Jacksonville Injury Attorney Blog

A school bus carrying students headed to Mandarin High School was rear-ended by a car on Old St. Augustine Road this morning. While initial indications are that no students were seriously injured, two students complained of neck pain and were taken to Baptist Medical Center South.

Jacksonville Fire Rescue said one person in the car suffered personal injuries. That person was airlifted to the hospital with serious injuries. Witnesses reported that the car never slowed before colliding with the bus.

Obviously, the driver of the car was either very distracted or suffered an incapacitating medical emergency. Sadly, such vehicle accidents can be caused by a person suffering a heart attack or seizure while driving.

Continue reading " School Bus Rear-ended by Car on Old St. Augustine Road in Jacksonville's Southside " »

Over the weekend, the driver of a vehicle veered into the path of a tractor trailer causing a fierly head-on collision. The car accident happened on U.S. Highway 301 in Nassau County, near Bryceville, which is about ten minutes south of Callahan, Florida.

The driver of the car died at the scene. The driver of the truck was taken to Shands Jacksonville Medical Center with serious personal injuries.

This auto accident happened at 3:15 a.m. Whether alcohol was involved is unknown. In addition to the possibility that the driver of the car was drinking, he may have simply been drowsy given the time of the accident. Studies indicated that tired drivers are just as dangerous as drunk drivers

Drivers must take fatigue seriously. It is unfair to your family member, other people on the road and yourself not to.

Continue reading " Nassau County Car Accident with Tractor Trailer Causes Death and Serious Injuries " »

Saturday evening a motorcyclist carrying a passenger crashed on the I-95 southbound on ramp from Kings Road. One woman was killed and the other person was critically injured. In a separate crash, a motorcyclist was killed in Flagler County on I-95. Both people who died were not wearing seatbelts.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that the number of deaths resulting from motorcycle accidents are 37 times the number of deaths from car accidents. Of course, failing to wear a helmet only increases the chance of serious injury or death in an accident.

As Jacksonville accident lawyers, we handle a large number of motorcycle accidents. We find that the most common cause of such accidents is the failure of a car's driver to observe a motorcyclist. Such accidents often leave the motorcyclist little or no time to respond to avoid the accident.

Continue reading " Motorcycle Accidents Over the Weekend Claim Two Lives " »

As referenced in yesterday's blog entry, a very serious auto accident causing one fatality occured in Jacksonville yesterday as a result of a tire tread separation. Later the same day, a second such accident occured.

Five people were traveling northbound on I-95 in St. Johns County, when the driver lost control due to a tire tread separation. After losing control, the SUV crossed the southbound lanes of travel into the shoulder and flipped several times.

Four people in the car were ejected and suffered serious personal injuries. A fifth person was sealtbelted and was not ejected from the vehicle. Similarly, in the rollover accident which occured earlier in the day, the one person that was ejected and died was not wearing a seatbelt while the survivors were wearing seatbelts and were not ejected.

If you read our blog entries regarding automobile accidents, this is an all too familiar occurence: people who are not seatbelted are usually hurt much more severely in a car accident than those who are seatbelted. This is especially true in accidents which cause a vehicle to rollover because the intertia of a rollover propels a vehicle's occupants into windows and often out of the vehicle. Once again, we are sadly reminded that seatbelts save lives.

Continue reading " Another Tire Tread Separation Accident in the Jacksonville Area " »

This morning, shortly before noon, the driver of a pickup truck lost control after the truck lost the tread on its right rear tire. After losing control, the truck struck a guard rail, collided with another vehicle and overturned. The driver was ejected from the truck and died at the scene.

Two passengers in the truck, including a three year old, sufferd personal injuries and were taken to Shands Jacksonville Medical Center. It is currently unknown if the adults in the truck were wearing seatbelts or if the child was in a safety seat. As Jacksonville car accident attorneys, we usually notice that occupants in a vehicle that rolls over are only ejected if they were not wearing a seatbelt.

Several years back we saw a flurry of car accidents related to tire tread separations involving Firestone tires and Ford Explorer vehicles. As a result, many product liability lawsuits were filed against Ford and Firestone. Tires can separate for a number of reasons, some of which are the responsibility of the tire manufacturer and others which are not. It is critical that the tire and its tread be preserved following such an accident if it is going to be determined what caused the tread to separate.

Continue reading " One Dead and Two Injured in Auto Accident Near Downtown Jacksonville " »

Five people were taken to the hospital for injuries in a car accident yesterday morning at Southside Boulevard and Ivey Road in Jacksonville's Southside.

A car stopped at the traffic light was rear ended by another car. Additional cars were struck and a fire erupted damaging three cars. The people taken to the hospital have been reported to have suffered nonlife-threatening injuries.

As Jacksonville accident lawyers, rearend collisions are the most common auto accident that we encounter. Often we find that the at-fault driver was distracted from observing traffic conditions ahead.

With the increase in texting while driving, the number of distractions has only increased. We suspect we will continue to see an increase in rear-end collisions until such time as texting while driving is outlawed and effectively enforced. Many states, including California, have outlawed texting while driving. Studies have shown that distracted drivers are as dangerous as drunk drivers.

Continue reading " Five Injured Taken to Hospital After Multiple Car Crash in South Jacksonville " »

Our firm represents workers' compensation claimants throughout the greater Jacksonville area. In doing so, we are often presented with situations where the employee was fired shortly after being injured in a workplace accident. Often, employees that were always previously given very high reviews are told they are being fired for some very minor incident, like getting to work a few minutes late.

Florida law (Florida Statute 440.205) provides that "no employer shall discharge, threaten to discharge, intimidate, or coerce any employee by reason of such employee's valid claim for compensation or attempt to claim compensation under the Workers' Compensation Law." If it can be proved that an employer did so, the injured employee may be entitled to additional damages including lost wages and attorney fees.

Routinely, when workers' compensation claims are settled, the employer requires, as part of the settlement agreement, that the employee resign from employment and agree to never re-apply for employment with that company again. This tells us that many employers do not want to continue to employ people who have filed workers compensation claims. With this motivation on the part of many employers being so clear, it goes without saying that some employers try to get rid of employees filing workers' compensation claims by either forcing them out of the job by making working conditions unbearable or by firing the employee for a reason that otherwise would not have resulted in termination.

Continue reading " Workers' Compensation Retaliation Claims " »

An Allstate Insurance Company report indicates that drivers in Jacksonville, Florida, are involved in fewer vehicle accidents than almost any other city in the state. Allstate's report ranks the 200 largest cities throughout the country based on the frequency of accidents. Jacksonville ranked 69 overall, which makes it the third highest Florida city for safe driving, behind Port St. Lucie and Cape Coral.

According to Allstate Insurance Companies' report, the average driver is involved in a car accident approximately once every ten years.