Rideshare services have gotten extremely popular and for good reason. They’re a great way to get around town without having to pay the hefty fees often associated with cabs and taxis. They also give Colorado residents a great alternative to driving after they’ve been out for a night on the town. Unfortunately, however, they’re not without risk. Just like every car on the road, Uber and Lyft drivers are still at risk for getting into car accidents. So what happens after a ridesharing accident in an Uber or Lyft car?
When you are injured in an accident – you need money now. Unfortunately, insurance companies don’t always want to pay accident victims what they truly need and deserve. As a result, injured accident victims may find themselves involved in a lengthy settlement negotiation or they may need to file a personal injury lawsuit. Hiring an attorney is a critical step towards obtaining the money you need to recover. Unfortunately, many injured accident victims are reluctant to hire an attorney because they’re afraid they can’t afford it. Luckily, this is far from the case. Understanding contingency fees is important if you’re going to understand how attorney compensation works, and what it means to you.
After studying the dangers of speeding, the National Transportation Safety Board recently issued a report, meant to serve as a reminder to drivers, to slow down. According to the report, as much as a third of all traffic deaths over the past ten years involved drivers exceeding the speed limit either by driving faster than the posted limit or by driving faster than the weather or road conditions warranted. The biggest issue with speeding is that the time the driver has to react to a surprise lengthens the distance needed to stop, thereby increasing the chance of a collision.
Both blind spot detection technology and lane departure warning technology have shown themselves to be highly effective as far as preventing drivers from leaving their designated lane, and, as a result, lowering the accident rate. In fact, according to the NY Daily News, lane departure warning systems have decreased accident rates by 11 percent or more, while blind spot monitoring has done even better, cutting accident rates by 14 percent. These numbers were gleaned from studies done by the IIHS, who sifted through law enforcement reports from 25 states to find accidents which occurred between 2009 and 2015, involving vehicles which came with this life saving auto safety technology.
Motorcyclists are at a particularly high risk of dying when they are involved in a traffic accident, due to the fact that a motorcycle affords practically no protection to the rider. Unlike passenger vehicles, which surround the driver and passengers in steel and glass, hold them in place with a seat belt, and, in most newer models even offer airbags, a motorcycle has none of these safety features. Motorcyclists are a staggering 30 times more likely to die in a traffic collision than those in a passenger vehicle, according to statistics from the IIHS.
The month of August has the second-highest number of fatal car accidents, followed by June, July and September. You may wonder what contributes to the dangers of summer driving, and the truth is there are several factors involved in the increase of auto accidents during the these months, including:
Many believe the current opioid crisis is the largest public health crisis since the first outbreak of HIV, which occurred nearly forty years ago. In a recent study done by Columbia University, researchers discuss an effect of the opioid crisis which may not be as well-publicized—fatal car accidents caused by drivers who were taking strong opioids. This current study indicates that the annual number of prescriptions for opioids (methadone, hydrocodone and oxycodone) quadrupled from 1991 to 2014. While there have been several studies done on whether the legalization of marijuana in some states has increased the incidence of auto accidents in those states, this opioid study covers formerly uncharted territory. In a country where nearly 100 million people took some form of prescription opioid medication (as per statistics from 2015), there have been more opioid-related car accidents ending in fatalities than ever before.
Because of the huge push to stop drivers from texting or talking on their cell phones while driving, most of us believe those are the most distracting—and the most dangerous behaviors performed by drivers. A new study puts a different spin on distracted driving, with a conclusion that in-vehicle technology may be even more dangerous than cell phone use—not that cell phone use is not still considered extremely dangerous while you are driving. The study looked at thirty different new (2017) vehicles, finding that twelve of them allowed drivers to program directions while operating the car.
The city of Boulder typically has more than 3,000 traffic collisions a year, with those collisions resulting in an average of 60 serious injuries and seven to ten fatalities. When an auto accident occurs, lives are often derailed—a death from an auto accident takes a loved one away from his or her family, cutting short a life, while a serious injury can prevent the injured person from returning to work, making a living, or even living a life that is remotely close to what it was prior to the accident.
In December, a deadly train accident occurred in Washington state and authorities are looking into whether or not the train engineer was distracted at the time of the crash. Three people were killed in the crash, and all of the crew members were injured severely enough to be hospitalized. Investigators have said that the train was speeding at 80mph and that the conductor was also in the cab with the engineer. Was the Amtrak accident another case of distracted driving?