Fort Worth Injury Attorney Blog

What is negligent entrustment of a vehicle?

Negligent entrustment of a vehicle occurs when an owner of the car allows another individual to use it and the individual causes harm to a 3rd party. This type of arrangement happens quite often especially among family members, friends and companies. For example, a company may let some of their employees use a company car to drive for a period of time. This example is considered negligent entrustment because the employer is the party that is entrusting their employee with the car. For the harmed party to pursue this type of action, the plaintiff will have to prove several elements, such as:

1. The owner of a vehicle entrusted it to another person

Most families enjoy the companionship of a dog. People enjoy the happiness and joy they bring to the family or to the individual. However, not all dogs are nice and playful to everyone who comes their way. Some dogs lash out and act aggressive towards children or other individuals in their area. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention concluded around 885,000 Americans are bitten by a pet each year with injuries that require medical attention.

https://www.cdc.gov/features/dog-bite-prevention/.

Dog owners are not all mindful of their duty to maintain their dog(s) in a contained area or on a proper durable leash that won’t let the dog astray. When dog owners neglect their duty, it may lead to a dog bite, which in turn could cause injuries for the plaintiff.

What is a sideswipe car accident?

A sideswipe car accident is when two vehicles going in the same direction collide into each other. The severity of these accidents can depend on the surroundings of the area, how fast the cars were traveling, and the impact of the collision. These accidents can start out as a minor collision, but sometimes they can be fatal. In 2016, the Insurance Information Institute concluded sideswipe accidents consisted of 2.7% of fatal crashes that year. For example, a car that quickly swerved into the next lane sideswiping another vehicle. The force of the impact is so strong that the vehicle collides with other cars or a barrier that causes significant injuries for the driver.

Some of the injuries can include:

One of the most enjoyable seasons is upon us. The fall season is the start of the busiest, festive time of the year. Along with the fun holiday times, the weather begins to change from hot, sunny days to cold, rainy days; thus, the weather has a great impact on driving conditions. As the seasons change, many drivers fail to take precautions to maneuver throughout the roads. Statistics show that there is a 15% increase in automobile accidents due to the weather change. It is important for drivers to take extra precautions to avoid an accident especially if it causes stress for an individual during the holiday time.

What dangers develop as the season changes?

• Rain. The fall introduces more rain in the forecast, which means wet roads have an impact on tires and if the tires are not able to handle the slippery roads it increases one’s chance to cause an accident. If the weather permits heavy rainfall for a day or more, it can create one to hydroplane. Hydroplaning can happen if one is driving as low as 30 mph on the road. When a situation like this occurs, it can be hard to brake of steer the car.

The National Transportation Highway Safety Administration has done research consisting of side impact collisions also most commonly known as T-bone collisions. They concluded about 13% of collisions in the United States involve a T-bone collision. Out of the 13%, 8,000 people are killed annually. These types of collisions are deadly because of the impact it has on the passengers. Since children sit in the back seat of a car, T-bone crashes are the deadliest for them.

What are T-bone accidents and why are they so dangerous?

T-bone accidents involve a car being hit on one side of the car by the front end of another vehicle. T-bone accidents are so deadly because depending on the force of the impact, it could lead the vehicle to collide with other vehicles or surrounding objects. If further collisions occur, it increases the likelihood of the passengers suffering sever injuries. For example, the Dallas Morning News reported a collision that happened late this July. The crash happened a half hour past midnight on Interstate 35. The deceased person’s vehicle struck a wall and was disabled. Another vehicle going northbound on the highway t-boned her car, which ejected the lady into a lane of traffic. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

In early August, the CBS news channel reported a car accident caused by a wrong way driver. The accident happened in the middle of the night near the Ridgmar Mall in Fort Worth, Texas. The police reported showed the driver was driving east on a westbound lane when he struck a van head-on. This collision led a semi-truck to hit the negligent driver’s vehicle. At the time of the accident, the police believed the negligent driver was intoxicated. Furthermore, it was reported by new reporters that individuals in the van suffered severe injuries; thankfully, none of the injuries were life-threatening.

As you can image, wrong-way vehicle accidents can be one of the most dangerous auto accidents people can encounter. On average, wrong-way accidents cause 300-400 car accidents a year. In Texas, Austin, Dallas, and San Antonio are the three leading cities to have the most wrong-way accidents. Some reasons for these accidents include the following:

1. The lack of safety measures taken by the city

Pedestrian/auto accidents are frequent among auto accident cases. Some of the most common areas for these accidents are in residential neighborhoods, parking lots, and crosswalks. These are also one of the most dangerous accidents to occur because the pedestrian will feel the full impact of force considering they are not in a vehicle to protect them from some of the impact. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stated in 2016, 5,987 people were killed in traffic pedestrian/auto accidents. This averages out to every 1.5 hours a crash-related pedestrian/auto accident will occur. Unfortunately, both Dallas and Fort Worth has many of these accidents due to high traffic flow in heavily travelled areas. In downtown Fort Worth earlier this summer, a trolley bus hit two pedestrians. The trolley turned left at a green light when the vehicle hit two pedestrians while crossing at an intersection’s crosswalk late in the evening. There was another incident in Dallas two days after Christmas, December 2017, when a DART bus turning at an intersection struck, ran over, and killed a pedestrian.

Why do these accidents occur so often?

There are multiple factors that come into play when trying to understand why pedestrian/auto accidents occur and what can we do to prevent them from happening. Here are some reasons why these accidents occur:

One of the helpful tips we learn about in driver’s education is to check for blind spots and how to avoid them. Sometimes it’s a risk we ignore while driving until we nearly collide with another vehicle. Some of the most common blind spot accidents involve the driver not checking their surroundings before merging onto another lane and not adjusting their mirrors to see the blind spot as much as possible. We’ll discuss some ways on how to avoid an accident due to blind spots.

But first, what is a blind spot?

A blind spot is an area around your vehicle that is not viewable from the driver’s view. Individuals who drive SUVs, large trucks, or vans are the ones who experience significant blind spots. When they are not able to see smaller cars in their view, the likelihood of an accident happening increases. It is important to understand the dangers of blind spots and how to prevent them from being the cause of an accident. Here is a chart showing the blind spots for the driver of a car:

We have become accustomed to living a fast pace life. We are continually trying to keep up with the business of life. For example, we strive to make it to appointments on time, complete specific tasks to meet a deadline or manage parenthood with young and energetic children. As we continue to live up to the expectations of our responsibilities and schedules, we get fatigued. To compound the problem, we often don’t get the proper sleep we need.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s latest study in 2107 concluded that 91,000 police-reported crashes involved drowsy drivers. Out of the 91,000, people were injured in 50,000 of those crashes, and 800 resulted with fatalities. They also reported accidents that involve drowsiness occurring more frequently between midnight and 6 am as well as in the afternoon. Why is that? Because the circadian rhythm is known as your internal clock that is a part of the hypothalamus. The internal clock cycles between sleepiness and alertness at regular intervals. Adults commonly experience these cycles during these times because between midnight and 6 a.m., a time period when we people normally sleep. We become drowsy in the afternoon because we want to rest or nap after lunch, so it signals our body to release melatonin; thus, we become sleepy.

It is a false statement to conclude that driving tired or sleepy is safer than driving drunk. For example, an individual might be the designated driver when spending a night out with friends. If he is tired from a long, busy, hectic day without proper sleep the night before, even without drinking alcohol with his friend, he could very well be impaired and an unsafe designated driver. The reason for that is because the result of either driving intoxicated or driving sleepy is the same- impaired cognition and performance.

Why does road rage contribute to auto accidents?

As a society, we tend to be emotional drivers. Throughout the day, an individual can feel emotions such as excitement, anxiety, sadness, or frustration, depending on what a person deals with daily. All of these emotions hinder our ability to pair attention to the dangers of the road; thus our emotions become distractions. We develop these emotions when we get into a fight with a spouse, learn some frustrating news with work, or by the actions of other drivers. Statistically, Texas is one of the top states to have the most road rage drivers. One of the reasons could be that many of the Millennial generation consists of road rage drivers. This may be because this generation was taught to inhibit those behaviors while they drive. Children learn by example, so parents who expressed road rage taught their children to believe it is okay to act on their emotions while driving. This learn habit problem has caused many young drivers to exhibit road rage while driving.

How do you know if you have dealt with a road rage driver?