Social Media Posts May Sabotage Your Accident or Personal Injury Case

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In this age of social media, when most people have smart phones and accounts on multiple online social platforms, it is common for individuals involved in accidents to post status updates and photographs about what has happened to them. Our accident attorneys understand that it has become second nature for many, especially young people, to share every moment of their day online, without thought of how far their information and photographs may spread. If you are involved in a car accident, truck accident, motorcycle accident, or any situation that results in a personal injury, this is a very bad idea; it could cause you to lose compensation you deserve for your injuries, even if someone else was at fault.

You Never Know How Far a Tweet or Status Update Will Spread

Social networks are a powerful method for disseminating information – sometimes when you don’t even realize you are doing it. For example, during the recent Academy Awards ceremony, a “selfie” posted by host Ellen Degeneres – of herself with a number of other attending celebrities – became the most shared photo ever on social media site Twitter. The record breaking “selfie” was re-tweeted so many times that Twitter crashed. See Ellen’s tweet here.

Facebook Post Results in Loss of $80,000 Settlement

While the viral spread of Ellen’s “selfie” did no damage, another post – this time on Facebook – had a much more damaging effect. Patrick Snay, former headmaster of Gulliver Preparatory School in Miami, sued his employer for age discrimination, winning an $80,000 settlement. This settlement was subject to a confidentiality clause. Following the decision, Snay breached confidentiality by telling his daughter about the award, and she then posted a status on Facebook, saying, “Mama and Papa Snay won the case against Gulliver. Gulliver is now officially paying for my vacation to Europe this summer. SUCK IT.” When lawyers for Gulliver Prep proved in court that current and former Gulliver students had viewed that damning status update, Snay lost the entire $80,000 settlement amount.
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Florida Highway Car Accidents Can Be Deadly

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Just this month, four young fraternity brothers from the University of South Florida died in a head on collision on Northbound I-275 outside of Tampa. Another young man, the driver of the Ford Expedition that caused the collision, was also killed. This collision was especially deadly because it was a wrong-way accident, with the Expedition travelling south in I-275’s northbound lanes at a high rate of speed. During the same weekend, six people also died in a similar head-on collision across the country on an LA County freeway.

Although any road can be the scene of a serious wreck under the wrong conditions, car accidents on Florida’s freeways, highways, interstates, and turnpike are often catastrophic – even when they are not wrong-way accidents. This is because of the traffic density and high speeds of vehicles on these roadways, and because large trucks crowd the lanes transporting cargo across the state. And with its international port and high population concentration, Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach County see a large percentage of Florida’s highway collisions.

I-95 is well-known for the dangers it poses to drivers, especially during commuting times and late weekend nights. Rush hour traffic can bring the highway to a near standstill, but when not in gridlock, it can be the site of some of the most aggressive driving witnessed by law enforcement across the region. Eager to take advantage of any opening, and frustrated with heavy traffic, drivers may take to speeding, tailgating, switching lanes without signaling, and refusing to let others merge at on-ramps and off-ramps. The Palmetto Expressway, Florida Turnpike and Dolphin Expressway also have their share of high-risk driving behaviors and road rage incidents.
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Intersection Car Accidents in Florida

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A recent National Highway Traffic Safety Administration report stated that between 35 and 40 percent of all reported vehicle collisions across the United States are intersection car accidents – and Florida is no exception. In fact, Florida is home to a number of the most dangerous intersections in the country.

Dangerous Florida Intersections

In 2004, a crossroads in Pembroke Pines was listed in the State Farm Danger Index as the intersection with the highest number of accidents in the nation – followed closely by other Florida intersections in Plantation, Tamarac-Lauderhill, Palm Harbor, Winter Park, Tampa, and Orlando. In response to these findings and continued reports of deadly intersection car accidents – including the death of Mark Wandall, a man killed by a red light runner in 2003 – the state government has worked to improve intersection safety.

In 2010, legislation passed to install “red light cameras” at known dangerous intersections in an effort to deter red light runners and reduce serious injuries and fatalities from intersection collisions. Although these cameras have, indeed, reduced deaths and serious injuries, the number of rear-end collisions has actually risen at many intersections with the cameras installed, as more drivers brake suddenly instead of hurrying through an amber light.

Causes of Intersection Car Accidents

The vast majority of intersection car accidents can be attributed to some kind of negligence or human error – the most common being distracted driving and a driver’s inattention to their surroundings. In fact, over 40 percent of all intersection-related collisions are due to the negligence of at least one driver. With the unfortunate increase in texting-while-driving behavior and the greater number of electronic gadgets in newer cars, this trend is expected to continue or even become worse in the near future.
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Dangerous New Trend: Taking Selfies While Driving

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A number of alarming new hashtags are trending on Twitter and cropping up on other social media sites like Instagram, Facebook, and Vine: all related to “driving selfies.” This is the dangerous – sometimes deadly – practice of using a smart phone or tablet to take a self-portrait (or a group shot) while in the act of driving a vehicle. The number of car accidents caused by distracted drivers will continue to rise with this trend.

A quick search for “driving selfies” on Instagram or Twitter brings up at least five wildly trending hashtags, including #drivingselfie, #drivingfast, #drivingtowork, and #drivingintherain. There is even an “ironic” trending hashtag: #ihopeidontcrash. There are somewhere in the range of 15,000 posts on Instagram alone under these hashtags, with more popping up every day – and this does not include the other “while driving” shots, such as passengers hamming it up in the back seat, scenery flashing past the window, and even beads of rain moving across the windshield (see #rainx).

While there is a long list of unwise and dangerous distracted driving activities, very few are quite as disturbing as this new “selfies while driving” trend. All distracted driving has the potential to be deadly, but there are a number of reasons this is such an alarming development:
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Car Accidents: Understanding Florida’s Permanent Injury Threshold

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When a person is injured in an auto accident, the attorney they hire can help them recover damages to cover medical bills and lost wages. In more severe cases, the victim may be able to receive damages for pain and suffering. Because this requires proving a permanent injury, many attorneys in Florida often refer to this statute as creating a permanency threshold.

There are several Florida laws that govern car accident cases and bars a plaintiff from receiving damages for pain and suffering. One Florida law, section 627.737 Florida Statutes, states that a plaintiff cannot receive damages for pain and suffering unless they can prove one of the following:

(a) Significant and permanent loss of an important bodily function.
(b) Permanent injury within a reasonable degree of medical probability, other than scarring or disfigurement.
(c) Significant and permanent scarring or disfigurement.
(d) Death.

How Past Medical History May Affect Your Case

In Duclos v. Richardson, 113 So. 3d 1001 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2013), plaintiff Jeanette Richardson sustained neck injuries due to an automobile accident. Ms. Richardson sued Duclos, the defendant, because he was at fault.

Ms. Richardson provided medical testimony from three doctors whom deemed her neck injury as a permanent one. The defendant then provided medical testimony from an orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Thron, who testified that Ms. Richardson suffered from arthritis in her neck and that the automobile accident did not cause permanent injury to her neck. Dr. Thron based his testimony on prior medical records belonging to Ms. Richardson.
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Car Accidents: Design Defect and Manufacturing Defect

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Design defect and manufacturing defect fall under the category of product liability. A design defect is established when the blue print of a particular product, such as the blue print of a car, is not properly designed. This means that an entire line of a product is defective as opposed to just one product. A manufacturing defect on the other hand is established when one product only in an entire line is defective. For example, the steering wheel of one Toyota Corolla out of a hundred may have not been inputted correctly.

A company’s main objective is to constantly increase the amount of money they receive by selling cars for example. It is the company’s duty to make sure that all their products are safe. When there is a defect in a particular product’s blue print and that product was manufactured and sold to many, any injuries sustained by any of the consumers will be held against that company. If there is only one product from an entire line that injures its consumer, the company will be liable to that consumer.

Recent Design Defects and Manufacturing Defects That Involve Automobiles

• Defective Tires: According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), more than 8,000 serious or fatal accidents are caused by tire failure every year.
• Defective Airbags: Airbags have saved countless lives. Unfortunately, the malfunction of one can result in serious injury or death. If the airbag fails to deploy during an accident, the person in the collision will be much more vulnerable to the impact. If the airbag deploys without an impact, the driver will most likely lose control of the vehicle and can easily get in an accident. Even if the driver were to be able to maintain control, the deployment of the impact itself can cause serious injury.
• Defective Seatbelts: The problem with a defective seatbelt can usually be found with the belt latch. During a collision the latch can become unlatched or break. A defective seatbelt can result in serious injury even in a minor car accident.
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Accident Scene Photography Tips

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If you are involved in a car Accident, it is vitally important to gather evidence as soon as possible, to protect your interests and legal rights. A critical piece of evidence in any accident lawsuit or insurance claim is a collection of Accident scene photographs.

Today, more than ever before, people have the tools they need to obtain photographic evidence immediately following an accident. With mobile devices, dash cams, and small digital cameras everywhere, an accident victim and/or bystanders can take photos of the automobiles, the damages, the weather conditions, the physical scene, and many other details of the crash site. These photographs can help with insurance claims, and can be a great help to a car accident lawyer retained to pursue a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit.

Car accident attorneys advise clients to take many, varied, and detailed images of the scene. This photographic evidence, especially pictures and videos taken immediately following the crash – and before cars, obstructions, or signage is moved or changed – can support your version of events, and can also help to restore details to faded or confused memory when you are later asked to recall the event in settlement meetings or in court.

Still photographs and videos can be taken on iPods, tablets, cell phones, and dash cams, as well as everyday cameras. One benefit of today’s gadgets is that you can see exactly what pictures look like as you take them, so if an important image is blurry, is obscured by glare, or is otherwise unhelpful, you can take another. It is important to use a flash for clarity, and to enable the date/time stamp on whatever device you are using, for more precise evidence.

An experienced car accident lawyer will advise you to take as many pictures as possible, to ensure that you capture details that may be important later on, even if you don’t realize their importance at the time of the accident. Some of the most important images you should focus your efforts on are:
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Contribution of Speeding in Car Accidents

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Recently, there have been a number of stories in the news regarding traffic fatalities directly related to high-speed driving. Here in South Florida, in fact, two men in their early 20s were just killed in the first week of the New Year, when the Eagle Talon they were in lost control on a curve, flew off the road, and collided with a tree in Coral Springs. Police believe speed was a causative factor in this Broward County car accident.

Speed has also been found to be the primary cause of the deadly November automobile accident of “Fast & Furious” star Paul Walker and his financial advisor Roger Rodas. No debris or damage to the road surface was found, no alcohol or drugs were found in the men’s systems, and no mechanical issues with the car were evident before the accident – but witnesses reported that the Porche Carrera GT that Walker and Rodas were in was likely traveling approximately 100 miles per hour at the time of the accident, along a stretch of road with a 45 mph speed limit.

Speed-related accidents and young drivers

One demographic of drivers most likely to be involved in a speed-related car accident is teen drivers. Speeding is implicated in over 30% of fatal car crashes involving young people in the United States. Even more disturbing is the statistic that over 50% of fatality accidents involving teens with 3+ passengers are at least partially the result of high-speed driving. Many of these accidents occur after dark, and are often single-vehicle crashes, where the driver simply loses control of the vehicle and runs off the road.

Why speed can be deadly

When you increase the speed at which a car is traveling, you increase the distance it continues to travel from the moment the driver notices an obstacle (or curve) until he or she can react. Speed also increases the “crash energy,” meaning that impacts are greater, making devastating injury and death more likely.
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Fatal Accidents on the Florida Turnpike

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The Florida Turnpike is the nation’s 3rd most traveled toll road. To some, it is part of their daily commute. For many that live in Broward, Miami-Dade or Palm Beach County; it is the preferred route when visiting Disney, Universal Studios and other popular Orlando destinations. Unfortunately, this popular toll road also has its fair share of car accidents.

Anyone who is familiar with driving on the Turnpike will agree that it is not the most scenic road. Looking at the same picture ahead of you while driving on lanes that seem they have no end, can bore a driver and put them into a mental state where they may pay less attention to the road. When this happens, the driver puts themselves and anyone else they are sharing the road with in danger of being involved in an accident. Unfortunately, accidents on the Florida Turnpike usually occur at high speeds. This increases the chances of the accident being fatal.

Although the number of car accidents that result in fatality has dramatically decreased on the Florida Turnpike in recent years – largely due to the installment of new guardrails along nearly 170 miles of Turnpike median – it is still the scene of an alarming number of deadly crashes each year. The Turnpike, running 312 miles from Florida City to Wildwood, sees an average of 75 – 100 fatal crashes annually. This number is significantly down from the 142 fatalities that occurred in the year before guardrails went in, but the Turnpike is still one of the most dangerous stretches of high-speed roadway in the state.

I-95 is another deadly highway – with an average of 1.7 traffic fatalities per mile throughout the state of Florida. Due to the high speed limits on both the Turnpike and Florida’s highways, people drive more aggressively than on smaller roadways, and regularly exceed 60 mph, making car accidents more likely to result in fatality. One of the most accident-prone sections of I-95 is that which passes through Broward County. Not only does this stretch see high traffic volumes, but drivers along the Miami-Dade/Broward stretch of the highway are often distracted by smart phones, GPS systems, and MP3/Video players provided by in-dash technology. These distractions can cause car accidents on any roadway, but the traffic congestion and high speeds along I-95 make them far more likely to cause devastating accidents, serious injuries, and fatalities.
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Speed Limits and Commercial Truck Accidents

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Federal law allows each state to set the maximum speed limit for the state highways within its boundaries. Florida legislature has assigned to the Florida Department of Transportation (“FDOT”) this task of determining appropriate maximum speed limits for its state highways. Pursuant to the FDOT, generally, the maximum speed limit for interstates is 70 mph. However, the maximum speed limit for a highway with four divided lanes and located outside a city is 65 mph. Other state highways have a maximum speed limit of 60 mph.

Research conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (“IIHS”) has revealed that speed reduces ones ability to avoid a potential auto accident. Thus, when one is faced with an inevitable auto accident situation coupled with high speed (for example, while driving on a Florida highway) the harm to the parties involved typically turns out to be of great degree or even worse, fatal. This degree of harm and/or fatality increases when one of the objects involved is a commercial truck. Because most truck accidents occur on state highways, at high speeds, it is important to be cognizant of the laws governing these commercial vehicles, and how these laws are used in order to resolve a potential matter.

How Liability Is Imputed In Truck Cases

When it comes to commercial trucks, federal law governs. The regulations imposed by our federal government are meant to make truck driving safer for the whole community of drivers. The significance of these regulations definitely comes into play when one is faced with an accident caused by the negligence of a truck driver.

Commercial truck drivers must be qualified and trained in order to obtain their licenses. When we investigate an auto accident involving a commercial truck or tractor-trailer, we look for potential reasons for the cause of the accident. Pursuant to federal law, there are certain amounts of hours that commercial truck drivers can drive and not exceed. If there happens to be an excess of driving hours, the truck driver may be deemed “fatigued.” If the driver is deemed fatigued, this will only add to his negligence matter. Thus, it is of upmost importance to obtain the documentation book that keeps record of the amounts of hours the at-fault truck driver had driven before the accident occurred.

Another factor we take into consideration is the truck driver’s driving record. A long list of speeding tickets or prior accidents would only supplement his negligence claim.

Truck maintenance is something we additionally take note of. It is not safe for example, for a truck driver to drive his truck while it is overloaded. If an overloaded truck happens to strike another vehicle, the impact it poses is greater than that of what it would have posed if it weren’t overloaded.
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