Atlanta Personal Injury Lawyer - Stephen Ozcomert: August 2009

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Personal Injury Car Crashes and Assessing Damages

It’s hard to try and set an amount of damages that you may have sustained in a car crash. The sheer overwhelming number and type of wounds may totally confuse you, not to mention having to repair your vehicle.

During the summer the highways and by-ways across America are jammed with holiday and regular travelers, add into this mix 18-wheelers, road construction, detours and unpaved roads waiting for upgrading, and you have the potential for accidents. It’s often bad enough traveling in an area you are familiar with, never mind going out of state to a place you have never been to before and have no idea how their traffic patterns will affect you. This makes it tough to know if you have enough insurance to take long distance road trips.

The inevitable may strike your first trip or your fifteenth trip, and when it happens those injuries are put into a category that will tell you the approximate dollar amount that may be awarded for those injuries. There are so many factors that need to be dealt with, not the least of which is determining who is at fault in the accident, the percentage of culpability, medical bills, down time from work, pain and suffering, the continual stream of medical rehab expenses you may face and yes, vehicle repair costs.

When you do submit a claim to an insurance company, every one of the above factors will be taken into consideration before the company works out how much they are going to offer you for a personal injury claim. At this point, if you have not spoken to a personal injury lawyer, then you should in case you get a lowball offer as settlement for your injuries. The thing with a great many injuries is that although they may not look serious on the surface, and may not hurt that much right now, they could develop into something potentially deadly later, e.g. neck and head injuries.

Figuring out how much your injuries are worth is just about the most important aspect of a personal injury claim, and it is also the hardest part to calculate. This is yet another reason why you need to be consulting with an experienced personal injury attorney who is able to assess your injuries and figure out what they may be worth if your case is taken to court.

Keep in mind that insurance companies will only offer you what “they” think your claim in worth and you can bet that what they think it’s worth and what you think it’s worth don’t agree. Let’s face it, an insurance company is in business to keep its claims to a minimum, not offer large sums of money to settle personal injury claims.

In most cases the person who was negligent and caused the accident (liability) has to ante up money to the injured person for things like permanent physical disability, disfigurement, lost wages, medical and rehabilitation care and other expenses, loss of educational, social and family experiences (missed school, training, recreation, vacation, etc.) and emotional damages such as stress, depression and damaged property.

Even though the insurance company has a formula to figure out damages, they may be right out of the ballpark when it comes to fair compensation. Always speak to a highly skilled personal attorney and find out the real scoop on how much your personal injuries may be worth if you are successful in court.

Tim Anderson works with Atlanta Personal Injury attorney, Stephen M. Ozcomert. The firm specializes in personal injury, malpractice, motorcycle accidents, and wrongful death. To learn more about Atlanta personal injury lawyer, Stephen M. Ozcomert or Atlanta personal injury, Atlanta personal injury lawyer, Atlanta personal injury attorney, visit Ozcomert.com.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Texting While Driving a Major NO NO

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that texting while driving a vehicle is a remarkably bad idea. The results may be deadly for both the texter and the person they hit.

Adults don’t generally try to text while they are driving; most likely due to the fact they realize it’s not a very smart move. Teens and inexperienced younger drivers, however, have a disturbing record for attempting to text while handling a car on the road. The consequences are not pretty. Consider the statistics that show 5,000 teenagers killed annually in traffic accidents. This isn’t to say they were all caused by the drivers foolishly texting while driving, but a significant proportion of that number were doing precisely that at the time of the collision that killed them.

Even more disturbing than those figures, another 2,500 people were also killed by vehicles driven by teens doing a variety of things like talking on a cell phone, yakking to their friends in the backseat or attempting to reply to an email with their Blackberry. Inattention kills. It’s just that simple. This nationwide problem is being dealt with in various ways by each state. If you’re unsure what the law says in your state, consult with an experienced personal injury attorney.

Some states are getting downright innovative in trying to address the problem of texting teens. For instance, New York recently voted to bring in a bill that not only bans texting while driving (statewide) but kicks up the license requirements for younger drivers. For instance, the practice driving that teens do with an adult prior to a road test and getting a junior license has been substantially increased. It went from 20 hours to 50 hours and added in 15 hours of night driving. In addition, a learner’s permit must be held for six months before a junior license is issued.

When it comes to the infamous Blackberries and various assorted pagers, personal digital assistance, laptops, gaming devices and other two-way messaging systems, they are simply banned outright, with the exception of being used for “emergency” situations. Of course, what constitutes an emergency for one person may not be an emergency for another. Fines run to $150. Interestingly enough, there is one odd exclusion and that is iPods. We’re not sure why those weren’t banned either, as listening to an iPod while driving means emergency vehicles can’t be heard and the driver can’t react appropriately to allow them to pass.

There is no doubt that text and driving don’t mix. Even in the state of Georgia there is a problem with this kind of irresponsible activity. Unfortunately Georgia only has a cell phone ban, but nothing in place for texting. Would a texting ban be a good piece of legislation to bring into effect in Georgia? Undoubtedly it would be; the question is what would it take to make that happen?

In many instances new legislation addressing problems like texting while driving doesn’t come into being until there have been a number of fatal accidents that highlight the behavior as a problem. While that’s a rough way to introduce lifesaving legislation, it may be what happens in Georgia’s case unless someone wants to advocate for change now.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

80,000 Pounds and Rolling

If you’ve ever spent any time on an Interstate Highway in the US, you will have had an up close and personal experience with sharing the road with a big rig.

There is no doubt that our highways are teeming with all types of vehicles, and some of the largest ones happen to be trucks and trailer units. Thanks to their massive size, these rigs are exceptionally deadly if involved in an accident. You’re looking at close to 80,000 pounds of steel hurtling down the road and it is unable to come to an immediate stop.

In fact, it takes three times the amount of time for an 18-wheeler to stop compared to a normal vehicle. This is a factor that people should keep in the back of their minds when they cut in front of a rig and then do something incredibly stupid like slow down or suddenly stop.

Most large rigs should really be looked at as accidents waiting to happen given their size and the number of things that may go wrong when they are traveling at high speeds on a highway. Aside from trucker negligence, there may be vehicle maintenance problems, tire problems, bad weather that makes it hard to drive or even uneven load distribution.

Whatever the cause of the accident, it’s a sad fact that roughly every 16 minutes there is a large rig accident in the US that takes a life or severely injures or disables another person. Large rig accidents cause some very traumatic injuries that include spinal cord injuries, brain injuries (coup and contre coup), broken bones, scars, acute bruising, paralysis, amputation and disfigurement.

While it may be the trucker at fault for the accident, or his employer, it’s best to discuss your case with an expert personal injury lawyer. Big rig accidents are never easy on the victim as they are complex and require a lot of groundwork to make a solid case. These cases are incredibly complex because of the nature of the liability and the number of people involved from the insurance company to the trucker and from the employer to the crew who maintained the road where the accident happened. Suffice it to say that there are a multitude of factors that need to be considered in big rig cases and only an experience personal injury attorney will be able to handle them.

Unfortunately, it’s a fact that many road rules go by the wayside when tired truckers attempt to meet often unrealistic delivery deadlines. Fatigue plays a significant role in accidents, as does the condition the driver and the truck itself, prior to the accident.

It’s the little details that count in preparing a personal injury lawsuit. Trust your attorney to do his job and make sure you obtain justice.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Helmet Hair May Save a Life

It should go without saying that wearing a motorcycle helmet will save lives, but many people opt not to wear them because they don’t look cool – a potentially deadly decision.

It’s cool to own and ride a motorbike or some other mode of transportation like that these days. It’s also economical because there isn’t as much gas being used, not to mention parking is a breeze. The point, however, is that despite the fact that motorcycles are cool in a lot of people’s books, they have the potential to be deadly – more deadly than a car if the truth were known.

Part of the truth lies in the number of accidents over the last few years involving motorcycles has increased by a staggering 50%. Throw in sales stats and it’s evident motorcycle sales are hopping. It’s the latest rage to beat the cost of gas. The latest rage has also cost over 4,700 deaths in the U.S.

The other truth that will hit home with a nasty shock is that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration offers numbers that show motorcyclists are approximately 35 times more likely to be killed in accidents as compared to car drivers. Many of the deaths happen in the first year of owning a bike because of inexperience.

Generally speaking, the major causes of motorbike crashes include, but are not limited to, road conditions such as unexpected rumble strips, potholes, loose gravel, wet pavement and road debris. Driving errors rank second and include actions such as driving too closely to others, tailgating, swerving in and out between cars and not signaling properly. The thing that compounds a motorcycle accident is the lack of protection for the rider. Part of the lack of protection relates to not wearing a proper helmet.

Even though it would seem to be smart to ensure a rider’s head is protected from contact with the pavement and averting traumatic brain injury, there are still those who choose not to wear them. This seems to fly in the face of common sense when studies show that wearing a helmet cuts the risk of brain injuries by up to 88 percent. This is critical information, as a vast majority of motorcycle crash deaths are due to head injuries. Despite these statistics, less than 50 percent of motorcycle riders choose to wear their helmet, even if they happen to own one. In many instances, the helmet winds up being a decoration on the bike.

Motorcycle crash victims and their families need the expert legal representation that only a fully qualified personal injury lawyer is able to provide. If the victim survives, the attorney will be able to fight for compensation for their long-term care. If the victim died at the scene and this becomes a wrongful death suit, the attorney is able to obtain justice and compensation for the loss.

To learn more about Atlanta personal injury lawyer, Stephen M. Ozcomert or Atlanta personal injury, Atlanta personal injury lawyer, Atlanta personal injury attorney, visit Ozcomert.com.

Med Mal May Be Tricky

Medical malpractice is most often considered to be a lawsuit filed against a doctor for some form of negligence that caused a patient harm. In reality, there are numerous kinds of malpractice lawsuits.

These days when people read about medical malpractice in the media, they assume that the story will be about a doctor doing something negligently that severely injured or caused the death of someone. Not many people realize that malpractice law includes not only medical malpractice, but legal, dental, accounting, real estate and other types of malpractice.

The difficulty here is in knowing if a professional did act negligently. While it’s true that trying to pinpoint negligence when dealing with a doctor or lawyer, etc., is like trying to capture the wind at times, there are some signs and red flags that will indicate something is amiss.

Attorneys are required to live up to certain ethical standards, as they are in a position of great authority. People trust their legal counsel to provide the best advice for them. When legal advice is knowingly given that is not in the best interests of the client, there may be grounds for a malpractice lawsuit.
The sticking point here is proving the “poor” advice was given with the knowledge that it would be detrimental to the client. What is required to file a legal malpractice lawsuit is a verified attorney/client relationship and that the information given to the client had a direct adverse effect on that client and that the act of giving that poor advice was foreseeable as causing harm.

For doctors and dentists, the standard of care they should offer patients is of the very highest. After all, they are supposed to do no harm and act in a patient’s best interests. Mistakes covered up or not admitted to despite being fairly obvious, may be grounds to ask for damages for injuries suffered as a result of the mistakes.

The law dealing with this area of malpractice varies from state to state when it comes to the criteria to be met to file a lawsuit. To find out what is applicable in each state, contact an experienced medical malpractice attorney. In some instances it may also be necessary to find out how the state defines medical malpractice.
The bottom line in all malpractice suits is that the professionals handing out advice have trained for years to become what they are today. They are not supposed to make mistakes that harm or hurt others. Unfortunately however, professionals are human, and humans do make mistakes no matter how well they are trained.

Professional ethics aside, if a situation has occurred that caused injuries, death, legal or financial harm to befall an individual; they need to seek the advice of a malpractice attorney with a solid reputation for handling cases like this. Find out what rights the plaintiff has and then pursue them to obtain justice.