Panama City Personal Injury Law Blog

The top reasons for car accidents

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Car Accidents on Friday, May 10, 2019.

In theory, car accidents should never happen. It sounds unbelievable, considering the fact that tens of thousands of people die in accidents every year and many more get injured, but it's true. If everyone followed the rules of the road and everything else -- cars, road designs, etc -- worked perfectly, people would never crash. All of those deaths are preventable.

So, why do they keep happening in such high numbers? Here are a few of the top reasons:

Human error: People just make mistakes. In a car, that's deadly.
Drunk driving: Impaired drivers can't always control their vehicles.
Distracted drivers: A driver who is texting isn't looking at the road.
Getting lost: People make unexpected turns and drive erratically when they don't know where they are.
Weather conditions: Wind, rain, fog, snow and ice can all cause crashes.
Medical issues: A driver who has a heart attack behind the wheel may lose control of the car completely.
Mechanical issues: A defective car can make a safe driver crash.
Road design defects: For instance, a road with a missing stop sign or a broken stop light could cause accidents until it gets fixed.

Deadly crashes close I-75 in Florida every 9 days

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Car Accidents on Friday, April 26, 2019.

Interstate 75 is one of the largest and most widely used roads in Florida. It's also one of the most dangerous, leading to a rash of deadly accidents.

Per recent reports, the interstate gets shut down because of devastating accidents every nine days. That makes these deadly wrecks, often attributed to semitrucks, far more common than a lot of people realize.

Adrenaline may hide your injuries

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Personal Injury on Wednesday, April 10, 2019.

Adrenaline is supposed to save your life. It makes you perform better, physically speaking. It gives you energy and endurance. It's part of your fight or flight ability. If you are threatened, adrenaline helps you run from the threat or fight it off.

This can be helpful. If you're serving in the military or trying to survive in the wild, you need that. However, it can actually have a detrimental impact on modern humans who get injured in car accidents, workplace accidents and things of this nature because it helps to mask the pain.

3 steps to stop workplace falls

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Workers' Compensation on Tuesday, March 26, 2019.

Few things are as dangerous as workplace falls. Whether you slip and fall on the same level or fall from one level to another, you can be seriously injured or even killed. Year after year, falls lead the fatal workplace accident reports.

What can be done to prevent these incidents? The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has a three-part plan that they think can make a drastic difference. The three steps are:

Plan ahead. First and foremost, proper planning can help to identify risks for a specific job, and then the crew can plan around those risks to stay safe. Furthermore, planning in advance allows the company to include any safety costs in their quotes so that there is no financial pressure to do things in an unsafe manner.
Provide safety equipment. All too often, falls happen because workers do not have safety equipment that they desperately need. OSHA notes that there are serious risks of significant and even fatal injuries for every worker at a height of six feet or more. They must have the proper equipment to work safely.
Train workers properly. It's not enough to have safety equipment; workers need to know how to use it. A harness does no good if a worker doesn't know how to put it on or hook up the ropes. Workers need to practice and train in a controlled environment so that they are ready when they start the job.

Safety of Claire's cosmetics called into question again

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Products Liability on Tuesday, March 26, 2019.

Many people wouldn't expect to find asbestos in cosmetics. However, it has been found in makeup products sold by the retailer Claire's. The reports of asbestos were first made public in 2017. The retailer, which is a go-to destination for jewelry and cosmetics for teen girls, pulled the products found to contain the known carcinogen off the shelves. However, it didn't recall them.

Now the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a safety alert about certain Claire's cosmetics -- including powders and eye shadows. In the alert, which is based on the agency's test results, customers are urged not to use the products.

Which state has the worst drivers?

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Car Accidents on Wednesday, February 27, 2019.

Drivers in New York have a reputation for being aggressive and liberally using their horns. Drivers in Michigan have a reputation for ignoring all of the speed limits. Drivers in California have a reputation for fighting their way through massive traffic congestion.

But which state has the worst drivers?

Not getting enough sleep really impacts your body

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Car Accidents on Thursday, February 14, 2019.

Drowsy driving is deadly, but don't tell that to all the drivers out there trying to drink a cup of coffee on the way to work. With busy schedules and little sleep, we often think we just have to drive when we're tired, and a lot of people do not think that it's much of an issue.

It absolutely is. When you do not sleep enough, here are a few of the impacts it has on your body:

Cognition skills decline notably. This is especially true if you try to pull an "all-nighter." When you can't think clearly, your poor decisions make you a dangerous driver.
The odds of getting sick increase. Your body needs sleep to recharge and heal. Not sleeping enough can weaken you so that you get sick or stay sick for longer. Driving with a cold or the flu or a fever can all make you more prone to dangerous mistakes.
You get forgetful. This can lead to simple errors, like missing an exit. When you try to change lanes quickly or even pull an illegal u-turn to get back on track, though, you put others in danger.
Pure accident odds go up. Don't worry about exactly how the crash happens. Just know that it's more likely. Per the National Sleep Foundation, if you do not consistently get more than six hours of rest, your odds of a car accident triple.

Questions to ask about intangible damages after an injury

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Personal Injury on Friday, February 1, 2019.

In most personal injury cases, victims will be able to pursue tangible damages and intangible damages. Tangible damages are easy to calculate with receipts and known or predictable costs. Intangible damages are a little bit different because they relate to things like pain and suffering or lost quality of life -- which are harder to put an exact dollar amount on.

To establish a sense of a personal injury plaintiff's intangible damages, here are a few questions that an attorney might ask his or her client:

Do you have a viable motorcycle accident injury claim?

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Personal Injury on Friday, January 18, 2019.

It's impossible to know the statistics, but if you were to imagine how many injured victims of motorcycle crashes never realize that they have a viable personal injury claim they can make, the numbers would probably stagger the mind. This is why, even if you don't believe your motorcycle accident was the fault of another party, you should still visit a personal injury attorney – just to make sure you don't have a claim.

A personal injury lawyer will know where to look to determine if different vehicle accident liability factors might have been involved in your case. For example, here are a few things that an attorney won't rule out until he or she has gathered all of the facts:

Thousands of Alfa Romeo Giulias recalled due to fire risk

On behalf of Walborsky & Bradley posted in Car Accidents on Friday, January 4, 2019.

You thought your 2018 Alfa Romeo Giulia was perfect, and every week, you looked forward to taking it for a long Sunday drive through the local countryside. That was before the last Sunday when your gorgeous vehicle spontaneously caught on fire, and you and your family barely escaped with your lives. It sounds like a horror story out of a work of fiction, but this could actually happen to one of the 6,100 Alfa Romeo owners affected by a recent recall announced in December 2018.

The recall, which didn't affect nearly as many cars as other recently announced recalls, was the third-largest in the month of December. Giulia sports sedans with 280-horsepower, four-cylinder engines and all-wheel drive have a brake fluid line problem. Essentially, the fluid hose could come in contact with a coolant hose clamp and result in a brake fluid leak. If the fluid leaks onto the exhaust, a fire could start.