Posted on October 30, 2018 in Car Accidents

Automobile collisions can be as simple as a fender-bender, or cause fatalities. Thousands of pounds of metal colliding with each other at high speeds can be a recipe for disaster. Usually, car crashes are one vehicle hitting another, but occasionally there are multiple vehicle pile-ups or collisions. When multiple vehicles are involved in the collision, it may be difficult to determine who exactly is at fault and needs to pay damages. Determining the fault in a collision is key to a court case, and is made more difficult in multi-vehicle situations.

Modified Comparative Negligence

Fortunately, Illinois law has a system which helps determine the fault in collisions with multiple vehicles, called modified comparative negligence. With the modified comparative negligence doctrine, jurors can assign a percentage of fault to each party responsible and divvy up the damages based on the percent the plaintiff is responsible. If the plaintiff is not at fault at all, they will get more money, if they are at fault 20%, they will get 20% less than they normally would. This goes all the way up to 50%. If the plaintiff is found to be 50% or more at fault or negligent, they do not receive any damages.

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 Posted on October 26, 2018 in Car Accidents

One of the major uses of a bicycle has always been for children to ride. However, now there is an increase in cyclists of all ages. The increase is for a variety of reasons, including physical exercise and environmental consciousness. Each year from 2011-2017 also included an increase in cycling fatalities and injuries. In 2017 there were 783 bicyclists killed in motor vehicle crashes, with many more being injured. Compared to the number of motor vehicle fatalities, that may not seem like many, but most fatalities can be prevented by enacting some basic safety procedures.

Safety Tips

The first tip given to anybody, child or adult, riding a bicycle is to wear a helmet. A helmet protecting your head can prevent concussions or worse from happening when impacting the pavement or an obstacle. Many people do not wear a helmet because they don’t like the way it looks or feel it is unnecessary. If a bicycle crash does happen, people not wearing a helmet will wish they were wearing one.

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 Posted on October 16, 2018 in Car Accidents

According to the Illinois Department of Transportation, there were 1,090 traffic fatalities in 2017 in Illinois. Traffic fatalities may occur for multiple different reasons, but one of the most common reasons is traveling over the speed limit. Speeding decreases the time drivers have to react to events around them, and the faster a vehicle is going the harder it is to stop. Drivers who speed are more likely to be involved in a traffic accident which may cause fatal injuries.

Why Do So Many Drivers Speed When Driving?

Each person may have a different reason for driving above the speed limit. Some of the most common reasons are listed below.

• Traffic: When drivers are in a traffic jam, it causes them to lose time. Once the traffic jam clears, they will often speed in order to make up for the time they lost when going slowly. They may also speed in order to combat other drivers going too slowly for them.

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 Posted on October 09, 2018 in Car Accidents

Being involved in an automobile accident can be a traumatic experience. If you have been involved in a car accident and are considering filing a lawsuit, you should be aware of the statute of limitations for the lawsuit. Different types of lawsuits have different time limits, so it is important to be knowledgeable about the types of lawsuits and how long it is possible to file them. Once the time limit has expired, it is extremely rare for the court to consider the lawsuit unless some mitigating factor can be explained.

The main types of lawsuits that relate to vehicular collisions are the following:

• Personal injury: A personal injury lawsuit is filed because the victim was injured in some form during the incident. Occasionally, the injury or trauma may not present itself until much later on. This can be something as simple as whiplash, or more serious injuries. In most cases, the statute of limitations to file a personal injury lawsuit for a vehicular accident is the same as any other personal injury lawsuit, which is two years.

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 Posted on September 28, 2018 in Car Accidents

Car accidents are, unfortunately, not uncommon in the United States. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were an estimated 7,277,000 motor vehicle crashes that were reported to the police in 2016. Head injuries are common after car crashes, especially concussions, which can take days or even weeks to manifest. Many people who are suffering from a concussion do not even know that they have one because they do not know what signs to look for.

What Is a Concussion?

According to the Mayo Clinic, a concussion is a traumatic brain injury that can affect your normal functioning. A concussion occurs when you receive a violent blow to the head that causes your brain to slide back and forth against the walls of your skull. Concussions can be serious and can cause bleeding in or around the brain, which can lead to death if untreated.

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 Posted on September 21, 2018 in Personal Injury

Any car crash is a complicated event - it can be difficult to determine the cause of any accident and contributing factors to any crash. When it comes to crashes involving trucks, the consequences can be dire. Because of the large size of these vehicles, truck accidents are deadly and survivors can experience more severe injuries than accidents involving other vehicles. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has conducted a study in an effort to determine the causes of serious crashes involving large trucks, which are defined as any truck with a gross weight of over 10,000 pounds.

Crash Causation Variables

In the study, three key variables were used to determine what caused truck crashes: critical events, critical reasons, and associated factors.

Critical Event: This is the action or event that made a collision unavoidable. Three major types of critical events were assigned to trucks:

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 Posted on September 14, 2018 in Workers' Compensation

According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, slips, trips, and falls were the second leading cause of nonfatal injuries to workers in the U.S. and the third leading cause of fatal injuries to workers in 2016. Slips, trips and falls can cause serious injuries to workers and can result in you having to spend days away from work to heal broken bones or pulled muscles. Depending on the severity of your injuries, slips, trips and falls can render you permanently disabled from a spinal cord injury or even a brain injury.

Fluids or debris on the floor: One of the most common reasons employees slip or fall is because there is something on the floor that is making it slippery. Liquids or dry debris can both make the floor slippery and unsafe. Examples of these hazards can include:

• Water;

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 Posted on September 07, 2018 in Workers' Compensation

It does not matter what industry you work in - there is always a chance that you can injure yourself at work. The first 24 hours after you injure yourself are crucial - your actions can determine how easy it will be to claim your workers’ compensation benefits and how strong of a claim you have. By taking the appropriate actions after a workplace injury, you can help make your worker’s compensation process a little bit easier.

1. Get Medical Help

The first thing you should do after you are injured at work is seek necessary medical attention, though where you get it from can be important. If your employer has a Preferred Provider Program (PPP), you should choose a doctor or hospital that is a part of that program. You have the choice of two physicians that are within your employer’s PPP, whose costs will be covered. If you choose not to be seen by physicians in your employer’s PPP, you can be seen by one physician of your choice, but further visits must be approved. If your employer does not have a PPP, you have the choice of any two providers.

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 Posted on August 29, 2018 in Car Accidents

Pedestrian accidents are not uncommon in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2016, around 193,366 pedestrians were injured in motor vehicle accidents and an estimated 5,987 pedestrians were killed in accidents. Pedestrian safety is especially important because at some point every day, we are all pedestrians. Compared to a vehicle, pedestrians are small and fragile, which is why extreme caution should be taken by drivers when they are around pedestrians, but pedestrians also have a responsibility to be safe and limit the possibility of an accident happening. By following these tips, both drivers and pedestrians can do their part to stay safe.

Driver Tips

• Always look out for pedestrians. Even if there is not a sidewalk, there may still be pedestrians walking on the side of the road.

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 Posted on August 23, 2018 in Workers' Compensation

Though the death and injury rate for workers in the United States has decreased since the inception of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSH Act) in 1970, workplace injuries and deaths are still reported today, many stemming from inadequate workplace safety precautions. Nearly 5,200 people were killed on the job in 2016 - which is about 14 deaths per day. While not all deaths are preventable, many of them are, which is why the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has developed certain standards to keep a safe workplace.

General Duty

In the “General Duty Clause” of the OSH Act, all employers have the responsibility of providing a safe workplace that does not contain any known hazards. This rule is a generalized version of other specific rules that OSHA has for certain industries. There are four groups of OSHA standards, which include:

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