Highways Keep Getting Safer
As your Indiana Truck Accident Lawyer, we keep our eye on the news about highway safety. A highway accident with a large truck, including a semi tractor-trailer or other large truck, can have devastating effects on Hoosier families. We know these traffic accidents cause paralysis including paraplegia, quadriplegia, amputation and even wrongful death. Prevention of Tractor trailer accidents, and all other accidents is the primary goal of the civil justice system. Keeping vigilant, proving when a truck crash was caused by negligence and requiring the culprit to fairly compensate the injured Hoosiers when negligence occurs is a powerful incentive for trucking companies to comply with over the road safety regulations. After all it is never acceptable to needlessly endanger Hoosier families. Hoosier families are needlessly endangered when truck concerns ignore safety rules and regulations.
The Indianapolis Star reported on March 12, 2010 that the number of people dying on our highway system is at its lowest point since the 1950s. The Star obtained these statistics from the United States Transportation Department. These statistics show that wrongful death on our highways fell nearly nine percent in 2009. This seems like a small number, but it translates to more than 10,000 fewer deaths in 2009 than compared to 2005. This is truly significant given that highway traffic and use has increased in that same period.
It is also gratifying to hear that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is striving further still to bring this number down further. The NHTSA credits wearing seat belts, programs to discourage drunk driving, and cars with better safety features. These are all developments which trial lawyers have advocated and championed for decades.
Unfortunately, 680 people died on Hoosier Highways in 2009. We can do better, but this number represents the lowest number of highway deaths since 1925, when Calvin Coolidge was president, and no one had heard of the great depression or World War II.
If you or your family have been injured or wrongfully killed in a highway accident, call John P. Young, Your Indiana Truck Accident Lawyer, for a no charge consultation.