Car Accidents

Biggest Safety Risks for Teen Drivers in Florida

Published on: February 23, 2024 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Teen drivers may not make up the largest age group of motorists involved in car accidents, but they do have an impact on the statistics. According to the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (FLHSMV), there are 140 fatalities every year among motorists aged 20 years and younger. Plus, another 14,070 teen motorists suffer varying degrees of injuries, from incapacitating to minor. Considering their young age compared to others on the road, you can guess that there are unique risk factors with teen drivers.

It is useful to know these risks as the parent of a young driver, as you can use your authority to reinforce important safety rules. You can also benefit as a motorist who shares the road with teens. You should discuss legal options with a Miami car accident lawyer if you were hurt, and read on for some helpful details about the risks.

Teens and Inexperience

Garbage Truck Accidents

Published on: February 16, 2024 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

What are the most dangerous vehicles on the road? Most people would choose 18-wheeler trucks since they are notorious for causing multi-vehicle pile-ups that close down long stretches of I-95 for hours on end. Others would choose motorcycles since they go so fast, playing into their riders’ cravings for adventure, and because, when a motorcycle crashes, there is very little between you and the road.

Most people do not think of garbage trucks as especially dangerous. Sure, they are annoying, lumbering down your street as the sun is rising on days when you would sleep late if it were up to you. Garbage trucks stop so frequently that they do not have time to build up much speed, and while that means that they are unlikely to cause the kind of devastation you would expect from a truck barreling down the highway at 70 miles per hour, it also means that their movements are harder to predict, even when you can clearly see which garbage cans they still have to empty. If you have been injured in a garbage truck accident, contact a Miami truck accident lawyer.

A Garbage Truck in Traffic is Just as Dangerous as Any Other Truck

Car Accidents Can Cause Hormonal Imbalances

Published on: January 26, 2024 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Sometimes, people go to the doctor about nonspecific symptoms such as weight gain or lack of energy and find out that a hormonal imbalance is causing the problem. A common cause of these hormonal imbalances is a benign tumor on the pituitary gland; approximately one in six adults will develop a pituitary tumor between age 30 and age 50, although some of these cause few or no symptoms.

A less common cause of pituitary gland dysfunction is a traumatic injury to the head; in other words, a deficiency of pituitary hormones can be a complication of concussion or traumatic brain injury (TBI). If you have received a diagnosis of hypopituitarism related to a head injury you sustained in a car accident, contact a Miami car accident lawyer.

Symptoms of Hypopituitarism Related to a Traumatic Injury

How Do Seat Belts Save Lives?

Published on: January 19, 2024 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

If you have ever walked down the halls of an elementary school in Florida, you have probably seen student-drawn posters with slogans like “seatbelts save lives” and “buckle up for safety.” The seatbelt has become a byword for safety and caution. Many of the drivers on the road today would never dream of shifting the transmission into drive without first buckling their seatbelts, and if they tried, their cars would make annoying sounds to nag them about it until they buckled up; the others account for a disproportionate share of traffic fatalities.

Despite all the research that goes into developing car safety features, motor vehicle safety engineers have yet to design a safety feature safer than the humble seatbelt. The good news is that if you wear a seatbelt and get into a car accident, your injuries will be less severe than they would be without the seatbelt. The bad news is that if you do not wear a seatbelt and you get into an accident, your injuries will be worse than they would have been if you had buckled up, and insurance companies know this. A Miami car accident lawyer can help you get a fair insurance settlement after a car accident, even if the insurance companies assigned part of the fault to you because you were not wearing a seatbelt.

Not Your Grandpa’s Seatbelt

Deadlines in Florida Car Accident Claims

Published on: November 24, 2023 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

A Miami car accident can turn your life around, leaving you with sky-high medical bills, days away from work, and immeasurable pain and suffering. Because of the implications, Florida law allows victims to pursue the at-fault driver after a traffic crash. You can recover damages for your medical costs, lost wages, and other impacts on your quality of life. However, there are deadlines you must meet when seeking legal remedies. Florida’s statute of limitations applies to auto collision claims, so time is of the essence.

Plus, timing issues also affect other aspects of your case, and it is possible to gain an edge in your case when you have a solid strategy. Guidance from a Miami car accident lawyer is critical to helping you develop a plan that best leverages all relevant facts. You can also read on for some information on the various time factors that could arise during the legal process.

Details on the Florida Statute Limitations

What Do the Criminal Courts Have to Do With Your Personal Injury Case?

Published on: October 27, 2023 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Drunk driving is a crime, but not every person who causes a car accident while under the influence of alcohol gets criminal penalties. The civil courts and criminal courts operate independently of each other, so a Miami car accident lawyer can help you seek compensation if the drunk driver who caused your injuries was never convicted of DUI in criminal court.

How are Civil and Criminal Cases Different?

Most of the court cases you hear about on the news or see dramatized in movies are criminal cases, but most of the ones in which you or people you know well have been directly involved are civil cases. If you have ever gotten divorced, settled a deceased family member’s estate, or faced a lawsuit about an unpaid debt, the legal proceedings took place in civil court. Personal injury lawsuits are civil cases. As in many civil matters, the plaintiff in a personal injury lawsuit is asking the court to order the defendant to pay monetary compensation to the plaintiff to compensate the plaintiff for financial losses caused by the defendant’s negligence. The plaintiff can win the case if they can persuade that a preponderance of the evidence shows that the defendant’s negligence directly caused the plaintiff’s financial losses.

Complex Regional Pain Syndrome and Florida Car Accident Cases

Published on: October 20, 2023 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

If the injuries you sustained in a car accident do not affect your brain or spinal cord, then you have escaped the worst-case scenario, but plenty of other accident-related injuries can still cause chronic pain and make it difficult to work and engage in your usual daily activities. In some cases, the pain worsens over a period of days or weeks, which is bad enough when you and your doctors are just trying to find a way to manage the pain, but it is even worse when you are trying to persuade a car insurance company of how severe your accident-related injuries are. Getting injured is a financial burden, no matter the circumstances, but it is even more frustrating when you have to fight tooth and nail to get insurance companies to pay for your treatment. A Miami car accident lawyer can help you if your injuries feel worse than they look, and the at-fault driver or the insurance company is accusing you of exaggerating your symptoms.

Causes and Symptoms of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a set of troublesome symptoms that arise from an injury to a nerve in the arm, leg, wrist, or ankle. The nerve injury happens as a result of trauma to nearby bones or soft tissues. As a result, the syndrome affects an entire arm, leg, hand, or foot, the entire area controlled by the affected nerve. Symptoms include chronic pain, numbness or tingling, weakness, abnormal sweat production, abnormal growth of hair and nails, and changes to the color, temperature, and texture of the skin of the affected area. In some cases, the pain of CRPS is much worse than that of the acute injury that precipitated it. Some patients with CRPS are unable to work because their symptoms are so severe.

What Do Motor Vehicle Blind Spots Have to Do With Your Florida Car Accident Case?

Published on: October 6, 2023 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Imagine two people yelling at each other after a car accident. The first driver accuses the second one of driving in the first driver’s blind spot. The second driver says that the first driver should have paid more attention to where he was going. Driving in someone else’s blind spot is inevitable sometimes. When you are driving, you must be aware of your surroundings, including noticing if there is another car in your blind spot. Many accidents occur when drivers fail to notice a car in their blind spot. The good news is that most blind spot-related accidents do not result in severe injuries, but the bad news is that even an accident that does not involve serious injuries can be financially burdensome. If you are struggling with medical bills and other accident-related expenses after a collision in which one car was in another car’s blind spot, contact a Miami car accident lawyer.

Where are Your Car’s Blind Spots?

The better question is, where are your car’s blind spots right now? A blind spot is any part of the area near the car that you can’t see when you are in the driver’s seat, even when you look in the rearview mirror or the side view mirrors. Properly adjusting your mirrors will reduce the size of your blind spots, but it is not possible to have a truly panoramic view because of your car’s frame. Blind spots are the parts that are not visible ahead of you or through the car’s mirrors when you are driving.

How the Angle of the Collision Affects Injury Risk and Liability

Published on: September 29, 2023 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Laws and etiquette dictate that, immediately after a car accident, you should pull off to the side of the road and talk to the other driver. The first thing you are supposed to say is, “Is anyone injured?” If someone is injured, you should call an ambulance immediately. If no one is injured, you should exchange contact information with the other driver and then give your explanation of how the accident happened to a police officer or to the insurance company. Except in the case of accidents that involve injuries severe enough to require emergency medical treatment, the biggest thing on your mind is probably whether the insurance company will find you at fault for the accident because the insurance companies’ decisions about fault affect how financially damaging the accident will be to you. The best way to get the money you need to cover your accident-related financial losses is to contact a Miami car accident lawyer.

The Worst Kinds of Collisions Are Not the Most Common

High speeds increase the risk of death or serious injury in a car accident; the slower the vehicles are moving at the time of impact, the more likely it is that no one will be seriously injured. Even at the same speed, some angles of impact carry a greater risk of severe injury. For example, striking another vehicle or a stationary object head-on is dangerous. Frontal collisions have the highest rate of fatality among collisions where the vehicles were traveling within the speed limit. They are also disproportionately represented among single-vehicle collisions. As with all car accidents, seatbelts and airbags reduce the risk of death or catastrophic injury in head-on collisions.

Parents: Tell Teens What to Do After a Miami Car Accident

Published on: August 25, 2023 | by Gerson & Schwartz, P.A.

Parents and the public in general spend a lot of time explaining safety rules for teen drivers, warning them about hazards, avoiding texting, and encouraging them to get experience. What they do not mention in these awareness campaigns is what to do after a car accident happens. According to the Florida Teen Safe Driving Coalition, there are more than 800,000 registered drivers in the state aged 15 to 19 years old. On average, these motorists cause around 84,000 traffic crashes, resulting in 350 fatalities. The highest collision rates in Florida are in the 18 to 19 age group, while nationally the age is 16 to 17.

These statistics are horrifying for parents, but there is the aftermath of the crash to consider when you are not present. Your child is hurting, confused, and overwhelmed by the chaos. You no doubt have stressed all the safety recommendations and implemented rules to avoid them, but you must also prepare teen drivers for what to do after a Miami car accident.

Dial 911