By design, Yamaha Rhino ATVs are accidents waiting to happen
How dangerous are Yamaha Rhino ATVs and other ATVs? How dangerous do you want them to be?
Indeed, danger and risk seem to be selling points for these highly accident-prone vehicles, whose wildly erratic and thrill-driven operation winds up killing and maiming thousands of Americans each year. In large part that’s because Yamaha Rhino and other ATVs fail to live up to their fun-loving promise, and instead wreak havoc due to manufacturing design errors which make them inherently unsafe.
Even so, mastering such risks is part of the hype that drives Yamaha Rhino and other ATV sales, if you check out ads and promotional clips used to sell them. These show the strange vehicles – which look like reckless little brothers of Apollo’s Lunar Rovers – bouncing and churning down bumpy roads, across creeks and up steep, muddy hills. The more difficult and dangerous the terrain, the better, seems to be the message. Yet the promise made to buyers is exhilaration – not extinction.
California bus accident shows gamble in such travel
While buses in general can be as risky as trying to draw on an inside straight, casino tour buses can be an even worse bet.
In California Sunday, a casino tour bus taking passengers from Sacramento to a gambling den flipped over and rolled into a ditch, killing eight people and critically injuring at least 30 others. As this and other bus accidents have shown, buses can be extremely dangerous when they turn over, which they often do.
The California Highway Patrol said the bus driver was perhaps on medication, and CHP has charged that driver with driving under the influence. The bus also lacked a valid license plate, having expired Texas plates. Built in the 1980s, the bus also lacked seatbelts, but that’s a common failing on buses.
18-wheeler carnage is steady, but never ‘routine’
A problem with waking up Americans about the carnage on their roads and highways is that traffic tragedies, though they take an enormous toll, are incremental. Six die in Florida. Two more die in East Texas. It’s news, and it’s shattering to the victims’ immediate families, but in the broader news context of a given day, it tends to slip in beneath the radar.
Of course, at the end of the year will come the news that another 40,000 or more Americans have died in traffic accidents. But that cumulative amount spread out over 365 days won’t have the same impact as if those people had died simultaneously, or from one cause.
Actually, many will share a cause for their accident. It is called an 18-wheeler.
Callers, texters are slaughtering innocents
What will it take to get the message through to Americans that we are slaughtering each other on our roads, highways and train lines, and all for the sake of a phone call or a text message that could have waited?
Perhaps a catastrophic train wreck will be our wake-up call? Or perhaps school bus carnage? Actually, both such things already have occurred this month.
These horrific accidents could have been avoided if the driver of a semi truck and a commuter train had been paying attention, rather than being distracted by using a cell phone.
In Florida, four young students are in critical condition and a 13-year-old eighth-grade girl is dead because a man driving a large semi truck was talking on his cell phone and slammed into the back of a school bus as it was stopped to let students get off.
A Texas hurricane property damage lawyer is ready to help
And so, it continues. More than 10 days after Hurricane Ike’s onslaught, hundreds of thousands in southeast Texas still lack electrical power. Debris is piled high, trees are downed and buildings are damaged. With traffic lights out, congestion rules, and hotter weather is sparking hot tempers. Hurricane fatigue has set in.
Yet the Houston area will survive. Why? Because its boomtown spirit knows no other way. Progress may be slow, but it’s happening, and the region eventually will get back to normal — which is to say, bustling, thriving and alive.
A Houston hurricane insurance fraud lawyer can help you
From homeowners to businesses, those who suffered from Hurricane Ike have a lot of cleanup to do — and a lot of insurance claims to file. But sadly, insurance coverage isn’t always promptly or adequately paid. If you have trouble with hurricane insurance fraud, you may need a Houston hurricane insurance fraud lawyer with Jim S. Adler & Associates.
Many businesses have business interruption insurance, which covers their losses when they are forced to shut down temporarily due to circumstances such as a fire or hurricane. Their business interruption insurance normally should provide coverage for lost net profits, as well as for continuing expenses related to the interruption.
Dog attacks can send owners to prison
For anyone who thinks they aren’t responsible for their pet dog’s behavior, think again. A woman in Michigan has been sentenced to spend up to 15 years in prison because her bulldogs mauled and killed two people.
The woman had a horse farm on her property, about 45 miles west of Detroit, but the fence surrounding it was inadequate to keep her 10 dogs from leaving the property. Four of the dogs attacked and killed a 91-year-old man who was standing in his driveway and also killed a 56-year-old woman who was jogging nearby.
The woman also must pay restitution, and she will serve at least 43 months in prison. Her 10 dogs have been euthanized by authorities.
Post-Ike, Adler firm is here to help
Now that Hurricane Ike has taken a hike and the battered Gulf Coast is recovering, more than 2 million residences and many businesses still lack power. That includes Jim S. Adler & Associates’ Channelview office. But the firm’s Houston office is fully powered and reopened Tuesday morning, while its Dallas and San Antonio offices remain open and completely operational. Also, the Channelview office staff is working out of the Houston office and can be reached via phone or email.
25 train victims may have died due to text-messaging
It’s bad enough that cell phone and text messaging distractions have meant many fatalities and serious injuries on America’s roads and highways. Now such driver distractions also may be to blame for up to 25 fatalities in a horrendous train collision in California.
A commuter train slammed into a freight train last Friday reportedly due to human error by the commuter train’s engineer, who failed to stop for a red signal. Now authorities are investigating the possibility that the engineer was text messaging to two teenagers — who were train enthusiasts — just before the fatal crash which also took his life.
Read the rest of this entry »
Hike driving age? Take a hike, some say, but stats don’t lie
Teens aren’t going to like it, but what’s to like about being dead? Spurred by the fact that 5,000 teen drivers die annually in traffic accidents — and are 10 times more likely to have a crash than drivers 30-59 years old — some are calling for raising the driving age.
In Texas, that age is now 16. The lowest driving age is 14 years and three months (why the three months extra?) in South Dakota. The highest driving age is 17, in New Jersey. And what’s happened in Bruce Springsteen country? The number of young drivers killed in teen driving crashes is consistently lower than in neighboring states with lower driving ages.
