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COVID-19: Maryland Laws, Policies and Legal Resources from Miller & Zois. Includes information and updates on Maryland and Federal laws and regulations impacting Maryland residents and businesses.

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Federal regulations regarding commercial trucking require states to notify other states when licensed truck drivers incur violations that warrant license suspension. The purpose of these rules is to keep dangerous truck drivers off the road.  Unfortunately, however, a recent report by the Boston Globe found that over half of all states routinely fail to comply with this warning requirement.

When a commercial driver receives a license suspension or conviction, the state is supposed to notify other jurisdictions within 10 days. But most state agencies take months (and sometimes years) to send out these warning notices to other states. In some cases, truckers were allowed to continue driving in other states for more than 20 years after a license suspension or revocation.

This is a situation that puts people in danger. A 70,000-pound big rig truck can cause serious injuries and death in an accident. Ensuring that the individuals driving these massive vehicles are qualified and responsible is extremely important. Tractor-trailer trucks cause 5,000 deaths on U.S. roadways each year and that number has been on the rise recently. The habitual failure of state motor vehicle agencies to communicate with each other on truck driver license violations is contributing to this growing problem. The Boston Globe study found that at least 1 out of every 20 commercial truck drivers on the road is illegally driving with an active, unresolved violation of their license.

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Tire regrooving is a service that intends to improve vehicle mileage, fuel efficiency, and traction. Truck drivers, construction workers, and farmers often regroove tires to cut costs. It allows them to maximize tire use, eliminating the need for new tires. Regrooving tires involve carving a tire’s grooves to restore tread depth and improve friction. Car mechanics use either a handheld tool or a regrooving machine to do this. Tire regrooving is resurging because of increased fuel and tire manufacturing costs. But a regroove tire comes with real risks.  The result is sometimes a personal injury case that makes it to a courtroom.

What federal laws cover tire regrooving?

Tire regrooving is subject to federal regulations.  Specifically, 49 CFR Section 569.3(c) defines a “regroovable tire” as tires that are “designed, and constructed with sufficient material to permit renewal of the tread pattern.” This means tires can only be legally regrooved if they have enough rubber to maintain its original tread pattern. Non-commercial vehicle tires are not regroovable because they are too thin to preserve its tread pattern.

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Phobias are associated with an irrational fear that people have or carry with them. Vehophobia is the fear of driving. Why would someone fear driving?  In many cases, the fear stems from a traumatic injury in a previous car crash.   Call it vehophobia or call it PTSD the result is the same: severe anxiety getting into a motor vehicle.

From a car accident attorney’s perspective, emotional harm is the single biggest harm in the vast majority of our cases.  So the PTSD that stems from car accident is right along the line of the damages bring in these lawsuits.  Is this harm correlated to the severity of the crash?  It generally is.  But regardless of the severity of a car accident, vehophobia is a very real and prevalent issue many people experience after enduring car accident.

What Is Vehophobia?

The fear of driving after a car accident is technically a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). PTSD, which is most commonly associated with war veterans, actually can be set off by any terrifying incident, including the trauma of almost dying or being in a serious car accident.

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The COVID-19 pandemic sparked a massive economic shutdown and prompted millions of people in Maryland and across the U.S. to stay at home and off the highways. Anyone who has ventured out or maybe retracted their daily commute recently has probably noticed the amazing impact this has had on eliminating traffic. Even at the peak of rush hour these days you can expect to find traffic on both the Baltimore and DC beltways free and clear. With few people commuting to work there are just way fewer cars to share the roads with. It’s like we turned back the clock 30 years on traffic volume but kept all the new road improvements.

Not surprisingly this has caused the number of auto accidents on the roads to dramatically plummet. Auto insurance companies like State Farm and Nationwide are even advertising premium refunds to policyholders.  But if you assume that this means that the roads are now safer think again. The sudden emergence of wide-open space on Maryland’s highways has apparently tempted many drivers to unleash their inner need for speed.

The Maryland State Police and other organizations that monitor highway safety have reported that drivers are going much faster and getting more reckless. People feel like they can drive as fast as they want to now and the result is an alarming trend. Instead of being safer because of reduced traffic, the roadways in Maryland and the U.S. are actually much more dangerous now.

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No matter the circumstances, getting into a car accident is a frightening and sometimes traumatic experience. This fear can multiply tenfold for pregnant women that are concerned not only for their own health but for the health and wellbeing of their baby.

Our law firm has represented many mothers-to-be injured in car accidents in Maryland and Washington, D.C.  There is typically no serious injury to the mother in most car crashes and the mother’s injuries rarely meaningfully impact the unborn baby.  But there are several of the more severe injuries that pregnant women can suffer from as a result of a car crash. 

What Is the Greatest Fear After a Car Accident While Pregnant?

One of the most dangerous injuries that can occur is called placental abruption. This is a condition in which the placenta partially or completely separates from the uterus before the baby is born, which disrupts the baby’s supply of oxygen and nutrients. According to a study by the American Journal of Epidemiology, placental abruption causes the the mortality rate to increase 12-fold. This spike in the mortality rate is due largely to the correlation between placental abruption and early delivery. A car accident is a significant cause of placental abruptions. At least one study has suggested that broadside car accidents cause the greatest risk of placental abruption.

A placental abruption can lead to internal bleeding, hemorrhaging, premature labor, and miscarriage. What’s even more concerning is that sometimes there aren’t necessarily any noticeable symptoms of placental abruption immediately following the accident. It is potentially fatal to your baby and dangerous to your own health.

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Sciatica is a type of nerve pain that my team and I repeatedly hear about from our auto accident clients. It is also known as lumbar radiculopathy. Below, I outline this condition, what causes it, treatment options, and similar conditions.

sciatica car accident

What is sciatica?

Sciatica is pain that runs down the back of the leg. It is named after the sciatic nerve, a nerve that originates in the lower lumbar spine and then travels down the back of both legs. Sciatica pain is felt all along this nerve, from the lower back, to the pelvis, hips, and buttock, and to the thighs.

This pain is usually described as shooting jolts of pain, and sometimes as a burning pain. Sitting or standing in one place for a long time or certain movements, such as twisting, may cause more severe pain.

What causes sciatica?

Car accidents commonly cause nerve damage because the sudden stop or change in direction causes injuries to the spine. These injuries are often minor enough that they don’t immediately seem problematic, but they may result in nerve pain that can last for months or years in severe cases.

Sciatica after a car accident may be a symptom of one of the conditions described below.

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Car collisions can be terrifying, stressful events and cause both personal injury and property damage.  There are 16,000,000 car accidents (no typo there) a year in this country.  There are more than 4.5 million automobile accidents that resulted in property damage and 1.7 million crashes that resulted in personal injuries.

It is amazing how much we are doing to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and yet we don’t take the simplest steps to we could to prevent car accident deaths (although that may be an unfair comparison).

The sheer number of collisions, the varying results, and complex outcomes all contribute to many misconceptions about car accidents. What’s important to remember is that if you suffered an injury as the result of a car collision, you should contact a personal injury attorney.  It can be us at Miller & Zois or another attorney.  But if you have been hurt, you should be talking to someone to make sure you understand your rights and options. (You know, we will make this the last misconception.)

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Traumatic brain injuries can occur in car accidents in a number of different ways. For example, the head may collide with the airbag or be pierced by a projectile. It is possible for other bodily injuries to lead to brain damage, such as a broken trachea that deprives the brain of oxygen. This article discusses the different mechanisms of brain injury in car accidents and their effects on the brain.

Coup-contrecoup Injury

Coup-contrecoup is a term used to describe a particular mechanism of brain injury in whiplash and similar traumatic scenarios. When the head whips back and forth and/or collides with an object, the brain moves inside the skull. This causes the brain to collide with the skull.

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Our motorcycle accidents see a lot of cases involving lane splitting. Let’s talk about what lane splitting is and what the Maryland law is on this subject.

What is Lane Splitting?

Lane splitting is a term used to describe when motorcycles drive on the lines between lanes, allowing them to pass cars by going in between them. Related to lane splitting is lane filtering. This is when motorcyclists move up between cars stopped at a stoplight.

Maryland Laws on Motorcycle Lane Splitting

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Most of us have experienced some neck pain or lower back pain in our lives. As a personal injury lawyer who handles car accident cases, I see these complaints all the time. Car accidents exert extreme forces on the human body, particularly the spine. 

The neck and lower back are two areas that are commonly injured in accidents because of car crash mechanics. The vertebrae in the neck are called the cervical vertebrae and those in the lower back are called the lumbar vertebrae.

As the car comes to a sudden stop, the body lurches forward and is caught by the seat belt, causing the neck to whip quickly. This is what is commonly known as whiplash. 

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