I often focus on driving safety and on how you can be a safer driver. I write about keeping our Kentucky roadways safer. How you can avoid serious automobile accidents is another topic I blog on.  A tragic and unfortunate accident last weekend reminds me that there are also auto accidents that occur after your car breaks down. Traffic accidents occur while a vehicle is disabled on the road.  Visibility is a key factor in your safety after a car breaks down. 

David Meredith and Omar Lopez were killed after they were hit by a pickup truck on Washburn Avenue in rural Jefferson County, Kentucky.  This accident occurred after Meredith and Lopez’s vehicle had been in a minor rear-end collision on Washburn Avenue.  Apparently the men were standing behind their truck after the accident and blocking the taillights. This made it difficult for the vehicle coming from behind to see the car in the road.  Additionally there was fog in the area. This made visibility even more of an issue.

 Any time you’re on the road visibility is something you should be aware of.  This is the case whether you are a pedestrian, a bicyclist, or a disabled motorist.  You need to make yourself visible.  Bicyclists have reflectors and bright-colored jerseys that some would say make us look ridiculous.  Runners wear vests to make them more visible if they are jogging on the road in the early or late hours of the day.  The occupants of a disabled vehicle need to take precautions to make that car visible on the roadway.  Reflective triangles should be placed behind the car. You can purchase them at almost any automotive store. They should always be used.  Emergency flashers should be turned on.  Do anything you can do to make yourself more visible.  If you do not take these precautions drivers coming up on the accident scene or on you may not have a chance to avoid a tragic accident.

            A few years ago I represented a truck driver in what I would call a freak accident.  A semi tractor-trailer was traveling down I-65 south near Shepherdsville.  The trailer came loose from the tractor and came to a stop in the middle southbound lane of I-65 in Bullitt County, Kentucky.  When the trailer came off there was no power going to the lights on the back of the trailer.  Additionally no reflective tape was on the trailer.  The driver had no triangles or flares to put behind him.  He attempted to get the trailer re-connected to the tractor. 

My client was driving a tractor-trailer and also headed south on I-65.  He stated to me that he was driving along and he knew something was different but it just looked like there was nothing there.  He compared it to a black hole.  By the time he realized that there was a trailer stopped in the middle lane of the expressway he had no chance and slammed into the back of the disabled trailer.  A passerby pulled him out of his flaming truck.  Tragically the other driver was killed as he was between his tractor and trailer at the time.  My client had hit his trailer. This tragic truck accident could have been avoided had emergency flashers, flares or reflective triangles been used. Unfortunately, none of this equipment was even in the truck.

            I bring this up because you never know what is going to happen on the highway.  You need to be cautious and careful at all times.  I represented a client that had just been in a rear end collision. As he was walking back to the driver’s side of his car another car came flying by. Luckily his front door was open and he jumped into the front seat to avoid being hit. Any disabled motorist, whether it be from a traffic automobile accident, a motorcycle accident, a truck accident, or simply a blown rod in your engine, must make themselves visible on the road.  Take precautionary measures to make yourself visible to traffic.

·        Make sure your car lights are on

·        Place reflective triangles out behind the disabled vehicle

·        Place flares behind the vehicle

·        Get yourself off the roadway

·        Wait for emergency assistance to come to your assistance. 

If you take preventive measures you can keep from becoming a statistic. You can avoid a tragic motor vehicle accident. In this way you will be able to avoid the tragedy that happened last weekend on Washburn Avenue.

We all know that the dangers of texting and driving. It is obvious.  In Kentucky we now have a simulator which demonstrates the dangers of texting and driving. The simulator can be requested from the Office of Highway Safety and is free to the schools.  It has not been used in Jefferson County but I hope our schools will take advantage of the program.  This new program has been developed to demonstrate the problems and many dangers of texting and driving to high school students.  This is presented for no charge by the Kentucky office of Highway Safety. 

Individuals are strapped into an arcade-type racing game.  The simulator has a seat equipped with a seatbelt, a gas pedal and a brake pedal.  There is also a steering wheel and a gearshift. You have three screens in front of you that gives the operator an 180?degree view of a roadway. The driver is requested to operate or drive normally. They are then handed a cell phone and asked to send a text message while they can continue to drive the simulator. 

When they are handed the cell phone it usually sends the car swerving into another lane.  Drivers are allowed to watch a replay of their simulation. When students are shown the simulation replay they see themselves swerving when they thought they were actually driving okay.  Distracted driving has become the leading cause of crashes among 16 to 21 years old.  Texting and driving is a big, big part of this.  

            The US Department of Transportation has banned all federal employees from texting and driving on federal-issued or personal phones while in vehicles owned by the federal government or in vehicles being used on federal business.  This includes the military.  Although the federal government may be the most recent, the National Safety Council indicates that hundreds of private companies and organizations have banned the use of cell phones while driving to reduce accidents at work. 

This needs to be the law in Kentucky and should be the number one priority at the next Kentucky legislative session.  The word is getting out in Kentucky partly thanks to Nicole Meredith, who is a teen.  She wrecked her car on the Gene Snyder last summer when she was texting a friend.  As she was texting she went off the road and totaled her car.  Miraculously she walked away from the crash without injuries.  Meredith has told her story in Frankfort to help kickoff the Transportation Department’s distracted driving campaign.  Hopefully there will be more than just a campaign and soon no text messaging behind the wheel will be the law in Kentucky.  

The statistics are one of the many compelling reasons to make this ban the law in Kentucky.  Some of these statistics are:

·        Distraction from the use of a cell phone while driving delays driver-reaction time

·        Use of cell phone reduces brain activity associated with driving by 37 percent.

·        80 percent of all crashes are related to driver inattention.  The use of a handheld device increases the likelihood of a crash four times.

·        In 2008 nearly 6,000 people died in crashes involving an inattentive or distracted driver.

·        Research shows that the youth are the worst offenders.

Believe it or not there were 53,000 distracted driving-related crashes last year in Kentucky.  Link Kentucky kicks off campaign to cut down on distracted driving.  Governor Steve Beshear is considering a policy that would limit distracted driving for all state employees.  Do we really need to have to tell them that it’s time to make this the law?  I hope Kentucky follows suit with Colorado. Their new law dictating how you use your cell phone while driving takes effect December 1, 2009.  After this date no one under the age of 18 will be allowed to talk on a phone while driving.  Everyone will be banned from texting while driving.   

Let’s hope Kentucky is next and a ban on text messaging while driving will be law in Kentucky in the near future. This will help to precent car accidents on our Kentucky roads.

This past weekend I was invited to help plant trees along Bardstown Road between the Showcase Cinema and Hikes Lane.  This invitation was extended to me by Cindie Cook of the Bon Air Neighborhood Association.  For those of you who are not familiar with Cindie she was friends with Jen Futrell. Jen was the cyclist that was struck and killed by a van while riding her bike home from work down Bardstown Road on October 3, 2008.

This was a tragic accident that has brought attention and outrage to the plight of cyclists and pedestrians.

The Bon Air Neighborhood Association, as a group is a big part of an effort to make the Bardstown Road corridor a tree-lined boulevard that is both pedestrian and bicyclist friendly.  Cindie Cook believes this would encourage people to stop and shop.  Also, there is a hope that it would bring new business to the area, especially the now vacant Showcase Cinema buildings.

I believe an area that is active and as busy as Bardstown Road could be a much safer place for pedestrians and cyclists and especially those that live in the area.  As I was planting trees along Bardstown Road, the amount of traffic was unbelievable. Cars were buzzing by with very little break. I know it is hard to judge speeds as you are standing along the side of the road, but I would guess that many of these cars were speeding. During my three hours on Bardstown Road I saw two car accidents that occurred within 75 yards of where I was working. I also became oblivious to the horns that were honked almost continuously.

There was very little way for people in the neighborhoods along this stretch of Bardstown Road to walk to the mall, to restaurants or to even to cross the street.  My hope is that the efforts of Ms. Cook and the Bonaire Neighborhood Association will make this area safer, limiting automobile accidents, pedestrian accidents and bicycle accidents. 

I learned from Cindy that Kentucky is currently seventh in the nation in pedestrian and bicycle fatalities.  There were 32 cyclists and pedestrians killed in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky in 2008.  It is her hope that the tree plantings will add awareness to bikers and walkers, as well as being a tribute to her friend that was killed.  I applaud Cindy Cook for her focus on celebrating and memorializing the life of her friend and for trying to make the streets a safer place. I believe her efforts will save lives and prevent many serious accidents from occurring.

The City of Louisville has experienced bicycle accidents and pedestrian accidents that have resulted in deaths over the past year. These include the triathlete that was killed during an event at E.P.Sawyer State Park earlier this year as well as several young children who were hit while riding their bikes. All of these deaths are needless and my sympathy goes out to the families and friends. They do, however, help to show the need for more driver awareness of those they share the roads of Kentucky with. We need more Cindies in Louisville to help make our roads safer.

The first time I saw the cable barriers as I was driving down I-64 my only thought was that they were absolutely hideous. I admit that I was skeptical about how effective the cable barriers would be. I wasn’t sure they would stop any accidents that concrete barriers wouldn’t stop. Would the cable carriers really prevent a cross over accident? Would there be problems with emergency vehicles getting to the accident scene because they couldn’t get through the median? I had questions but I was wrong.

There are now 51 miles of cable barriers in Jefferson County, Kentucky at a cost of $130,000.00 per mile. From 2006 until August of this year these barriers have been hit 609 times. These barriers cover all of I-265 and I-64 from downtown to the Watterson. There are also barriers in Bullitt County as well as Floyd and Clark Counties in Indiana. Law enforcement officer estimate that the barriers have saved 100s of lives.

The cable barriers have several benefits over concrete barriers:

·         They are significantly less expensive at $130,000.00 per mile as compared to $400,000.00 per mile for concrete barriers.

·         Cars that hit the barriers often get stuck between the cables and do not rebound back into traffic.

·         They absorb the energy of impact helping to minimize the severity of some injuries.

There are those that believe that all Kentucky interstates should be built with cable barriers. What do you think? If they save lives I am for it. There are plans for additional cable barriers in Kentucky, but unfortunately there is no money allocated for the Louisville Metro area.

There are groups who oppose cable barriers, such as most motorcyclists. Jay Huber, the president of the Kentucky Motorcycle Association/Kentucky Bikers Association, calls the cable barriers “a cheese slicer”. This is something I hadn’t considered. How would a barrier made of cables stop an out of control motorcycle? I can see that these barriers are potentially dangerous and deadly to the rider causing deadly motorcycle accidents.

Huber believes that the installation of nylon straps or mesh over the cables would reduce this danger. There is opposition to this addition. The stance against this safety measure is the additional cost of installation. Additionally there have been no motorcyclists seriously injured or killed due to striking the cable barriers. We spend enough money on foolish endeavors. Let’s make sure that the cable barriers are safe for everyone.

Another problem according to the Kentucky State Police is that the barriers prolong emergency vehicle response time. This doesn’t occur very often, but vehicles have had to travel an extra two to three miles to find a cut through to get to the accident scene.

I played golf last month with one of the supervisors of a construction crew that was installing cable barriers in southern Indiana. I asked him why they were not putting gaps every ¼ of a mile or so. He gave me two reasons:

1.       The cost would be higher.

2.       An out of control car would get through the gap and cross over into oncoming traffic.

I don’t believe that additional cost should be a consideration if the gaps put in would allow a quicker response by emergency vehicles and save even one life. I wonder how muck it would cost? My guess is not as much as the total cost of the concrete barriers. As to getting through the cross over gaps, I did not believe his answer. It seemed like a bunch of bull. If you make the gaps parallel to the highway and have overlapping sections for the gaps that are maybe 50 to 100 feet long an out of control car would not be able to cross over. There is just no way for it to get through.

The bottom line is that cable barriers have saved lives and will save more lives. Let’s make them better to make sure additional lives are saved.

At a seminar a couple of weeks ago I was walking past the exhibitors tables when a broken bicycle fork caught my eye. Since I ride my road bike 2 to 5 days a week during the summer (it seems I am becoming more and more of a weekend warrior) this grabbed my attention. I stopped and began speaking with Erin Higinbotham, a licensed engineer from Robson Forensic. These expert witnesses testify in many types of accident cases, including what I was interested in at that moment, a broken front carbon fork on a road bike.

My curiosity got me and I asked what happened. This particular case involved a man who crashed his bike and was paralyzed. Witnesses related that the biker was suddenly catapulted from his bike and landed on his head. The biker did nothing to cause the accident and it was related that only the front fork of the bike appeared to be damaged. Robson determined that the crash was caused by a sudden defect in the fork of the bicycle. The failure of the fork caused the bike to come to an abrupt stop and catapult the biker off of the bike.

Testing of carbon forks has shown that they can fail under stress past their yield point. The carbon forks are extremely light and make bikes handle better. They also make the ride more comfortable. Unfortunately when stress is placed on a carbon fork past the yield point they will eventually collapse. This stress can be from running into a curb or hitting a pothole. I was told that it can occur over time just from wear and tear. It was explained that the resin is strong but it is a wrap.  This wrap can loose its integrity easier then a steel fork.

I ride a Lemond Zurich that is part carbon, including the fork. I went home and immediately examined my fork to make sure I didn’t see any signs of stress. Thankfully everything looked okay. I am not screaming the sky is falling. I just urge cyclists to examine their equipment regularly or have a qualified technician look at it to make sure there are no structural problems with your bike. I ride the roads of Jefferson and Oldham County regularly. These roads are dangerous enough for bikers. Bicycle accidents can occur due to inattentive drivers of cars and trucks. Bicycle safety has to be a priority. We need to do everything we can to be safe and minimize the chance of an accident and make Kentucky roads safe.