There is a dirty little secret about drunk driving accidents in Indiana

Now for the dirty little secret.  You probably know that bars can be held responsible for harm to a person if they serve a person alcohol who is visibly intoxicated, and that person drives off from the bar and causes serious personal injury or wrongful death.  What you don’t know is that the bars are not required to maintain insurance which will pay for your damages if the bar serves a visibly intoxicated person and that person causes a drunk driving accident.  We do not have statistics as to how many bars do and do not carry this coverage, but we do know that a substantial number of bars do not carry such insurance.  This means that the injuries you suffer at the hands of the drunk driver who was over served at a bar will fall to you and your family.  The bar continues to make money, but you can’t work, you have huge medical bills and your family suffers.  We do not think this is right. You may say, well isn’t it really the drunk drivers fault? And the answer is that the drunk driver is to blame, but, if the drunk is in the bar, and is visibly intoxicated, they must not be served and caused to become even more drunk.  We encourage all bars to car liability insurance which will cover the harms caused by this kind of negligence. We also encourage bars to properly train their employees to take seriously their obligation to identify visibly intoxicated persons, and not serve them.

Share on Facebook

.A couple of tips can help you drive safely.  Make sure you have a scraper in your car so you can clear all the ice off your front, rear and side windows  You have seen the guy driving with just a small area of the windshield cleared and none of the other windows cleared.  This guy will run into something, because he can’t see.  Keep plenty of washer fluid in the reservoir.  Salt on the road builds up fast on the wind screen.  When the sun hits that salt, you are blind.  This is especially true when you are driving on the highway with the spray from large trucks covering your wind screen. Make sure you do not have any signs impairing your rear sight line. 

Being able to see reduces the risk of causing a collision and seriously injuring, or causing the wrongful death, of your fellow Hoosiers.

Share on Facebook

In my line of work as a auto accident attorney, we know that eye witness accounts of a collision often vary greatly about what happened in the car accident. Scientific studies.     Barbara Tversky, in her article “The Problem with Eyewitness Testimony”, Stanford Journal of Legal Studies, April 1999, observed, “The mere fault of being human results in distorted memory and inaccurate testimony.”  We humans are subject to memory bias and the introduction of false memories which interfere with our ability to accurately remember and repeat exactly what we have seen. So, what can be done about this problem?  Retrieve the information from the data recording device for the cars, or trucks involved in the collision.

Modern automobile data recording devices record up to 20 seconds of information before any crash.  The data recorded can include whether the passengers of the car were wearing seatbelts, the car speed at any point in that 20 seconds, the acceleration of the car in that 20 seconds, the percent of the engine throttle and gas pedal, when the brakes were activated, when the antilock braking device was activated and more. This information is very important, but any accident expert worth their salt will collect all the objective evidence at the scene of the car crash and compare it to the data on the recording device.  The objective evidence includes the damage to each car, the final resting place of the cars after the impact, the direction the cars went upon impact, and other information.  When the “black box” data matches up with the objective evidence at the scene of the collision the jury can be very confident that the data recording device is telling the accurate story about what happened in the crash.  This is very important when eyewitnesses give contradicting versions of what happened.

Share on Facebook

If you are not so seriously injured that you are able to walk and talk and think clearly, then we suggest that you give a concise statement of the facts to the investigating officer.  Ask the officer to record the names of witnesses at the scene.  You may exchange insurance information at the scene of the collision.  If the other driver is not cooperating, do not force the issue.  Allow the police to take care of it.  However, you should record the license plate number and make and model of the other car.

Limit Discussion of the collision and talk only with the police or your claim handler.

If you receive a call, a visit, or a letter from an attorney or attorney’s office within the first thirty days of the collision, know that they cannot be trusted.  They cannot be trusted because the rules of the Indiana Supreme Court prohibit such contact.  If a lawyer, a law firm or one of their workers contacts you within that 30 days, know they are not honest and you must report them to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission.  Someone who would violate this rule cannot be trusted to work for you.

Give no statement to the insurance company for the person who caused the collision. 

If you are injured seek medical attention and follow the doctor’s orders.  It is difficult for those without insurance to obtain quality care, but do what you can.

If you have any questions about your rights, seek the advice of people you know and respect to locate and retain a lawyer.  Experience counts, and your friends and family probably know a good lawyer with whom they have worked and trust.

Share on Facebook

A common negligent act is to drive with bald or significantly worn tires.  We all know that tire treads give us better control in wet conditions as well as on snow and ice.  If the tread is worn, or the tire is bald, you will have less traction and the chances of causing a collision are markedly increased.  Serious personal injury including amputation, paralysis, broken bones and dislocations and brain injury occur when a driver loses control because tires are worn.  Drivers must check their tire treads and change their tires according to manufacturer recommendations.

Never assume that we are at the mercy of the elements.  There are many things we can do to protect ourselves, our families and others using the road.  A little thought and a little caution will go far to keep everyone safe.

Share on Facebook

So let’s say you buy $100,000.00 dollars worth of Underinsured Motorist Coverage.  You suffer a serious personal injury as the result of a drunk drivers negligence.  Your medical bills total more than $75,000.00 and your lost wages total more than $25,000.00.  The drunk driver has the minimum limits of insurance, $25,000.00 dollars.  So you think, I am okay, I have $100,000.00 dollars of insurance and the other guy has $25,000.00 so I will recover $125,000.00 which should get me close, but not quite, to full and fair compensation.  Right?  Wrong!!!!  Indiana, our courts have allowed the insurance companies to put anti stacking language in every policy.  The anti-stacking language says that your insurance company gets a credit for the amount of coverage the drunk driver has.  So in this case, because the drunk driver has $25,000.00 in coverage, your insurance carrier gets a credit for that and only has to pay you $75,000.00 for a total recovery of only $100,000.00 which leaves you with a lot less than full and fair compensation.  You might even have to file bankruptcy or sell your home to pay your bills, while the drunk driver and your insurance companies have no other responsibilities.

The only way to protect you and your family is to buy more underinsured motorist coverage, because the insurance companies won’t sell it to your without the anti stacking language.  For years, I have been involved with trying to get the legislature to protect Hoosiers by changing this law but the insurance lobby is too powerful and no changes have been made.  Just thought you should know.

Share on Facebook

If you suffer serious personal injury in a car accident with a government employee, and you suffer paralysis that prevents you from working, you should not have to worry, as the government’s insurance company will be required to pay you fair compensation for your injuries right?  Wrong!!!  Government liability in Indiana is capped at $700,000.00 dollars.  So if your life time bills exceed that amount, you will be forced to go on social security and Medicare and the taxpayer is forced to pay for you medical bills.  As to recovering your lost wages, sorry, the Government is not responsible for that.

So you see, what your mother taught you does not apply to very select groups within our society.  The legislature has decided it knows better.  The legislature has decided that your mother was wrong when she taught you that if you cause harm to another you are fully responsible for making up for that harm.  The legislature has decided that personal responsibility applies to some but not all of us. I say this is not right.  I say that caps should be eliminated for everyone.  Everyone is responsible to fully make up for the harm they cause.  At the very least, Jurors should be told the truth about these caps at the time of trial.  At this time the jurors are told nothing about these caps.  As my father taught me, a half truth is a whole lie.

Share on Facebook

Every person should be held responsible for their actions.  Currently, a person is held accountable for their actions, but only in part. Responsibility is based on fault and fault is determined by percents.  For example if a driver is 75% at fault for causing a serious injury, and the injured person is 25% at fault, the 75% responsible driver fairly compensates the injured driver by paying  75% of their damages.  However if the injured driver is 51 % at fault, and the other driver is 49% at fault, the other driver has no responsibility to fairly compensate any of the 49% of damages they caused.  In addition, the jury is not told this fact.  I suggest making two changes.  First, change the system so that the driver who causes any percent of a collision, is responsible for fairly compensating the injured driver equal to that percent of fault.  If they are 25% of fault, pay 25% of the injured person’s damages.  If they are 95% at fault they are responsible for compensating 95% of the damages.  After all it is only fair that a person be responsible only for that percent of harm they cause. Second, tell the jury the truth about how the system works. Jurors are smart.  Jurors do not become frivolous just because they are sitting in the jury box.  Jurors listen to the evidence and try to follow the instructions.  Tell them the truth and let them do their job.

Share on Facebook

In my opinion, the greatest danger to the safety minded biker is the other guy.  So often the car does not take time to see what is clearly there.  It may be because the driver is used to seeing a larger object and reacting to that.  It may be that the driver is not taking enough time to check his blind spot on to look back a second time for oncoming traffic.  Whatever the reason, a major cause of serious injury and wrongful death of Hoosier motorcyclist is having a car turn in front of them, or pull out in front of them.  In either event, there is little time for the biker to react and avoid impact.  As the biker is usually thrown from the bike serious personal injury such as brain injury, spinal cord injury, paralysis, broken bones, and amputation can occur.

Fellow Hoosiers, please take a little bit of extra time to make sure you are not about to pull out in front of a biker.  Look over your shoulder after checking your mirrors, but before merging into the next lane to make sure a biker is not riding along there.  Just a little bit of extra time can save the biker from a lifetime of pain and misery.  It will also allow you to avoid the burden of guilt such a crash will leave behind.

Share on Facebook

While riding in a car or truck, a person is travelling at the same speed as the vehicle.  If the vehicle has to make a quick stop, the people in the bed are going to keep moving because they have no brake (ie the seatbelt). So they either fly out of the truck bed or they hit the truck itself.  A quick stop is the least dangerous action, and it can result in death or serious personal injury, so you know all the other actions, (hitting another car, swerving, rolling) can only lead to worse results.  Ejection from a vehicle almost always lead to serious personal injury such as brain injury, broken bones, spinal cord injury and paralysis, amputations and wrongful death.  The only way to avoid such results is to not ride in the bed of a pickup.  Do not allow your friends or family to do it.  In this instance an ounce of prevention avoids a lifetime of whoa, or worse yet wrongful death.

Share on Facebook