Chicago Personal
Injury Attorney Blog

Seat belts were designed to protect passengers from injury during a collision. The NHTSA reports that lap/shoulder safety belts, when used properly, reduce the risk of fatal injury to front-seat passenger car occupants by 45 percent and the risk of moderate-to-critical injury by 50 percent.

However, injuries can actually be caused by seat belts, and can be quite serious or even fatal. Chicago personal injury attorneys who specialize in auto products liability cases can best represent victims with these types of injuries.

Seat belt injuries typically occur because a defective seat belt fails to adequately protect a passenger during the “second collision”. An Illinois personal injury lawyer explains the “second collision” as that which follows the initial impact or “first collision”. The first collision is the vehicle’s impact with another object or vehicle. The second collision refers to the passenger’s impact with objects inside the vehicle. In the case of passenger ejection, it may refer to impact outside of the vehicle.

Injuries sustained from a faulty seat belt during a collision can range from contusions and soft-tissue damage, to skeletal injuries, severe spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injury and paraplegia.  Victims often report injury to the chest/sternum, abdomen, breast and/or ribs.

While seat belt injuries are undoubtedly painful, they have proven on numerous occasions to be deadly.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that more than 2.9 million people suffered seat belt injuries in 2002, and 43,000 people died as a result of their seat belt-related injuries.

If you have been seriously injured due to an auto-product failure, please contact an Illinois personal injury lawyer for consultation if you live in or around Chicago. Personal injury attorneys can help you receive the compensation you deserve for your injury.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Share This

According to the CDC Department of Health and Human Services, motor vehicle injuries are the leading cause of death among children in the United States. This is a tragic statistic, one that Illinois personal injury lawyers who represent these cases sincerely hope will decline as manufacturers improve the design of their occupant restraint devices.

Occupant Restraint Devices – which include child car seats and seat belts - were designed to save lives, and they certainly  do. According to the NHTSA, child safety seats reduce the risk of death in passenger cars by 71% for infants, and by 54% for toddlers ages 1 to 4 years (2006).

Unfortunately, these life-saving devices sometimes fail, causing severe injury to babies, children and adults. In some tragic instances, a life may be taken.  Chicago personal injury attorneys who specialize in these types of auto accident cases typically become involved when manufacturer liability or negligence is suspected.

In Illinois, personal injury lawyers find the reason children are most often seriously inured or killed in an auto accident is because of a defective child safety seat. In addition, most vehicles are not properly equipped for child safety seats, which means many parents are unknowingly putting their children at risk every time they get in the car.

Fortunately, placing children in age- and size-appropriate restraint systems can reduce serious and fatal injuries by more than half, according to NHTSA. But many critics still believe infants are far from safe in their car seats. (Read a Consumer Reports article stirring the crash test debate.)

If your infant or toddler was injured in an automobile accident and you believe a defective product may be to blame, contact a Chicago personal injury attorney right away.

For a comprehensive list of recalls for child and booster seats (from manufacturers) as well as recalls of motor vehicles with integral child safety seats, visit the NHTSA (Office of Defects) Child Safety Seat Recall Campaign.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Share This

In Illinois, personal injury lawyers often represent victims of rollover crashes. Injuries from rollover accidents are often deadly, and when passengers do survive, they are almost always left with severe head, neck and spinal injuries. Public Citizen, a national non-profit public interest organization, explains some of the details on its site.

When a vehicle’s roof crushes in a rollover, the survival space for occupants is greatly reduced or eliminated altogether – which means the heads and spines of occupants come in contact the roof. In addition, roof crush often shatters windows and windshields, leading to ejection of occupants, which is frequently fatal. Experts estimate that as many as one-half of seriously injured ejected occupants could have received their initial injuries as a consequence of roof crush.

Public Citizen further reports the auto industry has tried to obscure the engineering principles which would have emphasized maintaining survival space by arguing in court and to NHTSA that occupants somehow “dive” into the roof. This ignores the obvious truth that if seats and safety belts held passengers in place during a roll, and if the roof was strong enough to withstand the weight of the car, the head and spine of occupants would be substantially safer. In addition, safety engineers have shown through accident investigations that injuries among occupants directly correlate with the location of roof intrusion in the vehicle. In other words, where there is roof crush, occupants are injured, and where someone is uninjured, there is little-or-no roof crush.

Manufacturers must improve the design of their roofs to withstand the weight of the vehicle in case of a rollover. It is that simple.

Chicago personal injury attorneys and consumer safety groups such as Public Citizen support the creation of a dynamic rollover standard, supported by mandatory crashworthiness protections, in addition to providing consumers with effective, readily available vehicle-specific information at the point-of-sale.

If you or someone you know were injured in an auto accident involving roof crush or passenger ejection, contact a Chicago personal injury attorney immediately. You will need an expert in the field of auto products liability, and engineering principles related to rollover accidents.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Share This

Rollover crashes are by far one of the most serious – and often fatal - accidents that can occur on the road. Every year, more than 10,000 people die in rollover crashes. Even though only four percent of all crashes are rollovers, they still account for one-third of all automobile fatalities.

In Chicago, personal injury attorneys see these tragic cases all too often. The sad truth is that rollover crashes don’t always have to be deadly. Crash forces in a rollover accident are spread out over several seconds, and therefore have less severity than other types of crashes (like a front-end or side impact collision). Illinois personal injury lawyers argue that the deadly effects of a rollover accident are most often due to poor vehicle design … simply engineering over physics.

Were better vehicle standards enforced by the government, auto-makers would have no choice but to improve their vehicles to better protect passengers – which is already being done some industries. If you’ve ever seen a high-speed rollover accident in a NASCAR race, you would know that the vehicle’s roof sustains the crash forces much better than your average family sedan or SUV - which is why the driver typically walks away. This is because the makers of stock cars take great care in designing vehicles that will protect their highly-valuable occupants in the case of a crash.

In the next post, we’ll learn more about the engineering principles that apply to automobiles – simple facts the auto industry works hard to prevent you from knowing about. Consumers must be educated about the safety of the vehicles they are purchasing.

If you have questions about Auto Products Liability and you live in Illinois, personal injury lawyers can help you uncover the truth.

Popularity: 24% [?]

Share This

Injuries from auto accidents can be devastating. While many times severe injuries can be obvious – such as broken bones – some injuries are not so easy to diagnose. In these cases, victims often rely on a Chicago personal injury attorney to help prove the extent of their injuries and true cost of medical treatment and recovery.

Soft tissue injuries, which are common in auto accidents, are often minimized by insurance company lawyers and even some Illinois personal injury lawyers as insubstantial, insignificant, vague in nature, difficult to diagnose, and not worthy of compensation due to limited expenses and treatment options, as well as the unknown factor of recovery.

Soft tissue injuries can include whiplash, muscle strain, muscle spasms, myofascial pain.

Since surgery is not an option, the medical expenses alone are commonly low, and most often comprised of physical therapy, occupational therapy and pain management. The nature of this type of injury, however, should not be measured by medical costs alone; a fact often overlooked by insurance companies and many lawyers.  Some Illinois personal injury lawyers are reluctant to take on such cases especially when the client has returned to work in spite of pain and complications.

A major factor is that unlike a broken bone, soft tissue injuries cannot usually be diagnosed through traditional x-rays, but the pain and suffering — as well as loss of normal life — are real. The attitude of insurance company lawyers is simply: if you can’t see it, it (the injury) doesn’t exist …or at least you can’t prove it.

But today, today, Pain Management physicians use advanced technology and comprehensive evaluations to both diagnose and manage the painful affects of soft tissue injuries.  A competent Chicago personal injury attorney can utilize these advancements to help victims suffering from soft tissue injuries to obtain the compensation they truly deserve.

Popularity: 30% [?]

Share This

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has recently determined that more than ten thousand fatal automobile crashes a year would be prevented if vehicles were equipped with electronic stability control to prevent them from rolling over.

What are the implications?

“This is a really significant finding,” said Bob Lange, General Motors Corp.’s top safety official, at the time the reports were released. Additionally, the federal government’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is currently developing a new performance standard for stability control and is expected to release the proposal soon.

Of course, before one takes this information to heart, one would be well advised to study the history of the NHTSA and the big US automakers, warns our Illinois personal injury lawyer. Oddly enough, he says, one need only study the history of Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard 216, purportedly designed to be a “roof crush test.”

Chicago personal injury attorney: “Simply Google FMVSS 216 and read about the long, tortured history of the federal government developing a sufficiently meaningless and watered down regulation to satisfy the concerns of the large US automakers. In the end, most commentators have agreed that whatever FMVSS 216 measures, it certainly doesn’t measure anything related to whether an automobile can withstand the dynamic forces of a rollover.

“In fact, the federal government has yet to reject the industry’s meritless position that there is no repeatable dynamic rollover test.

“We can only hope that the federal government doesn’t repeat history by writing an electronic stability control ‘federal standard’ that provides protection to the auto industry over the needs of the public.”

Do you agree? For more information on Auto Products Liability or Rollover Accidents, contact a Chicago personal injury attorney who specializes in auto accident cases.

Popularity: 26% [?]

Share This

Many Chicago personal injury attorneys specialize in auto accident cases. These often tragic cases sometimes involve products liability on the part of the manufacturer.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has determined that more than ten thousand fatal automobile crashes a year would be prevented if vehicles were equipped with electronic stability control to prevent them from rolling over. Our Illinois personal injury lawyer asks you to consider the real evidence regarding electronic stability control, and whether or not a mandate would protect citizens.

There are 34,000 fatal crashes in the United States annually. According to this study, electronic stability control could reduce number of fatalities by nearly a third. The risk of single vehicle rollovers involving SUV’s was reduced by 80 percent with electronic stability control.

Stability control - which automatically applies brakes to individual wheels if they sense a vehicle is veering off course - has already become more widely available in recent years, especially on rollover-prone SUVs and pickups.

But there can problems associated with electronic stability control, and some evidence shows it may actually cause accidents. Remember that anti-lock brakes, which were once all the rage in the name of ’safety’, have been attributed to increases in certain types of accidents.

The question asked by Chicago personal injury attorneys regarding mandatory electronic stability control is: Will regulations really serve the best interest of the consumer or the auto industry?

Our Illinois personal injury lawyer will address this topic in the next post. Stay tuned!

Popularity: 28% [?]

Share This

According to Public Citizen (which is a national non-profit, public interest organization) rollovers are among the most survivable of all crash types when aggressive, yet inexpensive standards are applied.

Public Citizen has estimated the costs to improve roof crush resistance and make the vehicle safer to be approximately $100 per vehicle.

While NHTSA has made some changes to roof-crush prevention standards, Chicago personal injury attorneys agree with critics that the new laws offer minimal advances (if any) in the name of public safety. Moreover, these laws further shield auto manufacturers from requirements that would significantly reduce the rates of injury and death.

What Illinois personal injury lawyers can prove about the risk: The Jordan Rollover System is a repeatable, dynamic rollover crashworthiness test that quantifies the strength of the roof. It can accurately determine a roof’s resistance to crush. So why isn’t it required for all manufacturers?

The basis of every lawsuit brought by a Chicago personal injury attorney against auto manufacturers in rollover cases continues to be what the manufacturers knew (and continue to know) about the risk of rollover, and the safety precautions necessary to prevent them.

If you or a loved one were injured in a rollover accident, or simply want to know more about roof crush and manufacturing standards for new automobiles, contact a Chicago personal injury attorney who specializes in these types of cases. In and around the state of Illinois, personal injury lawyers are already fighting for tougher standards. Find out what you can do to help.

Popularity: 28% [?]

Share This

Chicago personal injury attorneys often represent victims of tragic automobile accidents. What is often a secondary tragedy is the fact that many severe, and often fatal, crashes could have been prevented, as is the case in many rollover and roof crush accidents.One-third of all motor vehicle deaths are attributed to rollovers; an estimated 10,000 annually. Another 16,000 are injured in rollover accidents each year. But rollovers represent only 4% of all crashes. Illinois personal injury lawyers ask you to consider the facts.

In a June 2003 report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Agency (NHTSA) - titled “Initiatives to Address the Mitigation of Vehicle Rollover” - the agency describes its mission as follows:

“…to save lives, prevent injuries and reduce traffic-related health care and other economic costs. The department develops, promotes, and implements effective educational, engineering and enforcement programs aimed at ending preventable tragedies and reducing the economic costs associated with motor vehicle use and highway travel.”

A lofty goal, yet the NHTSA has thus failed to enact heightened mandatory standards for rollover protection and crashworthiness; recommendations that consumer safety organizations and members of Congress have argued would save lives.

In the next few posts, our Illinois personal injury lawyers will discuss the tragic facts related to rollover crashes. It is important to understand how the law applies in these cases, and what lawmakers are currently doing to enact better standards – standards which will protect citizens, not automobile manufacturers (as some may argue is currently the case).

For more information regarding Auto Products Liability or Rollover Accident Lawsuits, contact a Chicago personal injury attorney if you live in Illinois. Personal injury lawyers have your interests at heart, and will work tirelessly to ensure you receive the compensation you deserve if you or someone you lover were injured in an auto accident.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Share This

At times, a personal injury case against a company or other entity may not warrant representation by an Illinois personal injury lawyer. If the medical bills and injury are not sufficient to warrant the high expense of gong through the court system where you are represented by a Chicago personal injury attorney, you may consider small claims court.

Filing a case in Small Claims Court is relatively inexpensive and is designed for cases to be prosecuted without an Illinois personal injury lawyer. (Small Claims Court is like the People’s Court on TV.) This is especially applicable when you are suing a company who is likely to have Medical Payment Coverage. If they do, that would cover your medical bills even if defendant was not negligent. Usually companies have a medical payment coverage provision in their policy covering about 5 to 10,000 in bills.

If there is no coverage for MPC (medical payment coverage) you will have difficulty in this type of case because you will have to prove defendant was negligent. They will claim they were not careless or negligent, and you may then need representation by a qualified Chicago personal injury attorney.

Proving negligence or carelessness can be complicated. In Illinois, personal injury lawyers are very familiar with these cases and can usually offer good advice. Consider the merits of your case, and the extent of the costs associated with your injury, and you can determine whether or not to represent yourself in small claims court.

Popularity: 35% [?]

Share This