Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

Are red light camera pictures admissible at trial without an authenticating witness? At least one California court says no. You can read the opinion here.

A few times a week I talk with someone who was injured when the other driver ran a red light. (I literally just hung up 10 minutes ago with a motorcyclist from Michigan who was injured driving through Maryland.) The reality is that while no one wants to get a ticket from a cowardly, faceless camera, red light cameras save lives and decrease the number of serious injury and fatal car accidents in Maryland.

I don't think a Maryland court would rule the same way. I also think the California legislature should draft an evidentiary rule to solve this problem.

The Baltimore Sun has an article about a police officer who has been suspended after giving chase to a motorcyclist which resulted in an accident that killed the fleeing motorcyclist.

The Sun reports that Baltimore police are instructed to chase a vehicle only if the driver or passengers are believed to have committed a violent crime or pose a risk to public safety,

It has to be frustrating for police when motorcyclists drive by police at excessive speeds, thumbing their nose at law enforcement. The question is where to draw the line between trying to apprehend suspects and keeping reasonably safe the general public, the police officer and, yes, even the fleeing suspect. Personally, I have no idea where that line should be drawn or whether the police officer acted appropriately in this case.

Can you get a ticket for keeping on the tail lights Pontiac puts on in the factory? According to this blogger, a Maryland judge says yes.

The story sounds incredibly bizarre, including a report that the judge suggested the car be sold because this Pontiac does not comply with Maryland law.

There is no way to verify these types of Internet stories. Maybe it is more fun that way.

In Prince George's County v. Brent, the Maryland Court of Appeals answers the question that will probably never be asked again: can you sue the agent after a successful case against the master? (Sneak preview: the answer is yes.)

The case involves an accident at the Branch Avenue (Route 5) and Allentown Road (Route 337) interchange in Prince George's County against a police officer. Of course, when the Local Government Torts Claims Act is involved, plaintiffs' accident lawyers have to navigate through more hurdles than Bristol Palin's path to happiness. (Did you hear she is engaged? To Levi? Really, it's true! I read it in US Weekly.)

So, bizarrely, the Plaintiff tried the case against PG County alone and got a $230,000 verdict. But the verdict was reduced by the procedural hodgepodge of Maryland Code §5-524 of the Courts and Judicial Proceedings Article that limits the sovereign immunity waiver to the available insurance coverage in car accident cases. So Plaintiff goes back and gets a verdict against the police officer, trying the case solely on the issue of whether the police officer was responding to an emergency.

Really odd facts. It is a good case for plaintiffs although I cannot imagine when anyone reading this will actually use the opinion. I'm surprised the Maryland Court of Appeals took the case. Read the case for the rest of the details.

There are so many perils in dealing with claims against local governments. The law is against you from the start by cutting the statute of limitations and in the end by often limiting the amount of your recovery. Then there is the pain that comes from dealing with claims adjusters for the state who often seem to have no interest in what the trial value of a case may be.

This case highlights a final concern: getting approval from the local municipality, or whoever else, for settlement authority. It is like dealing with an insurance company times 1,000. Here, everyone agrees the case should settle... except the municipality.

Earlier today, I blogged about medical malpractice after an auto accident. The take home message was that malpractice after a car accident is foreseeable and the negligent driver is responsible for all of the harms caused by the accident.

One of our clients has an interesting issue that falls under the same logic. In this case, the car was destroyed not by the accident but, at least allegedly, by the negligence of the repair shop in fixing the vehicle. GEICO, being GEICO, has denied the claim. This is their denial letter.

GEICO is going to lose this claim but it is not going to happen without a lawsuit. This is the way it is in 2010.

• GEICO claims (an overview on dealing with GEICO)
• Property damage claims (how to handle)

The Boston Injury Lawyer Blog has a post on the awful recipe of teenagers, night driving and cell phones/text messaging.

• Cell phone accident statistics
• Car accident statistics

USAA claims in auto accident cases are less predictable than claims that claims against the three insurance companies with the most market share (GEICO, State Farm and Allstate) in Maryland.

On our website, we recently added a page discussing our Maryland accident attorneys' experience with USAA and how we believe USAA approaches auto accident claims.

Certainly, informed plaintiffs want to know what their best case scenarios are. Plaintiffs' car accident lawsuits (and settlements) in Maryland are limited by (1) Maryland's cap on non-economic damages, or (2) as a practical matter in most passenger car accident cases, the upper limits of the available insurance coverage.

How much money does the insurance company have available to settle your claim? Unless the insurance company offers the policy limits, in which case they certify the amount of the policy, the only other way to know is to file a lawsuit. They are required to provide this information in discovery. Here is an example of a response from Erie:

Random car accident statistics:

• Car crashes are the leading cause of teenage deaths, ages 15-20, in the United States
• Teenagers are three times more likely to be involved in a fatal car accident than any other driver (incredible statistic that underscores the need to raise the minimum driving age in the country, inconvenient as that may be)
• In 2008, elderly people were the cause of 18 percent of all pedestrian fatalities and 15 percent of all car accident fatalities
• In good news, there were about 33,963 fatal car accidents in 2009, compared to the 37,261 fatal car accidents in 2008, showing a decrease of about 9 percent.
• Seatbelt usage is higher among women then of men and it was lower when a person was driving alone versus when they were driving with passengers. (Another surprising car accident statistic.) Is this because a good brand of peer pressure pushes you to put on your seatbelt?)
• Seatbelts saved over 75,000 lives from 2004 to 2008
• Someone dies from auto accident injuries every 15 minutes.
• In the UK, 7 percent of drivers have either lost control or had an accident due to sneezing. (This is still negligence, by the way, no matter how you slice it.)
• In 2009, 650,000 teens under the age of 21 were involved in a car accident
• Car accidents are most likely to occur in the summer time because people are more likely to be drinking and driving
• The leading cause of car accidents is a distracted driver
• 60 percent of fatal teen car accidents are related to alcohol
• 73% of fatal car accident victims are men, making men two times more likely to die in a car accident
• 1,550 people die yearly due to drowsy driving and 71,000 are injured (I wonder how many of these are truck drivers driving long days)
• I've read this a thousand times and I still can't believe it: the middle back seat is the safest place to ride in a car
• Most car accidents occur 1.4 miles away from the home
• There are approximately 6,000,000 car accidents in the United States every year.

More Car Accident Statistics and Information

• More Car Accident Statistics
• Car Accident Claims (an overview)

Red light/green light cases are maddening to take to trial. Sometimes, an accident lawyer just knows the defendant is lying... but can't prove it. Often, there is no solution to this problem in red light/green light or other liability dispute car and truck accident cases. There are no witnesses and all you have is the police report. But in some cases there is proof out there that the defendant is lying because the light sequence report is mutually exclusive of the defendant's version of how the car accident occurred.

The solution by now for Maryland accident lawyers is obvious: if you have a liability dispute where light sequencing is an issue, get a copy of the traffic sequence report from the state of Maryland.

• Sample Light Sequence Report
• Sample Request Letter for Sequence Report
• Maryland accident claims: an overview

The problem with big rig trucks is there are just too many ways they can cause serious accidents. My husband just called me and reported the traffic is stopped on the Baltimore Beltway because a truck apparently shifted too abruptly causing the pavers it was hauling to fly out of the truck, sending them across the jersey wall and into oncoming traffic.

There are just so many different consequences that can stem from negligence in big rig tractor trailers accidents that don't exist with passenger vehicles. Apparently, what happened here is one of those truck accident risks the general public thinks very little about: properly securing the truck's load. Federal law clearly sets forth a trucker's obligations in this regard under 49 CFR 392.9