San Jose Personal Injury Law Blog

It's Work Zone Safety Awareness Week and the U.S. Department of Transportation wants drivers in California and across the country to hear the message: Don't barrel through work zones!

According to the DOT, 576 people were killed in 2010 in work zone car crashes. An additional 37,000 people were injured in car accidents in road construction zones. Of the people killed, 10 to 15 percent were road construction workers, while 85 to 90 percent were drivers and passengers passing through the work zone.

Even though fatal car accidents have been decreasing overall, there are still too many people dying on America's highways in car accidents caused by speeding and aggressive driving. According to a recent piece on "The Car Connection," most of the reduction in fatal car accidents can be attributed to improved safety features in vehicles, rather than improved driving skills or habits by motorists.

The Governors Highway Safety Association says that one-third of all fatal car accidents are caused by speeding. That's 10,530 lives lost in 2010 because a motorist was driving too fast. The GSA wants states to do more to curb dangerous speeding on America's highways in order to further reduce traffic fatalities from speeding-related car accidents.

In California and around the country, April is designated Distracted Driving Awareness Month. The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) wants drivers to remember this simple message: "One Text or Call could Wreck it All." The California Highway Patrol (CHP) will be conducting a crackdown effort this month on drivers who are illegally talking on a hand-held cellphone or texting while driving.

The DOT notes that California has done a lot to partner with the federal government's efforts to reduce distracted driving car accidents. Since California banned hand-held cellphone use two years ago, fatal car accidents have gone down 22 percent in the state.

Car accidents are the number one cause of fatal brain injuries in teens, says a recent report from State Farm Insurance and the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Fatal car accidents involving teens have decreased in the past six years, but across the country and in California too many teens are still suffering concussions and traumatic brain injuries in car accidents.

Severe brain injuries are catastrophic injuries that will change a person's life if they survive. The brain is a complex organ and difficult to treat. In addition, everyone responds differently to a brain injury and rehabilitation must be extensive and tailored to the individual in order to be most effective, which is costly.

In California and around the country March was designated Brain Injury Awareness Month, but it is always important to be aware of brain injuries. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) wants people this month to think particularly about how they can prevent sports-related concussions. These concussions have been in the news more and more lately as people are already becoming aware of the lasting damage that a concussion -- and particularly a repeated concussion -- can do to the brain.

Families have been bringing children and adolescents into the emergency room with brain injuries 60 percent more than they did ten years ago. This is partly because people are already becoming more aware overall of the importance of seeking medical attention following a brain injury.

Traumatic brain injuries can occur in sports and from car accidents, falls, assaults and other traumatic incidents. The brain can be injured when an object hits it, when the brain hits an object, or when sudden movement of the body causes the brain to move violently in the head.

As discussed in the previous post, the FDA approved a new drug for Alzheimer's patients called Aricept 23 even though the new product may cause more harm than good. Two medical investigators recently wrote in the medical journal, BMJ, that the drug has not been seen to help patients any more than the previous incarnation of the product, but it comes with new harmful side effects, including gastrointestinal problems.

If the drug is changed slightly or combined with a new drug and re-marketed, its patent will be extended for another three years by the FDA so companies will be held off from making a generic version of the drug for another three years.

The medical experts argued that the FDA should not have approved the new version of the drug because the side effects could create significant health setbacks for patients without any considerable improvement. In people with Alzheimer's, vomiting and nausea can lead to pneumonia and even death.

Two medical investigators recently wrote in the medical journal, BMJ, that a new FDA-approved drug to treat Alzheimer's may not work any better than any of the other drugs already on the market and could actually make some users miserable due to side effects. These unintended side effects include gastrointestinal problems, which mean that the drug could cause misery to some patients with Alzheimer's without any added benefit.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the medical investigators said Aricept 23 should not have gone to market because the product will cause patients and their families more harm than good.

A California lawmaker wants to get the ball rolling in the regulation of autonomous vehicles. Many companies in California are building and testing robot cars and the senator wants there to be safety rules in place as these vehicles increasingly infiltrate the roadways. The senator sees the advent of robot cars as great for California as the many tech companies here could make it a global center for the advancement of the technology.

At the same time, he wants some rules to be in place to deal with the cars and any traffic violations or accidents that may result when a robot car is on the road. It has been said by the people championing the new technology that robot cars will be safer than human drivers and result in less traffic congestion and fewer car accidents.