Category: Vehicle Accidents
May 4, 2018 / Vehicle Accidents
Man Vs. Machine: How Pedestrian Collisions Should Worry All of Us
Common sense tells us that when a car and a pedestrian collide, the pedestrian will never emerge victorious. We’re all aware of the dangers vehicles present to those on foot, and we’d like to believe that we’re always on the lookout for one another, whether we’re walking or behind the wheel. Yet, there is a recent and unsettling trend happening on our roads - not just across the U.S., but also here in Indiana. When the Governors Highway Safety Association looked at the most recent pedestrian fatality data, the statistics were disturbing. It was early 2017 when researchers looked at the numbers from the first half of the previous year and found that there was a 17 percent jump in the number of pedestrians killed on U.S. roads. [...]
March 26, 2018 / Vehicle Accidents
What Is the State of Our Roads in Indianapolis?
Streets and roads in Indianapolis are scandalously deteriorated, and it’s our own fault. Years of negligence from cutting public works budgets and putting off needed repairs mean that the chickens have now come home to roost—and we will all pay the price for our neglect, not only in dollars, but also in lives. Nationwide, roughly one-third of our nation’s traffic deaths are linked to poor road conditions. In a Word: “Staggering” An internal analysis done by the city asserts that the amount of money and work required to fix more than 8,000 miles of Indianapolis’s streets and roads is “staggering.” The city’s Department of Public Works was forced to conclude that “[t]his deferred maintenance and lack of improvement have re[...]
November 6, 2017 / Vehicle Accidents
Internal Injuries Suffered in Vehicle Accidents
Some of the deadliest car accident injuries are also the toughest to identify. Internal injuries put patients at immediate risk, but may not be evident until hours, even days, after the individual should have received medical attention. Princess Diana is the perfect example; the tragic car accident that ended her life caused severe internal injuries. Unsure as to whether your recent car accident resulted in internal injuries? Keep reading to learn more about common injuries, their symptoms, and treatment options. Pneumothorax Better known as a collapsed lung, pneumothorax occurs when air accumulates in the space between the chest wall and lung, pushing on the outside of the lung and eventually causing it to collapse. Although occasiona[...]
August 7, 2017 / Vehicle Accidents
Headlights: Essential but Neglected?
Can there be another part of your car that you think about less than your headlights? Let’s face it, headlights aren’t sexy. But they are essential to keeping us alive when we drive in the dark and during storms. Headlights have been basic equipment on passenger vehicles for over 100 years. They started out as fuel-powered, but quickly moved to electricity. Despite technological advances, a significant chunk of headlights are rated poorly. Such a finding should breed caution the next time you are driving after dark. The Components of a Modern Headlight Today, headlights, like a lot of other items on our vehicles, are high-tech. The old bulbs some of us remember are gone. Currently, headlights generally have one of the following light s[...]
May 17, 2017 / Vehicle Accidents
Move Over—It’s an Indiana Law
Sometimes working for an EMS (emergency services) organization can carry risks that you, as the average motorist, might not have thought about. Did you ever consider that, if you didn’t move out of the way of an emergency vehicle, or move away from an area where emergency services are being offered, you could cause a deadly accident—and that the death might even be your own? On February 16, 2013, two EMS medics died in Indianapolis because a driver who was distracted by their GPS system hit the ambulance. In 2017, Indianapolis EMS remembered Tim McCormick and Cody Medley, both of whom had been in their twenties, on their Facebook page, honoring their memory. During April, 2017, an Indianapolis EMS ambulance was in a wreck because of a[...]
April 13, 2017 / Vehicle Accidents
Think Twice About Driving After a Concussion
Are you a weekend warrior who plays sports intensely? Perhaps instead you have had a loved one who has suffered a mild concussion while they were engaged in high school or college sports. Although concussions may not seem like a big deal to some, one aspect of such a brain injury, even a seemingly-minor one, is that your ability to drive may be impaired. After a couple of days’ rest you still may not be fit to return to the road. A recent study from the University of Georgia confirms that suffering a concussion can affect your driving abilities for a period of time after symptoms disappear. Concussions and the Ability to Drive A concussion is actually a mild TBI—traumatic brain injury—caused by a blow or jolt to the head. Sometimes [...]
April 4, 2017 / Vehicle Accidents
Traffic Going in Circles Could Be Positive
The cities of Carmel and Indianapolis are feuding over traffic roundabouts. One member of the Indianapolis City Council is attempting to prevent Carmel leaders from creating roundabouts at Gray Road, Hazel Dell Parkway, Delagates Row and Randall Drive where each meet 96th Street. The claim is that the roundabouts will hurt businesses. The city councilwoman who opposed the roundabouts is Christine Scales, D-Indianapolis, who represents businesses in Marion County along the 96th Street corridor. Scales recently commented, “Well, first of all I think they are a solution to problem that doesn’t exist. I think that the destruction, the hurt they will cause economically to the businesses along East 96th Street will be greater than the benefi[...]
January 23, 2017 / Vehicle Accidents
The Youngest Victims: Kids and PTSD After a Car Accident
Post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, is a fairly common reaction to a car crash, especially if the crash was severe or involved serious injuries or deaths. Fears of dying, loss of loved ones, or long, painful recuperations can imprint our brains with stress reactions that are significantly outside the norm. With children, it can be even worse. They may be so young that they have no frame of reference for the trauma they have suffered. A crash that may be only mildly upsetting to an adult can be severely disturbing to a child. Worse than that, adults may not recognize PTSD in children. Sometimes it can take kids years to recover, according to a new study released in the UK. Researchers studied children aged 2 to 10 from 71 families[...]
November 14, 2016 / Vehicle Accidents
Observing MADD’s Longstanding Tie One On For Safety Campaign
For nearly four decades, Mothers Against Drunk Driving has been working tirelessly on one single mission - to eliminate drunk driving on our roadways. It’s little wonder that the organization is so popular. Theirs is a cause that almost everyone can get behind, especially since so many of us have some connection to a victim of drunk driving. MADD is a vigilant advocate, and they have done an incredible amount of work to raise public awareness about the dangers of impaired driving on our roads. MADD tells us about new technologies that might help in the fight against drunk driving, like they did with ignition interlocks, and they remind us of times when we should be especially cautious. The holiday season and its connection to drunk [...]
October 26, 2016 / Vehicle Accidents
Ramping Up on Accidents
Some of the most hectic interstate roads in the U.S. run through the Louisville area. We have I-71, I-64, I-65, I-264, and I-265, not to mention busy non-interstates like the Dixie Highway. That many roads filled with traffic mean large numbers of exit and entrance ramps and, with them, a greatly-increased possibility of accidents. Entrance and exit ramps have many more crashes per mile than any other section of interstate highways. Research done in Northern Virginia on 1,150 crashes that took place on highly-traveled interstate ramps in urban areas identified the most likely crash types and situations. Exit and entrance ramp crashes are not studied very often, so the research that we do have is valuable. What Kinds of Crashes Happened [...]