personal injury
Toyota stuck accelerator followed by Prius bad brakes defect
Will Toyota’s defective product failures ever stop? First it was SUV rollover calamities. Then it was stuck accelerator pedal catastrophes. Now it’s bad brakes on Toyota’s Prius, the world’s top-selling gas-electric hybrid vehicle.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has begun investigating flaws in the 2010 Prius’ brakes, after its safety arm, the National Highway Traffic Safety [...]
Hammer TV offers safety tips as ‘reality TV’ with meaning, message
Each day, Americans are “hammered” with visual messages on TV and the Internet. But how many are trite, and how many are truly useful? Do we really need to know whose kitty can play the piano? Or do we need to know which defective drugs or injury accidents threaten our loved ones?
At Jim S. Adler [...]
San Antonio car crash law would protect cyclists, pedestrians, ‘vulnerable road users’
In increasingly urban Texas, bicyclists and pedestrians are increasingly endangered. Yet Gov. Rick Perry last year vetoed a bill — passed overwhelmingly by the Senate and House — which would have offered more protection to cyclists and walkers on or near our roads.
Now some cities, such as Austin, are enacting the same law on a [...]
Cell phone industry picks profits over car accident deaths caused by distracted drivers
How often do you avoid car wrecks almost caused by drivers on cell phones? Or perhaps you’ve been injured already by such distracted drivers. In either case, the phone industry doesn’t care. Wireless service providers made $148 billion last year, and the thousands of Americans killed and hurt by distracted drivers using their product are [...]
Yaz, Yasmin, Ocella defective drugs cause heart attacks, blood clots, strokes — even death
Statistically, young women are among the least likely persons to have high blood pressure, heart attacks, blood clots, strokes and other cardiovascular ailments. Yet many American women are suffering in these ways — and even dying. That’s because they are users of one of three defective drugs sold as birth control pills: Yaz, Yasmin and [...]
Rural drivers beware: Traffic accidents kill more of you than city folks
Sure, cities have traffic jams, while the country has roadside vendors selling jams — and little traffic. But rural drivers should know this: You are more likely to die in a car or truck accident than those on packed urban streets or freeways.
Why? Glad you asked. For one thing, people tend to drive faster on [...]
As ‘accident’ victims, pedestrians, cyclists are second class citizens in Texas
An item in today’s San Antonio Express-News shows how far Texas has to go to treat pedestrians and cyclists with respect on our roads. It pertains to a horrible accident last week in which a San Antonio-area couple riding a tandem bicycle on a road’s shoulder were hit and killed by a pickup truck traveling [...]
Parents can help teens tackle driving distractions, reduce car accidents
With a national summit on distracted drivers set for this week, studies due today from the journal Pediatrics show that parents can have a huge effect on how effective — or distracted — their teen drivers become.
Conducted by Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, PA and given funding by State Farm Insurance Co., the studies show that [...]
New Texas law banning school zone cell phones still has car accident hangups
In today’s world of searing rhetoric and bombastic bumper stickers, you might hear or see two conflicting slogans: “Hang up and drive” and “You’ll take my cell phone when you pry it from my cold dead fingers.” Yet when the dust has cleared from a horrendous car accident, both messages just might serve the same [...]
Drivers on cell phones as bad as drunk drivers!
Who knew?
Turns out the federal government did six years ago. When it said nothing, thousands of Americans lost their lives. Others were seriously injured. And the nation is now stuck with a “serious and growing threat on America’s roadways.”
That’s the nutshell version of a shocking story in the July 21, 2009 edition of The New [...]
