When you have been injured in an automobile accident, it is often difficult to protect your legal rights. You are worried about your injuries, your vehicle, how the insurance companies will respond, and perhaps even how the police will handle the matter.
The experienced attorneys at Plaxen & Adler, P.A. will ensure that your rights are protected by exploring all case aspects, involved parties and potential theories of liability.
Posted in Accidents, Car Accidents
Automotive accident injury cases comprise the majority of personal injury cases. These cases can arise from a variety of actions of a negligent or careless driver, drivers who have chosen to drink and drive, “hit and run” drivers, commercial drivers deliberately or inadvertently failing to follow the rules meant to secure public safety, uninsured or underinsured motorists, and others.
Injuries and accidents also commonly arise from defective design and production of automobiles and automobile parts. Defective seatbelts, mechanical systems, and tires can all lead to serious bodily injury…
At Crockett & Myers, we have unparalleled experience in handling automobile injury cases. For three decades, we have been successfully achieving multi-million dollar settlements and verdicts for our clients. Do not fall for over-promising and under-performing claims by attorneys promising fast cash, no hassles and discounted attorneys fees. A serious case involving serious injuries requires serious effort.
Posted in Accidents, Auto Defects, Car Accidents
The original story is no longer online so the content has been mirrored here.
Yvonne Moran said she was certain her husband, Bart, was wearing his seat belt right before he was hurled out of his minivan’s rear passenger window and killed.
“I never knew of a single moment, a single opportunity when he was not belted in a vehicle,” she said. “Bart had a habit of wearing his seat belt. His was to the point of obsession.”
Three other people who knew Bart Moran would later testify that he always wore his seat belt. One who carpooled with him to work even referred to him as “Mr. Seat Belt.”
So why did police, the hospital, and the carmaker think he wasn’t wearing a seat belt? And if he was wearing his seat belt, why didn’t it prevent him from being thrown out of the vehicle?
A Primetime investigation looks at the kind of seat belt found in Bart’s 1997 Dodge minivan — and millions of vehicles throughout the country — and speaks with some safety experts who say this seat belt belt is potentially dangerous because it can open more easily than other belts…
Yvonne sued Chrysler. Assuming Bart was wearing his seat belt, Edwards said he was thrown out of the car because of a design defect in the Gen-3 seat belts that are used in his Chrysler van — and in about half of all the Chrysler, Plymouth and Dodge vehicles sold since 1993.
The company argued that Bart was not wearing his seat belt and that the Gen-3 belts are safe. If Bart had been wearing his seat belt, Chrysler said, there would have been more bruises on his body and some stress marks on the belt. As for how the polish marks landed deep inside the coils of the belt, the company said perhaps it was contaminated at the crash scene…
Chrysler already has newer model seat belts – which do pass the balltest. But the company has no plans to recall the Gen-3 and replace them with the newer models.
“I would like to see every vehicle ever manufactured with the Gen-3 buckle recalled,” said Yvonne, who was awarded $6.7 million. Chrysler is appealing the verdict.
Class-action lawsuits have been filed in several states, calling for theremoval of Gen-3 seat belts.
Posted in Auto Defects
Vehicle crashworthiness is a car, truck or SUV’s ability to protect occupants from injury in an accident. By demanding a high level of crashworthiness, lawyers, auto makers and vehicle owners ensure the safety of drivers and passengers of an automobile in case of an accident. If the structure of the vehicle is not up to today’s safety standards, the driver and passengers can be seriously injured or killed if involved in a collision. Annually, hundreds of people are hurt in automobile accidents where the auto manufacturer has failed to produce a crashworthy vehicle by selling cars with defective or failure-prone components.
Auto manufacturers use computer models and experiments to predict crash failures but, often, crashworthiness is determined retrospectively by analyzing crash outcomes. In the event of an accident, the crashworthiness lawyers at Davis, Bethune and Jones assess post-collision evidence such as deformation patterns in the vehicle structure, injury predicted by human body models, recent auto recalls and defect notices to determine the liability and compensation deserved in the case.
Posted in Accidents, Car Accidents
