by

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.  Many have a phobia of dying in a car accident.

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.

Continue reading

by

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.

Continue reading

by

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, ischias, nerve root pain, and nerve root entrapment.  It is It’s a neurologic condition that involves a nerve being pinched by something external to the nerve. Sciatica can be extremely painful.

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, usually a herniated disc.

Other causes of sciatica include spinal stenosis, piriformis syndrome, osteoarthritis, spondylosis, and spondylolisthesis.  But, as our lawyers often see, these injuries can be exacerbated by a car accident.

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

Continue reading

by

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.)

Continue reading

by

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.

Continue reading

by

Our motorcycle accidents see a lot of cases involving lane splitting and the question of whether motorcycles can drive between lanes. 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

Continue reading

by

The last clear chance doctrine is a frequently litigated and extremely confusing exception to Maryland’s contributory negligence law.  Even the names are confusing.  The doctrine has also been called the doctrine of discovered peril,  supervening negligence, subsequent negligence, and the aptly named humanitarian doctrine.  The most common incorrect assumption is that it is a defense to the case. In fact, the opposite is true.

What Is the Doctrine of Last Clear Chance?

The gist of the doctrine is that even if the plaintiff contributed to her own injury, her lawsuit will not be barred if the defendant had a clear opportunity after the plaintiff had put herself peril, to avoid the injury by the exercise of ordinary care. Another way to frame this same idea is that ‘if the defendant has the last clear opportunity to avoid the harm, the plaintiff’s negligence is not a ‘proximate cause’ of the result” (Prosser, Law of Torts § 66).

So the way this works, at least in Maryland, is that the jury can find contributory negligence but still award damages if it found that the defendant blew a last clear chance to avoid the accident.

Continue reading

by

You get in an accident. The other driver’s insurance company denies the claim.  Your question is: what do I do if my car insurance claim is denied?

Insurance companies deny car accident claims for good reasons and bad.  The reality is insurance companies make money by taking premiums and not paying out claims.  So their default thinking is finding a reason to deny a claim.  Is this bad faith?  Maybe.  But you really don’t care.  You just want to get compensated.  The important thing to remember is this is why we have car accident lawyers and a civil justice system.

What are some reasons insurance companies deny car accident claims?

Continue reading

by

A recent study conducted by the Highway Loss Data Institute found that collision avoidance systems installed on 2013-2017 BMW models showed claim rate reductions in collisions, property damage, and injuries. This shows that this technology has the potential to reduce auto collision and injury rates.

As we are seeing with the coronavirus, fewer accidents don’t only save precious lives. There is less of a toll on our hospitals and, yes, our insurance companies that that can help reduce health care and insurance costs.  So anything that comes along that can move us to a safer future is a very good thing for all of us.

What are collision avoidance systems?

Continue reading

by

I’m always reading about how State Farm and Allstate dominate auto insurance nationally. Our accident lawyers seem to see more of GEICO than any other insurance company. This morning, I found an article with auto insurance market share data that lists the top 5 car insurance companies by market share in Maryland for private passenger cars.

Maryland Market Share for Car Insurance

1. Berkshire Hathaway/GEICO:  25.3%

Continue reading