Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

David Stratton, a defense lawyer with Jordan Coyne & Savits, provides a link on his blog to an interactive map that shows the location of road accident fatalities between 2001 and 2009. If you allow yourself to move past the dry statistics and really think about what you are seeing - even for an instant - it is terribly depressing. It makes me wonder: exactly how much would it cost - in time and money - to cut this figure in half? Lower the speed limits? Require car makers to build safer cars? More restrictions on truck drivers? I'm not saying we should do this. But I sure would like someone to do an estimate so we can figure out what the tab would be.

Some jurors see a bike plaintiff and think this

A law firm dedicated to handling just bicycle accidents? You are not going to find that in Maryland. But New York is a big city.

The New York Times exaggerates a little bit. The lawyers at Rankin & Taylor do handle other cases, including this one involving a masseuse who says police required her to clean a toilet at the station before releasing her. (Crazy, right?) But they don't appear to run from the fact that their focus is representing bicyclists who get tickets in a New York that is increasingly anti-bicyclist.

Our lawyers are not taking these kinds of cases. But our law firm does handle motorcycle accident and bike cases. Truth is, juries are like New Yorkers: they are skeptical of motorcycles and bikes. Bikers minding their own business don't get noticed (sometimes to their peril). But you always remember a bike that cut you off or almost caused you to get in an accident. Bike accident lawyers in these cases need to anticipate and refute this bias from voir dire to closing.

I wrote about this a few years ago. Interestingly, as I note in this post, juries seem more biased toward bicycles than motorcycles.

An Illinois jury awarded $1.275 million to the family of a 25 year-old woman who had almost completed her nursing degree and was killed while driving to her job at a hospital. Tired driving appeared to be the cause of the car accident: the Defendant just fell asleep and hit the Plaintiffs' decedent.

The damages only trial lasted four days. The jury heard four grueling days of testimony from the family. Not that a tragedy like this can get worse, but this young girl had already been through a lot: surviving two kidney transplants only to be senselessly killed by someone driving down the road.

Continue reading "How Much for the Wrongful Death of a 25 Year-Old Girl?" »

The hardest car accident cases to try are he said/she said accidents where there are not natural facts that make one version more likely than another. The classic example of this scenario is lane change/merger accidents. Which car came over into which lane? Even a good accident reconstructionist struggles to be able to put the pieces together. So it often comes down two factors: (1) which version seems more likely (incredibly subjective), and (2) which driver has more credibility (incredibly subjective squared).

According to a Jury Verdict Research study of jury verdicts in these types of cases, the results are what you might intuitively expect: 50/50. The JVR study found car accident plaintiffs win about 48 percent for lane change collisions and 45 percent for merging collisions. The average verdict is $47,807.

We have tried and won these cases. But our firm is going to turn down most lane change or merging crash cases unless there is something compelling that makes us think we are going to win the case. We need two things to move forward in a lane change or merge crash case: (1) a very serious injury (sad but true commentary on the real world), and (2) a client that is extremely credible.

Google "personal injury settlement calculator." A lot of people get on-line looking for a personal injury settlement calculator as if there is some formula that will calculate the amount of money they will get for their personal injury car accident claim.

The reality is that trying to find a calculator to determine your personal injury settlement is fool's gold. Please trust me, if you find an answer on the Internet that values your car accident settlement, it is utter nonsense.

Generally speaking, the personal injury settlement formula for a car accident cases is:

Past and Future Medical Bills
+
Past and Future Lost Wages
+
Past and Future Pain and Suffering Damages

How does that formula apply to you? The first two you may be able to knock down pretty simply if there are no future medical bills or future lost wages. But, ultimately, the money in personal injury car accident cases is your pain and suffering damages. And there is no personal injury settlement calculator that you can find that is going to give you pain and suffering damages that are specific to you. Because each case - your case - is unique.

Our website does discuss some of the major factors of case value that apply in most personal injury cases.

If you still feel like you just need some sort of personal injury settlement calculator and you don't care that the result that it churns out are stupid and useless of no help at all, go here. These kind folks pretend there is a formula. Granted, these people are not lawyers, they are a consulting company that presumably generates leads for accident lawyers by creating a website called... wait for it... Personal Injury Calculator.

Our law firm has recently put up a page on our website analyzing claims against Travelers Insurance. The short version: Travelers is a better draw in car accident claims in comparison to the usual suspects in Maryland accident cases. Still, they are, how do you say... still an insurance company. Which, by definition, makes tham a challenge to deal with when trying to settle an auto accident claim.

Motorcyclists are getting smarter and smarter and it is saving lives. According to the NHTSA, use of motorcycle helmets in 2009 was up 67 percent, an increase of 4% from 2008 and an increase of 22% from 2005.

It is axiomatic that wearing a helmet is the single most effective way of reducing head injuries and fatal accidents on motorcycles and bicycles. One study shows that wearing a helmet has been shown to decrease the risk of serious injury on a motorcycle by 70% and decrease the risk of a fatality by 40%.

Wearing a bike helmet is the lowest possible hanging fruit to save lives on motorcycles and bicycles. We are making tons of progress, we just need that progress to continue.

• Police policy on chasing motorcycles
• The NHTSA Study
• Motorcycle Accident Claims in Maryland (an overview)

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.

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

Maryland motorcycle accident deaths are down approximately 20%, from 83 deaths in 2008 to 63 deaths in 2009. While that is 63 deaths too many, it reverses the trend of increasing motorcycle deaths in Maryland in the last decade. Maryland's move toward better motorcycle safety mirrors the rest of the country. There were approximately 500 fewer fatal motorcycle accidents nationally in 2009 than in 2008.

Why the sudden decline in fatalities? No one knows for sure. The optimists argue that motorcycle safety and easier to handle motorcycles are the reason for the decline in the death rate. The pessimists argue that economic meltdown means less discretionary income which means less motorcycles on the street. Some have also suggested bad weather played a paradoxically positive role - less good days to ride equals less motorcycle accidents. Let's hope the optimists are right and this new trend forebodes a shift to decreasing the overall number of motorcycle accidents.

There are two fundamental things we need to do to reduce auto accident injuries. First, we have to decrease the number of accidents. Driver inattention is a tough problem to fix, but real gains can be made with drunk drivers and drivers using their cell phones or text messaging.

The second is reducing the severity of injuries after an accident occurs. This means safe cars, trucks and motorcycles that can withstand an impact and occupants wearing seat belts. With respect to the latter, John Day's Day on Torts reports that seat belt use in 2009 stood at 84 percent, a gain from 83 percent use in 2008.

The Baltimore Sun reports on a fatal motorcycle accident involving a Baltimore County police officer, the second fatal accident involving a motorcycle and a Baltimore County police officer in less than a month.

It is an incredible and tragic coincidence. The article reads as though this accident was the result of the negligence of someone else. I just wonder if people are going to be driving motorcycles twenty years from now. Because regardless of who is at fault, motorcycles are just not well equipped for accidents with cars on relatively immovable objects.

Most of our country's fatal car, truck and motorcycle accidents occur on rural roads, according to statistics released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Fifty-six percent of 37,261 traffic deaths occurred on rural roads during 2008. Researchers say that the higher death rate on rural roads stems from a combination of faster driving speeds, poorer road engineering, behavioral influences and slower delivery of acute medical care.

I would think you would have to add more single lane, curvy roads where vehicles are traveling at excessive speeds.

Certainly, State Farm is major player in auto accident insurance market share in Maryland, getting barely nudged out of the top spot by GEICO. According, Maryland accident lawyers see plenty of State Farm... over and over again. State Farm is not a bad company. They have quality accident lawyer in Maryland and good adjusters. In fact, the only issue our Maryland accident lawyers differ with State Farm over typically is the value of individual accident cases. The problem is, of course, is that value is the key ingredient in Maryland accident cases.

Our Maryland car accident lawyers lift up the veil behind State Farm in Maryland and explain some important details worth knowing in attempting to achieve a settlement with State Farm in the Baltimore-Washington area. Click on the preceding link for our attorneys' analysis of State Farm.

If you have a claim with State Farm and would like the assistance of what we believe to the best car accident law firm in Maryland, call 800-553-8082 or click here for a free Internet consultation.

Maryland accident lawyers should not be discussing the value of the client's accident claim in accident lawyer's first conversation with the client. Why? Because no accident lawyer knows the value of any accident claim until the lawyer reviews the medical records. This is true in 99.99% of the cases. A lawyer cannot even begin to estimate the value of the claim until all of the facts are evaluated. The facts in an accident case aer not in until the bills, reports, and other documents are received and evaluated.

Accident lawyers are often told never to ask your client’s opinion of value. I appreciate the point but there can be a benefit to it because you can compare the client’s view with your own with an eye toward managing client expectations. If you see the case value very differently than the client, you need to have a frank discussion about the merits of the case, the damages that may be claimed, and any pertinent legal issues.

• Value of Accident Cases (what is the value of your client's case?)
• Sample Demand Letter (sample claim for damages)
• Values of Specific Injuries (fractures, disc injuries, fatalities, etc)