Maine Injury Lawyer Blog

On the 4th of November, residents throughout the U. . will be able to enjoy an extra hour of sleep. It’s all a part of Daylight Savings Time. When it ends, we turn our clocks from 2:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m., and claim that extra sleep time.

But early dark also increases risks for car accidents. Every state, including Maine, participated in Daylight Savings time except for Arizona and Hawaii.Our Portland car accident lawyers are asking drivers to be especially careful during this time change. Since it’ll more likely be darker during our commutes, drivers are asked to be on their best behavior behind the wheel. In addition to the change in time, we’re also expected to see some change in weather. Leaves on the roadways, dry or wet, can make it difficult for drivers to stop. This is especially true when it’s nighttime and in the early morning hours when the leaves are harder to see.

You’re also urged to share the road safely with pedestrians. With it being darker out, pedestrians and bicyclists will be tougher to see. Pedestrians are asked to be cautious near roadways, to wear bright colors so that you’re easily seen by motorists and to travel as predictably as possible.

Use your headlights as soon as it starts to get dark. Not only does this help you to see your surroundings, but it helps other drivers to see you.

During this transition, you also want to make sure that you’re getting enough sleep. Drowsy driving car accidents are much more likely during this time of the year. It’s important that we avoid driving during the times that our body is accustomed to sleeping. Make sure you’re getting plenty of sleep. And make sure that if you start to feel sleepy behind the wheel you pull over, stop the car and recuperate. Each year, there are roughly 1,500 people who are killed and another 71,000 who are injured in drowsy driving auto accidents, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Lastly, you want to be on the lookout for deer!sThe most dangerous month out of the entire year for these kinds of accidents is the month of November. This dangerous season typically lasts from late October through December.

The NHTSA estimates that there are about 200 people killed and another 10,000 injured in deer-car accidents each year. These accidents are most likely to happen during dawn and dusk, so keep your eyes on the road and travel cautiously during this time. Remember that if you see one deer, there are probably more around. Deer rarely travel alone. When you see those “Deer Crossing” signs be sure that you take them seriously!sThese are marked in areas where the deer population is significant and accidents have occurred in the past.

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In a recent accident, an 84-year-old woman found herself and her vehicle sitting in Maine’s Portland Harbor. According to the New York Daily News, the woman lost control of her vehicle, slammed through two fences and landed in the water. Luckily, there was a group of brave bystanders nearby.”It looked like it was barreling pretty fast,” said Mike Wells, one of the bystanders who jumped to the rescue. “I saw it go over the edge and then water splashed up.”

Katie Nelson was grabbing lunch nearby when she hear the accident. Without hesitation, she jumped up, ran over, jumped on top of the car and climbed on the back window to pull the woman out. Our Bangor car accident attorneys understand that Katie was one of the thirty people who ran to the elderly woman’s rescue. Once she was pulled from her vehicle, Lt. Robert Slaving was able to swim her to shore where local firefighters hoisted her to land.

Authorities are still investigating and have not determined a cause of the accident. The elderly driver was transported to the Maine Medical Center. She was last listed in critical condition and is suffering from injuries to her femur as well as injuries to the bones around her eyes. There were a number of the rescuers who were treated for hypothermia at the scene of the accident.

If your vehicle somehow ended up in a body of water would you know what to do?sIt’s a scary event that happens to more people than you might think. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there are close to 250 vehicle submersion accidents every year in which at least one person dies. Of these accidents, nearly half had a major frontal crash, more than 10 percent had a major side crash, 2 percent experienced a major rear-end accident.

These kinds of accidents happen, but there are ways that you can escape. Please review the following safety tips for vehicle submersion accidents. Maine’s coastal region presents significant risks, and the state’s ponds, lakes and rivers are often quite dangerous, particularly during the winter and during spring runoff. Knowing what to do during a submersion accident could save your life.

Submersion Safety Tips:

-Keep your seat belt on until you’re ready to leave the vehicle. This will help to keep you steady as you try to break a window or open a door.

-As soon as you hit the water, try to open the window.

-Check out the flow of the water current before swimming to shore.

-If water has already entered your vehicle, wait until pressure is equalized on both sides before trying to open a door.

-If you can’t get out, look for the air pocket in the portion of the car that’s highest or the closest to the top of the water.

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The leaf peepers are among us!

Portland personal injury lawyers know this last deluge of tourist traffic before winter can be particularly dangerous for a number of reasons. As it gets dark earlier, accident risks increase. That is also true of the deteriorating weather conditions.

Of course we all know about the dangers of distracted driving — and no one is as distracted as a tourist with their head hanging out the window as they snap pictures of Maine’s gorgeous fall foliage. And then there is the patience of native drivers, which has often worn thin as October gives way to the holiday travel season. As we reported earlier this month on our Maine Injury Lawyers Blog, your accident risks increase substantially when your patience wears thin.

Unlike the summer tourism season, which is largely confined to Maine’s coastal region. The fall foliage encourages travelers to get off the beaten path and to explore the state’s more rural areas. According to LeafPeeepers.com, the best viewing begins in northern Maine during the last week of September. Prime time in central and eastern Maine begins the first week of October. And by the end of October, the autumn foliage in the state’s southern and coastal regions will be on full display.

And with that increase in traffic comes an increase in the risk of traffic accidents. The National Safety Council is already reporting 2012 is expected to be a deadlier year on the nation’s roads than any year since the beginning of the economic downturn. Through July, 20,880 motorists were killed in accidents on the nation’s roads — up about 8 percent from last year and 7 percent when compared to the same time period of 2010.

The Bureau of Highway Safety for the State of Maine is encouraging motorists to download the new WreckCheck mobile app, which provides guidance about what to do in the event of an accident. The app takes drivers through a step-by-step process to create an accident report and makes it easy to capture photos and documents necessary to make an insurance claim. You should also consider speaking to an experienced personal injury law firm following a traffic accident. Even in cases where serious injury is not evident in the immediate aftermath of a crash, properly documenting an accident can help protect your rights in the event medical complications later arise. This is particularly important when dealing with an at-fault, out-of-state driver.

Maine law requires drivers to notify law enforcement whenever an accident causes injury or results in more than $1,000 in property damage. Still, about 1 in 5 drivers continue to believe police should only be called when someone is injured. Your insurance company may require a police report and so police should always be called to document an accident scene.

“Understanding what steps to take following an accident can make a difficult situation manageable and less stressful,” Superintendent Eric Cioppa said. “Knowing what information to share, and with whom, will help to keep you safe and decrease some of the challenges of filing an insurance claim.”

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Road Rage!sIt’s a serious problem on our streets and it’s overlooked by many.

According to a recent study of over 500 drivers, about 90 percent of them reported that they had either seen acts of road rage or were actually the victim of a road rage incident at least once in the last year.

In the ’90s, a seven-year study of the issue concluded that close to 220 people were murdered and another 12,000 people were injured because of road rage incidents. Firearms and vehicles were used as the main sources of weapons in these incidents. Aggressive driving may encompass many other behaviors, which can lead to road rage if left unchecked.According to US News, these incidents weren’t caused by any serious altercations in most cases. Many were the result of parking space disputes, slow drivers and even horn honking.

Our Bangor car accident attorneys note a 16-year-old girl from Maine was shot in the arm as she was riding with her family through Massachusetts. According to FOX News, the young passenger was heading down Interstate 495 with her family when a dispute involving two cars ended when she took a bullet in the arm.

“Evidence suggests this was a road rage incident between the driver of the car the girl was in and the other car,” State Police spokesman David Procopio.

Road rage oftentimes starts out with some dangerous driving habits. It can start with tailgating, with speeding, with changing lanes erratically, with horn honking and even with gestures to other drivers. It’s when it takes that next step that it turns from aggressive driving into road rage. Road rage is preventable, yet still takes the lives of thousands each and every year. The key to staying safe is staying cool behind the wheel!

“Road rage is driving under the influence of impaired emotions,” says Leon James traffic psychologist at the University of Hawaii.

For some drivers, it happens during each and every car ride. It’s less frequent for other drivers. But the bottom line is that it can happen to anyone. Road rage is not only dangerous when talking in terms of accidents, but it’s also unhealthy. It increases your heart rate, produces stress hormones, increases blood pressure and can even contribute to chronic stress.

You’re urged to keep calm behind the wheel. Always allow yourself plenty of time to get to your destination. Keep snacks in the car too, because hunger can make you irritable. Get plenty of sleep and remember that we’re all in this together!sIf you encounter an enraged driver, do your best to steer clear of them. You never want to instigate a fight with another driver. If you feel threatened, call the local authorities and let them come deal with it. Never step in and take matters into your own hand.

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There’s a lot of road work going on in the area during this time of year. Officials with the Maine Department of Transportation (MaineDOT) are taking advantage of the clear weather and are getting to work on making our streets safer and more efficient for our motorists.Our Bangor car accident lawyers are asking motorists to be safe on our roadways through all of this construction. Speeds will be altered, traffic lanes will be changing and congestion is likely. We are also asking you to keep an eye out for roadside workers and vehicles. Accidents in work zones in the state of Maine have taken the lives of too many workers, commuters and other motorists. Motorists are mostly to blame for these accidents. Nationwide, there were close to 600 roadside workers who were killed in traffic accidents in 2010.

Be on your best driving behavior throughout these areas to help keep you out of an accident and to help to keep our roadside workers safe! Sightseers will abound this autumn and crews will be racing to finish projects before the snow flies.

Roadwork Scheduled in Maine:

-Paving operations will be taking place on Interstate 95 at Stillwater Avenue (Exit 186). The work will be going on through the off-ramp of Union Street to the on-ramp of Hogan road. To help to keep workers safe in these congested areas, the Exit 196 off-ramp will be closed from 7:00 a.m. through 7:00 p.m. Drivers are asked to use Exit 187 in the meantime. Maine Police will be displaying signage and message boards to help to guide drivers through the one-lane of traffic in the area.

-MaineDOT crews are installing traffic counting sensors between mile marker 170 and 171 on Interstate 95 in Carmel. From 8:00 a.m. through 3:00 p.m. of each day until work is completed, roadways will be altered to accommodate road crews. These sensors will be used to help to monitor the number of cars that use the highway throughout the year and will help to keep an eye on the traffic patterns during this time.

-State roadside workers will be working to make repairs to the Steep Falls Bridge. This is the bridge that connects Standish and Limington. Lanes of traffic will be altered from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. until the work is completed. Flaggers will also be in the area working to ease traffic flow.

-Officials with MaineDOT will be working on the railroad crossing at the intersection of Sawyer and College roads in Greene. They’ll be working to update the railroad crossing for the traveling motorist. During this time, motorists will be taken from Sawyer Road to College and Lane road instead.

-Road workers will be replacing a culvert in Woolwich on Route 127. This work zone is about 200 feet long and officials will not be allowing any thru traffic at the time. The project should be done by mid-September. Workers are replacing a culvert in deteriorating condition and are working to upsize the culvert to reflect current standards.

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Some media reports have indicated that steadily rising gas prices and an overall economy that continues to flounder will stall Labor Day travel plans in Maine and across the country.

Not so, says the American Auto Association.

Bangor car accident lawyers understand that the reality is, travel is going to be up nearly 3 percent from what it was last year. It’s going to the highest Labor Day traffic volume since prior to the recession began churning in 2008.

Boston residents are being told to expect travel to outer New England to take twice as long as normal this weekend.

AAA reports that even though most Americans are on a tight budget, they’re making holiday travel a priority, although most people are going to be traveling by car rather than airplane. (Booked flights are down almost 4 percent from last year.)

Labor Day weekend, which begins Thursday, Aug. 30, and stretches through Monday, Sept. 3, is going to make for crowded roadways. It’s estimated that across the country, some 33 million Americans have Labor Day plans. That’s more than 10 percent.

Last year, the Maine Journal and the Bangor Daily News reported a slew of Labor Day injuries and deaths across the state, including:

• A 19-year-old driver and an 18-year-old passenger who were transported to the hospital after the driver struck a guardrail on the turnpike;

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That’s just a sampling, but it’s important to illustrate why safer driving habits must be adopted by everyone – and now is a good time to start. Labor Day essentially marks the beginning of fall, which will mean dipping temperatures, slower, sight-seeing drivers checking out the changing leaves and eventually, nasty winter weather.

Observing safer habits now could save your life.

• As you head out this weekend to join the party, some things to keep in mind:

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It was only a handful of months ago that a school bus collided with a tractor-trailer in Farmington, sending more than a dozen middle school students to the hospital with cuts and bruises.

Our Bangor personal injury lawyers know that as frightening as it was for those children, it could have been much worse.

That’s the thing with school bus accidents: They don’t happen all the time, but when they do, they’re often serious.

With school back in session, there are a host of potential safety issues. You have young kids who have never ridden the bus on their own. You have older kids who may try to show off and get reckless either on or near the bus. You have bus stops along busy roadways, with children often walking to and then idling there before daybreak. You have bus drivers that are either tired or not paying attention. You have other drivers who are impatient with the buses’ incessant stops and slow pace. You have our severe Maine winter storms that blanket the roadways in snow and ice.

All of this combined creates the potential for a tragedy.

We don’t want to see that happen. Unfortunately, we can’t control the actions of every driver on the road. That’s why it’s important for parents to educate themselves – and their children – about school bus safety, even if they’ve ridden the bus before.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that some 25 million kids rely on the school bus to get them to class every day. In all, there are about 475,000 school buses on the road across America.

The American Academy of Pediatrics reports that about 17,000 children were hospitalized due to school-bus related injuries. Sometimes, it’s the driver hitting the brakes to hard, and other times, they’re turning a sharp corner.

However, the vast majority of school bus accidents happen when kids are getting on or off the bus or when they are nearby it. There’s the potential slip-and-fall of simply getting on and off, but there’s also the risk of impatient drivers trying to overtake the bus, despite the red flashing stop warning – and inadvertently striking a child.

If your child is hurt on the bus or by a vehicle while at or near the bus stop, you might be entitled to compensation for:

Medical and dental expenses;
Psychological therapy;
Any long-term recovery needs;
Any loss of future opportunities or income;

While you can’t control every driver who happens by your child on his or her way to school, you can teach your child how to be safer around the school bus:

• When the bus pulls up, take at least three huge steps away from the curb, and lineup away from the street.
• If you have to cross the street in front of the bus, make sure the driver can see you and that you can see the bus driver.
• Never walk behind a bus.
• If you drop something near the bus, don’t try to pick it up without telling the driver because they may not see you.

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