Nashville Personal Injury Law Blog

While dog bites don't always get the most media attention, it's important to remember that these types of animal attacks still happen, with children and the elderly being bitten the most frequently. To try and combat this, as part of National Dog Bite Prevention Week, which starts on May 21, the U.S. Postal Service, State Farm Insurance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Veterinary Medical Association are coming together to promote how to stay safe around dogs.

According to the CDC, every year there are roughly 4.7 million people who are bitten by dogs. Approximately 800,000 of those dog bites lead to a person seeking medical attention. About 16 people who are bitten also end up dying.

Real dangers from batteries may be all around a family's home without them even realizing it. Because of this, some are pushing for manufacturers to think of not only the safety of children's toys, but also all products in the home, even those not marketed toward children.

Recently, a study that was published in Pediatrics analyzed data from 1990 to 2009 and found that battery-related children's injuries were on the rise. Overall, during that time period there were roughly 66,000 children under the age of 18 who went to an emergency department due to some kind of battery-related incident.

For young drivers, May marks the beginning of the season of high danger. It's prom and graduation time, when many teenaged drivers receive expanded driving privileges. It's also near the start of summer vacation, when the stakes are extremely high for young drivers.

That's why the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day has been dubbed by auto club AAA and Volvo as "The 100 Deadliest Days" for teen drivers.

Seven of the 10 deadliest days of the year for teens fall between those holidays, according to AAA. July and August are the deadliest months for 16- and 17-year-old drivers, according to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety.

This year, the deadly season for young drivers rolls around at a time when there is growing research by the AAA Foundation and others that the young drivers who engage less frequently in risky driving behavior are those who spend the most time talking about driving with their parents. The research also shows that more needs to be done to encourage those talks on safety: Vehicle crashes are still the leading cause of death for young Americans.

Just a few weeks ago we posted on the fact that law enforcement in Tennessee was going to be cracking down on risky driving behaviors in the hopes of combating the traffic fatality toll that has been on the increase so far this year. At that time, Kendell Poole, director of the Governor's Highway Safety Office in Nashville reported that there had already been 238 fatal motor vehicle accidents in the state. Now, just a few short weeks later, that total number has already climbed over 300.

In response to this drastic increase, aside from extra enforcement, Tennessee motorists may have also noticed electronic message boards along the interstates showing the current total number of people who have died in a motor vehicle accident so far this year. Last Friday the sign reported the number was 317. By Monday it was already at 331.

Even though it is against the law in Tennessee to text while driving, sadly many teen drivers still skirt the rules by sending off a quick message.

Of course, Tennessee is not unique in this regard, and rather teen drivers around the country choose to talk or text while driving. However, it does appear that even though many still participate in this distracted driving behavior, more and more teens are acknowledging -- and in some cases -- even speaking out against using a phone to text, or talk, while driving.

While much attention is given to the dangers associated with distracted driving, it turns out that turn signal mistakes -- either not using a turn signal or not turning one off after a turn -- are cited as causing at least twice as many accidents. This means that while there are roughly 950,000 accidents a year attributed to some sort of distracted driving behavior, there are actually around 2 million accidents a year caused by turn signal misuse.

The study was conducted by the Society of Automotive Engineers and found that 48 percent of drivers either do not use a turn signal, or forget to turn their signal off. In fact, when it comes to using a turn signal, the study found the failure to use rate is 25 percent, which means that there are 2 billion times a day that somewhere in the country a driver is not using their turn signal.

While there are many different things that can happen in a hospital or doctor's office to lead to a serious medical emergency, a recent study determined that miscommunication between a Spanish-speaking patient and a medical professional can lead to serious complications. And while having a translator on staff can reduce the chance of a "clinical consequence," which could result in a serious personal injury, just who is in charge of translation also plays a role.

The study, which was published in Annals of Emergency Medicine, was based on 57 primarily Spanish-speaking families who were seen at one of two pediatric emergency rooms. Twenty of those families had communication help from a professional interpreter. Ten had no translator whatsoever and 27 had help from an amateur translator.

While anyone can mistakenly hit the gas pedal instead of a brake pedal in a motor vehicle, it turns out that women, those drivers over the age of 76 and those under the age of 20 are more likely to hit the wrong pedal and cause an accident.

This study, which focused on pedal confusion, is the opposite of national motor vehicle accident trends. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly 60 percent of all motor vehicle accidents in the U.S. involve male drivers. However, when just looking at accidents caused by hitting the gas instead of the brake, close to two-thirds of these types of crashes involved a female driver.

Drunk driving carelessly and needlessly kills and serious injures people everyday.  Too many people get hurt by drunk drivers.  Of course, a major problem is that people oftentimes do not realize that they are driving while impaired.  It is not unusual for me to take the deposition of a drunk driver and for the drunk driver to tell me that he/she thought his judgment was fine.

Alcohol decreases a person's ability to drive a motor vehicle safely. The more someone drinks, the greater the effect. The amount of alcohol required to become impaired differs according to how fast a person drinks, their weight, gender, and how much food they've eaten. Because of these variables, the safest choice is always not to drink and drive.