driving 45 miles per hour in a thirty mile per hour zone.  Travelling that much faster than the speed limit  is evidence that that driver was negligent.   There are many different rules that are effective at showing who is negligent.

If you are a juror, and you hear that someone violated the rules of the road, know that you are being told that driver was negligent and likely was a cause of the collision.  This is good evidence upon which to base your verdict.

At Young and Young, both John P. Young and Fredrick W. Crow have been board certified trial lawyers for more than ten years.  John and Fred are accident attorneys who have the knowledge and experience to win at trial. Give us a call.

We do it everyday.  When we are children, it is so dangerous that our parents will not let us  do it on our own.  Schools hire guards to make sure we are safe crossing the street.  Cars are so much bigger and heavier than we are that a car wreck between a car and a pedestrian almost always results in serious injuries to the pedestrian.  These injuries include paralysis, spine injury, spinal cord injury, brain injury and wrongful death.  In traffic accidents between pedestrians and cars, the cars always win.  Therefore, the pedestrian has to be careful.

The first rule of good street crossing is to always cross in a cross walk.  You may have heard that you should always cross at an intersection.  While this is a good rule of thumb, it is not hard and fast.  Some crosswalks are in the middle of a street.  These are marked with heavy white stripes (like those on the album cover of the Beatles Abbey Road).  Many times these cross walks are also accompanied by a flashing light.  Nine times out of ten, if a pedestrian is hit while fully in a cross walk, the fault for the car accident is the driver of the car not paying attention.  In fact, there are a series of statutes in the Indiana Statutory code which give pedestrians in cross walks special privileges.  One statute requires all cars to stop at a cross walk if another car is already stopped.  This is true even if the light is green for those cars.

Simply because you are in a crosswalk does not guarantee your safety.  Always be on the lookout for your best interest.  A drunk driver is not going to honor the rules of the crosswalk or your right of way, and because the car is bigger than you, you will lose the battle.  So, do not walk out into traffic unless you are certain you can make it across without being hit.  Be especially careful for the good Samaratin who stops and waives you across.  Although all other cars are supposed to stop, most won’t.  So do not step out from behind that car until you can confirm you will not be hit.  Always cross with the light at an intersection, but keep an eye up the road to make sure that everybody sees you and the red light.  Some won’t and you will have to act fast.  Also keep an eye out for the turning driver, especially if you are walking in the direction opposite travel on a one way street.  The turning driver on the one way street will always look for cars coming at them, but rarely looks for the pedestrian coming from the opposite direction.  In those cases, always wait for the car to pass unless you make eye contact with the driver and they acknowledge your presence.

Pedestrian collisions are a common road accident.  Injuries from these traffic accidents can be severe.  If you or a loved one is injured, we have more than fifty five years of experience waiting to help.  Please call or email.

As we have discussed in parts one and two of this topic, thousands of Hoosiers are killed, paralyzed, suffer spinal cord injury, brain injury, amputation, and wrongful death in a car accident with a drunk driver. Traffic accidents with drunk drivers cost injured or killed Hoosiers and their families dearly not only in medical bills and lost income, but also in the loss of the injured or killed persons love, attention and affection.  How can Hoosiers protect themselves against a drunk driver with little or no insurance?  Imagine a parent is heading home from work.  This parent is the bread winner for the family of three, the other parent and two young children.  The working parent earns $80,000.00 dollars per year.  She is hit by a drunk driver.  Her injuries are so severe she is admitted to the hospital.  The hospital bills total over $300,000.00 dollars.  Her future medical bills will be $25,000.00 per year for the rest of her life.  She is only 30 years old, so she is expected to live another 50 or so years.  This makes her future medical bills about $1,250,000.00.  She will have lost wages of about $2,975,000.00.  The drunk driver has no insurance, what happens?

If the wage earner had planned ahead, she will be able to make a claim against her own insurance company under her “Uninsured motorist coverage”.  You may say, “That’s not right, why should she have to make a claim against her own insurance policy when it was the drunks fault?”  You would be right, of course, it’s not fair.  In a perfect world everyone would carry enough insurance to compensate people they hurt in a car crash.  We all know this is not a perfect world.  As such smart drivers protect themselves by buying uninsured motorist coverage.  The smart thing to do is to buy a policy in an amount of say $250,000.00.  Then you buy an “Umbrella policy.”  An umbrella policy will pay after the first policy is exhausted.  Umbrella policies are relatively less expensive than the underlying policy.  You should be able to purchase $1,000,000.00 for as little as $150.00 per year.  The increases for $1,000,000.00 and up are progressively less expensive.

I have been handling cases where the victim has been seriously injured for more than twenty years.  I’ve given seminars for more than ten years on the subject and am coauthor of what many consider to be the definitive book on Unisured Motorist Coverage in Indiana.  If you have been injured by someone else’s negligence, call me. Put my know-how to work for you and your family.

Since President Eisenhower created the interstate Highway system in the 1950’s America has enjoyed the ability to move freely across the country in rapid pace.  In addition the trucking industry eclipsed the rail system in the volume of goods moved across the country.  In a real sense, the interstate highway system is a key factor to America becoming  a super power.  A consequence of the high speed roads, passenger cars must travel side by side with semi tractor trailers. This creates the very real potential for car wrecks which result in fatal accidents, back injuries, brain injury, motorcycle accidents, spinal cord injury and wrongful death.  A truck accident is one of the most devastating types of traffic accidents because of the vast difference in size between a truck and a car or motorcycle.  It is kind of like the rule of gross tonnage in shipping.  The ship with the highest gross tonnage usually wins in a collision.

In an effort to minimize the devastating effect of car truck collisions, trucks are highly regulated.  The Federal Motor Safety Carrier Regulations are an attempt to keep us all safe.  These rules and regulations were put into effect by an act of congress, after several statistical studies, included those performed by the Office of Motor Carriers of the Federal Highway Administration.   These studies revealed some startling statistics.  In 2005, 5,212 people died in accidents with trucks.  Those who were not killed, but were injured totaled more than 100,000. Almost 40% of those truck accidents were caused by truck driver error.

The Federal Rules can be found at Title 49 of the Code of Federal Regulation. Indiana adopted the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulation as part of our state regulatory scheme.   It may seem obvious, but the purpose of these rules is to promote uniform rules, applicable across the country for trucks and trucking.  In this way everyone has the same set of rules to follow so everyone can be safe.  This uniform set of rules also justifies the basic idea that ignorance of the law is no excuse.  This helps avoid truck accidents which might result in bad accidents resulting in paralysis.

In our next blog we will be covering specifics of the act.  Rest assured that Young and Young has the knowledge to fully and aggressively represent Hoosiers, and their families who have been hurt or killed in a truck accident.  We have had a presence in the Indiana Legal community for more than one hundred years.  Our Firm has been operating under the Young and Young name for more than 55 years.  We have represented hundreds of families involved in truck accidents.  We have represented families with serious injury including brain injury, spinal cord injury, paralysis and death.  We stand ready to help you and your family.

Motorcycles are a great way to see the country side.  Cruising down the road with the wind in your hair and nothing but the open road between you and happiness.  Motorcycles express the American dream in ways we feel deep in our collective souls: independence, rebel, free spirit.

Learning to be safe on a motorcycle should be the first step.  Indiana requires a rider to obtain a special license to ride a cycle.  Riders are encouraged to take a special course to learn the tricks and the dangers in riding.  ABATE offers a great class.

Most collisions or crashes between a cycle and a car occur because the driver of the car does not see the motorcyclist.  This happens when a car makes a turn across a cycle’s path, pulls out in front of the cycle or changes lanes when the cycle is in the car’s blind spot.  To avoid being put in this danger as a motorcyclist, you must always assume that you cannot be seen and ride defensively.  Your headlight must always be on.  Fortunately headlights today automatically come on when the cycle is started.  We are seeing dual headlights and flickering headlights which draw a car driver’s attention to the light.  Even with these aides you must drive within the speed, limit, pass only in passing zones, maintain a safe distance between cars, etc.

Even though a helmet is unpopular with many riders, it is an essential piece of safety equipment. One spill on the bike, with no helmet makes it likely that the old melon ( your head) is going to hit the pavement.  There is only a small piece of bone and a couple shear pieces of tissue between your brain and the pavement.  There is no cure for a brain injury.  The only way to deal with it is to avoid it.  You only have one brain, so protect it.  Protect it, if not for yourself, then for your lover, your child, your mom or dad, but protect it.  Be safe, wear a helmet.

In the Indianapolis Star, Monday December 14, 2009, a story describes the charges brought against a school bus driver who, allegedly, did not extend the stop sign on the bus when dropping off a child. The bus driver is facing potential jail time for her actions. The school bus is the most iconic transport for our children. It is equipped with stop signs to make the travels of the children, to and from the bus as safe as possible. The bus stops at all railroad crossings and has extended mirrors for safety. Those who refuse to stop for the bus stop sign or proceed with caution when a bus begins to slow or accelerate are not acting reasonably. A reasonable person knows that children do not always use good sense and do things which will put them in danger. Therefore, the reasonable person moves more slowly and cautiously around a school bus.

The reasonable person also behaves the same way when driving in a residential neighborhood or near a school. Children live and play in these areas. Children will do silly things, like run into a street without looking. We see all the time the “Kids Dart” signs. The reasonable person will treat a child like a stop sign, i.e. when there is a child, or children, present the reasonable person will be able to come to a complete stop in an instant to save the child. I tell my driving children that it makes no matter who’s fault the collision might be, if you strike and injure or kill a child, you will be haunted by it for the rest of your life. Getting to practice or the game or the party five minutes later is a small price to pay to live without that weight on your conscience.

The reasonable person is also always scanning for kids in the residential neighborhood. Kids are small and can be blocked by a car or a tree or other things. If there are children present, the reasonable person knows they can run into the street, and drives more carefully because of that knowledge. The reasonable driver knows that children sometimes sled down hills that lead into the street and that such a child will not be able to stop. The reasonable driver drivers more cautiously in residential neighborhoods because of this knowledge.

We all must live together. We must use caution to protect the lives of the precious children who cannot protect themselves. The reasonable driver does this by driving at reduced speeds in residential neighborhoods, and evermore cautiously when children are present.