Motor Vehicle Accidents | InjuryBoard Austin

It's not unusual for publications to print articles touting Austin as a great place to live, but last week, we were tops on the wrong kind of list. A study by Allstate Insurance Company found that...

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They say you've made it when people know you by one name. And in the world of Texas Tejano music, there are few, if any, bigger stars than Emilio. Unfortunately, the Grammy winner suffered serious injuries after a bus wreck this weekend. Emilio apparently sustained severe head injuries in the wreck, and he is taking part in a study using hypothermia to treat his brain injury. While this...

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Earlier this week, the Austin Police Department released a list of the five Austin intersections with the most car wrecks in 2007. The intersections are:(1) East Riverside Drive at Pleasant Valley (29 car wrecks); (2) North Lamar Blvd. and W. Koenig Lane (27 car wrecks, but also most convenient place for wrecks as it's populated with auto repair shops and dealerships);(3) West Parmer Lane and...

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One of the biggest problems facing Austin police is the increase in auto-pedestrian collisions. This week alone there have been two auto-pedestrian fatalities on Austin's roads. The second auto-pedestrian fatality, which occurred Tuesday night, was the 11th traffic fatality of the year. This is a problem that has continued from last year, when auto-pedestrian wrecks accounted for 24 of the 63...

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This week, Allstate Insurance Company filed a suit in a Texas US District Court against 67 defendants, including chiropractors and law firms, alleging that they were improperly soliciting car wreck victims as clients. Under Texas law, personal injury lawyers are limited in their abilities to contact victims of car wrecks. To get around this limitation, some unscrupulous attorneys have...

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This week, the Austin American Statesman posted an article that discussed the increase in car wrecks due to street racing. The problem of street racing really came into focus nationwide in February when 8 observers were kill in Maryland when a drag racing car wreck spilled over into the crowd. But street racing isn't just a problem in Maryland. It's also a big issue in Texas. The National...

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This weekend was another sobering reminder about the risk of auto accidents on Austin's roads. Yesterday, a teenager died in a car wreck on Texas 71 near Bee Creek. This is one of the most dangerous stretches of road in town. Since October 2006, eleven people have died in auto accidents on this two mile stretch. In fact, Austin news station KXAN ran a story just last week talking about the...

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It is no secret that trucking traffic and trucking accidents are a major problem in Austin and Central Texas. Interstate 35 is routinely one of the most heavily traveled stretches of highway in the country. A large part of that has to do with NAFTA and international trade with Mexico. The Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M has provided quite a bit of information on Texas trucking...

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California personal injury attorney John Bisnar has an interesting post about the importance of hiring an accident reconstruction expert when the accident reports are not filled out properly. Like John, and probably most personal injury lawyers, I've found accident reconstruction experts helpful in combatting report errors. But accident reconstruction experts are also helpful in other...

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Last night, Capital Metro began testing the cars for our new passenger rail system. While the system has the potential to take drivers off the road, new systems always carry a concern that they may lead to many more car wrecks. Houston is a case in point. The most recent major Texas city to add light rail, Houston made national news with the number of auto accidents involving the system. ...

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The Dallas Morning News posted a story yesterday describing Texas's new efforts to reduce the number of uninsured drivers. Under the plan, the state has created and will maintain a database of drivers and their insurance status. Whenever a person is pulled over, is involved in a wreck, gets a car inspection or registers for new license tags, the appropriate authority will check the database to...

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Yesterday's Tyler Morning Telegraph from Tyler, Texas had an interesting story about how DPS Troopers conduct investigations so that they can do accident reconstruction work following a car wreck or trucking accident. Accident reconstruction work used to be done by hand --- from the measuring with tape measures to the calculations. Now, technology is making it easier to collect the data and...

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A new study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety describes how new, flimsy bumper designs can lead to excessive damages following auto accidents. The article almost exclusively focuses on the property damage that results from the new style of bumpers, but one has to wonder what, if any, these new designs have on the actual safety of the vehicles.For more information on this subject,...

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Recently, Austin's KVUE news ran a story about ghostbikes in Austin. The white bikes are chained to telephone poles and street signs to mark a spot where a bicyclist was killed in a car wreck. I found this particularly interesting since the most visible bike is only a few blocks from our office, and I had never known what the bike signified.Car wrecks involving bicyclists has long been a...

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Last month, Carlos Aleman and his seeing eye dog were walking home from an Austin library when a teenager, who has admitted that he was driving too fast to impress someone, veered off the road and hit them both. The dog, despite sustaining serious injuries himself, ran back to the library to fetch Diane Bomar, Mr. Aleman's fiance, to help him. Mr. Aleman and Ms. Bomar each learned a lesson...

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