No-Fault insurance, it’s a confusing term.  The Kentucky legislator put this law in place to make sure that your medical bills get paid.  It means that no matter whose fault the accident is your medical bills are going to be paid.  Whether you caused the accident or you didn’t cause the accident, you are entitled to what are called No-Fault benefits. Under most situations the minimum amount of $10,000.00 is available to a car accident victim.  Those benefits are paid by your own personal car insurance company.  This is to make sure that you don’t have to get permission from the at fault insurance company to go to the doctor.  You don’t have to go to their doctor.  You can choose your own.  When the case is settled your insurance company has the right to subrogate or collect what they have paid less on intercompany deductible.  Your insurance company will collect most of what they paid back from the at fault insurance company.

Most insurance policies the basic amount in Kentucky of PIP is $10,000.00 and that doesn’t go very far.  That’s a problem.  You really need to ask your insurance agent if you can raise your personal injury protection.  There is something called added reparations benefit.  You can raise your PIP limits up to $90,000.00 in added reparations benefits which go toward the medical bills.  I strongly recommend – especially if you don’t have health insurance – to call your insurance agent and get added reparations benefits and it won’t cost near as much as you think it will.

• loss of consciousness;
• dilated or unequal pupils;
• dizziness;
• vomiting;
• headache;
• body numbness;
• slow breathing rate; and
• paralysis

Twenty elite drivers from Kentucky are among the 1,235 newly inducted worldwide into the Circle of Honor as announced by UPS February 23, 2012. The Circle of Honor is an honorary organization for UPS drivers who have achieved 25 or more years of accident-free driving.

There are 5,842 active UPS drivers who are members of the Circle of Honor throughout the world. Kentucky is proud to have 101 active UPS drivers that are members of the Circle of Honor. Kentucky’s senior safe driver, who has 42 years of accident-free driving under his belt, is Cleveland Francis of Louisville. He is the fifth placer of best safe driving record among UPS’s 102, 000 drivers. Here is the list of Circle of Honor drivers in Kentucky.

In the company’s history, this number of new inductees is the largest increase in new members in a single year. Zachary Scott, president of UPS Ohio Valley District, is proud of these men and women. He stated, “To go at least a quarter century without an accident is a testament to the pride they take in their work and to the training they receive. My thanks go to all of them for the countless lives they’ve saved.”

UPS’s 102,000 drivers are among the safest on the roads. It records to have more than 3 billion miles a year and averaging less than one accident for every million miles driven. This is good proof that the company has given much importance to the safety and training of their drivers. UPS was founded in 1907, issued its first driver handbook in 1917 and began recognizing safe drivers in 1923. Last year, UPS invested $175 million on safety training and employs its own comprehensive driving course called “Space and Visibility” which will teach UPS drivers safe driving methods.

As a Kentucky personal injury attorney I applaud the efforts of UPS. We could all learn a lot from their efforts that have decreased the number of serious injury car accidents in Louisville and around the world. I am proud that they call Louisville home. With their stellar record our new drivers could learn something from the UPS program.

The Chicago Automobile Trade Association (CATA) launches The 2012 Chicago Auto Show which started February 10 and will go through February 19. Vehicle manufacturers displayed their latest and high-technology vehicle creation at this show.

During the show, GMC unveiled the new 2013 GMC Acadia crossover vehicle. It has all the latest technologies. It delivers higher level of technology with its new Color Touch radio with IntelliLink, touch-activated controls and color-touch navigation. The IntelliLink adds voice control and seamless smartphone integration. A GMC engineer explained that once you plug your smartphone in, Acadia’s computer system will “read incoming texts to you…so you don’t have to take your eyes off the road.” However, Joel Cooper, a University of Utah psychologist and research assistant professor specializing in distracted driving said that, “it doesn’t look good” and that “Cognitive distraction is not trivial”. This news sounds good for some who uses cell phones while driving and those who want to make their life easier. But does this invention really ensure safety?  The real question is will the distraction take our eyes off the road and cause serious car accidents?

We all that that studies have shown that hands-free devices are as dangerous as hand-held devices and it causes distraction if you are behind the wheel. Just the fact of having a conversation has been shown to distract a driver’s attention from the road. Driving with the use of hands-free devices can still cause the brain to multitask and is cognitively distracted. The use of a cell phone and even the use of hand-held or hands-free devices by drivers are banned in some States.

It has been a challenge to get people to understanding about the risks of talking on hands-free or handheld cell phones while driving. New technologies and inventions may be cool and make our lives easier in the fast lane. It allows is to conduct business during commutes as a Kentucky Personal Injury attorney I wonder whether it is worth the risk if there is even the slightest chance that this distraction would cause a serious injury car accident.  What do you think?

We live in Kentucky and know what a pothole can do to a car.  Potholes come in all sizes.  They might be a foot deep.  Most potholes are formed due to wear-and-tear and the weathering of roads.  Heavy traffic can aggravate the cracks and potholes in the road, making them more severe. This can go to the point that they are a danger that can cause car accidents, motorcycle accidents, bicycle accidents, and pedestrian accidents.

The size and depth of a pothole can vary substantially.  Even shallow potholes may cause an accident.  Tire blowouts, damage to the undercarriage of the car, loss of control due to the jarring, whiplash, muscle strains, or dental damage caused by severe jarring are some consequences of driving over a pothole.  Under some circumstances the municipality or property owner in charge of maintaining the pavement may be responsible for the injuries.

A case in point is a fatal accident that happened March 15, 2010, where a young wife and mother of two was killed by hitting a simple pothole.  The Fisher family was traveling home to South Carolina when their pickup truck neared the Georgia state line. They were traveling on a rough section of I-20.  A car traveling in front of their truck hit a pothole, sending a piece of concrete through the truck’s windshield on the passenger side, where Jo Maureen Fisher was sitting.  The chunk struck her in the head.  She tragically died the next day.  Today, the husband, John Fisher is a single dad trying to balance work with child care.  Almost a year after the accident, the family was paid by the state of Alabama $1 million. This is even though they had not sued the state.

This was indeed a tragic incident.  There would have been no life lost and a young family left without a mother if those potholes were repaired. This was a preventable accident.   We are hoping that local and state government will continually maintain the road in order to avoid such fatal pothole accidents.

Road Rage as is “an aggressive or angry behavior by a driver of an automobile or other motor vehicle.” We can encounter road rage anytime on the roadway.
We are all guilty of road rage at one time or another. Examples of road rage include:

• rude gestures (you know – flipping the bird)
• honking the horn
• unsafe or a threatening manner of driving
• making threats

These aggressive behaviors can lead to disputes with drivers, assaults and even car accidents which can a cause injury or death.

How can we avoid road rage accidents? Here are some tips that may help:

1. Be a responsible driver – It is vital to drive safely and courteously. Never block the passing lane, follow traffic rules, refrain from speeding and use your turn signals when needed.
2. Check local traffic conditions – road rage accidents can take place as traffic gets worse. If possible, allow enough time to get to your destination. It would be better to travel ahead in order to avoid rush hours on the road.
3. Do not drive if you are under the influence of alcohol or drugs – you are prone to accidents and you are more likely to cause trouble if you are not in your proper behavior.
4. Never drive when you are angry or depressed – conflicts like threat, yelling or assault may occur when an angry driver is triggered.
5. Respect other drivers on the road – Use your horn in an appropriate manner and if you have high beams on headlights, turn it off when there is oncoming traffic. Avoid distracting other drivers.
6. Focus on the road ahead and be aware of other drivers around you – if you see an aggressive driver, get out of his way as much as possible.
7. Avoid eye contact with aggressive drivers – exercise extreme caution when dealing with angry drivers. When dealing with an angry and at-fault road rage driver, it is important to be calm and contact the police.

Being involved in a road rage accident can be risky and even deadly. Always remember that it is better to avoid irritating another driver. You don’t know how badly their day has been. If you know someone who is a victim of road rage accident in Kentucky, tell them to contact a personal injury attorney for them to know and protect their legal rights against at-fault aggressive drivers.

The following is a question I was asked on WAVE Listens about being hit by a cars that presented invalid insurance cards at the accident scene. I explain the ways you can go about recovering your out of pocket expense for fixing the damage to your carfrom a Kentucky car accident.

Q. In the span of about 11 months, I was hit by two different people and they presented fake insurance cards or invalid insurance cards at the scene and come to find out I had my insurance company both times take care of my car, paid my deductible through them, and now I find out that the insurance was not valid at the time of the wreck so I am out two deductibles.

A. There are several things that you can do, Mindy. It depends on whether or not these accidents have been within the last year.  There is a one-year statute of limitations on a criminal charge of no insurance where you can go down to the courthouse and take out a warrant for a no-insurance charge.  Once that warrant is issued the police will pick up or they will notify the individual of the court date.  When the individual comes to court they’ll bring you in, you bring in proof that you were in the accident, things such as the accident report, you bring in proof that your car was fixed and that you were out the deductible and any other out-of-pocket expenses.  When that individual is convicted or pleads guilty to that, one of the things the court will do is order restitution to be paid which is the money that you are out.  It will not be something that would pay, be paid immediately.  Usually it’s $100.00 a month or something like that, but that is the best way for you to get your money back.  It would be a separate charge on each one of these individuals.

Another way to do that would be to take a civil small claims action out against each one of those individuals but, in this case you’re going to have a filing fee.  Once you get the judgment against them, then you have to worry about collecting which often, is often more difficult than getting the judgment because tracking down bank accounts, where they work, and that sort of thing is extremely difficult.  I found that it’s a very big hammer to know that you’re, you could go to jail for 90 days if you don’t pay back the individuals so, I would take out these no insurance warrants.

Would it be too much to ask for zero accidents on our Kentucky roadways as we kick off 2012?  Unfortunately, five motorists have already died in four separate crashes on Kentucky roadways during the New Years’ holiday period, which began at 6 p.m. on December 30, 2011 and ended January 2, 2012 at 11:59 p.m.

The accidents involved motor vehicles in which two of the victims were not wearing seat belts.  Single-fatality crashes happened in Jefferson and Perry counties.  There was also a single fatality crash in Harlan which involved the suspected use of alcohol.  A double-fatality crash occurred in Owen County.

The Kentucky Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) preliminary statistics indicate that 715 people had lost their lives on Kentucky roadways through December 31, 2011.  The following shows the fatality statistics for 2011.

• · 570 motor vehicle fatalities ( 289 victims were not wearing seat belts)
• · 61 motorcycle crashes fatalities (34 victims were not wearing helmets)
• · 25 ATV crashes ( 21 victims were not wearing helmets)
• · 53 pedestrian crashes
• · 2 bicycle fatalities
• · 2 scooter crashes
• · 2 horse-drawn vehicle crashes

There have been a total of 121 fatalities in these motor vehicle accidents which involved the suspected use of alcohol.  This is 45 less fatalities than reported for the same period in 2010.  As a personal injury attorney, I am hopeful that the decline in fatalities will continue throughout the year.  Let us all do our part in keeping our Kentucky roadways safe.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been prompted to review the safety of steroid injections into the epidural space near the spinal cord. These injections are used by Pain Management Doctors to relieve back and neck pain. There have been reports of severe and unexpected complications, including paralysis and death.  The chief of pain medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, James Rathmell, states the procedure is safe and only in a very rare event is there harsh complications caused by the shots.

Rollie Parrish is one of the rare cases to have suffered a stroke during the procedure. He was treated by a steroid shot to his neck to ease chronic pain in a hospital in Nederland, Texas.  Now, he’s nearly blind and in a wheelchair.  Another case involved Luciano Rolando who has received a shot of Kenalog in the lower back. Within hours of the injection, he experienced pain in his legs and loss of sensation when urinating.  And it’s not only them.  In a survey of physicians reported in the Journal Spine, there were 78 cases where patients who got shots in the neck, known as the cervical area of the upper spine, suffered serious injuries. There were 13 deaths.  Physicians were alarmed of these reported cases.

Interestingly, epidural injections were estimated to be as much as $300 billion a year industry!  As a Kentucky Personal Injury Attorney I know that epidural injections relieve pain and makes life better for the victims of car accidents.  Unfortunately, not all recipients are aware of the risks.  Ask your doctor what the risks are if you receive an epidural injection.  This way you can make an informed decision as to whether this treatment is best for you.

According to a recent report the United States could save 2,000 lives a year if all 50 states established comprehensive programs of phased-in privileges for young drivers. A report from the Allstate Foundation and the National Safety Council stated that an estimated 20 lives can be saved in Kentucky from the implementation of a more comprehension graduated driver licensing law.

Auto accidents are the leading cause of death among teens. Every State has a form of GDL, which rewards novice drivers with additional driving privileges as they gain experience and maturity. John Ulczycki of the National Safety Council and other experts say that the most effective GDL programs contain seven components.

The seven components are:

1. Minimum age 16 for a learner’s permit;
2. Six months before unsupervised driving;
3. Minimum 30 hours supervised driving during learner’s stage;
4. Intermediate licensing at 16 ½ minimum;
5. Intermediate nighttime driving restriction beginning no later than 10 p.m.;
6. No more than one non-family passenger for intermediate license holders;
7. Minimum age 17 for a full license

New York and Delaware are the only states that have programs with all seven components. In Kentucky, the GDL program includes:

a) A six month learning permit at age 16 that requires adult supervision;

b) A restriction on driving after midnight during the permit level;

c) A six point limit on traffic violations to age 18, with a penalty of license suspension; and

d) A four hour driving education class. Under the current National Highway Traffic Safety

Kentucky’s program no longer meets the minimum requirements for a full GDL program with seven components recommended by the National Safety Council.

This is an issue that Kentucky Lawmakers should consider. As a Kentucky Personal Injury Attorney and a father of a teenage daughter, I am concerned about the number of car crashes involving teen drivers. I agree that more lives and more money will be saved if GDL programs in Kentucky will be strengthened.  This is enhancements to the current law should defiantly be considered by Kentucky Law makers.