Kansas City Injury Lawyer Blog

Effective September 1, 2011, the Missouri Highway Patrol has begun using new standards for testing motorcycle riders. These tests include both written and skill test for motorcyclists. The changes reflect updated testing standards developed by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.

The new tests include an obstacle motorcycle course. This test has been developed in order to measure the motorcyclist's ability to avoid obstacles and the degree of avoidance skills. Besides the obstacle test, the new tests include other courses that will test a motorcyclist's skill level more accurately. The changes will be implemented across the state of Missouri, and will include both two and three-wheel motorcycles.

Douglas R. Horn, Kansas City motorcycle accident lawyer and safety advocate, could not be more pleased. After all, riding a motorcycle in the year 2011 is vastly different from motorcycling a decade ago. Motorcycles are now faster, more powerful and lighter, making them more of a challenge to operate. The demographics of the motorcyclist population have also undergone a sea change. In the past, motorcycles were favored by a younger generation, while now, an increasing number of motorcycles are purchased by men above the age of forty.

It is important that motorcycle safety standards also be tweaked in order to accommodate the safety concerns affecting these motorcyclists. It appears that the tests which have been developed by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation will do just that.

Stronger testing for motorcyclists is likely to help reduce the number of motorcycle accidents across the state of Missouri. Motorcycle safety is one issue that has been a source of concern to Missouri motorcycle accident lawyers, because death rates in these accidents have remained more or less stable over the past decade, even as overall accident rates have declined.

A jury has awarded $75,000 in damages to a plaintiff over a traffic accident in O'Fallon, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri. Jurors based the award amount on both property damage and injuries. The accident occurred on December 17, 2008. Defendant Craig Hoelscher was driving west on Cherrywood Parc Drive in O'Fallon towards Highway K. He intended to turn left on Highway K, heading south. This required him to cross two northbound lanes and a center turning lane. Cherrywood has a stop sign at that intersection, but Highway K does not. He pulled onto Highway K at about 10 miles per hour, when his car struck the car driven by plaintiff Suzanne Mateja, who was driving in the inside northbound lane at about 40 miles per hour.

Mateja alleged a knee injury resulting from the accident. She presented an orthopedic surgeon at the trial as an expert, who testified that trauma sustained by her knee will likely lead to arthritis and permanent limitations in the movement of the knee. The defense presented their own orthopedic surgeon, who testified that a pre-existing condition known as chondromalacia, a thinning of the kneecap, caused her injury.

Hoelscher acknowledged in his testimony that he was travelling too fast to safely cross the highway. Witnesses also testified that Hoelscher's view of Mateja's lane was obstructed by another oncoming vehicle.

The trial lasted three days, and jurors deliberated for two hours on July 20. They returned a verdict for $75,000 against Hoelscher in favor of Mateja. The jury denied a claim from Mateja's spouse for loss of consortium, however.

This case illustrates many of the important legal issues of a claim for damages after a car accident. Legal disputes arising from car accidents involve the theory of negligence. To prove negligence in a case such as this, a plaintiff must demonstrate to a judge or jury (1) that a driver had a duty of care to the plaintiff, (2) that the driver breached that duty, (3) that this breach caused the accident, and (4) that the plaintiff suffered injuries or damages as a result.

In this situation, Mateja proved all of these elements. All drivers have a duty to others on or near the road to drive safely. Since Hoelscher was driving at an intersection where he had a stop sign and other drivers did not, he had a higher duty of care to drivers on Highway K than normal. By entering the road at an unsafe speed, without the ability to clearly see oncoming vehicles, Hoelscher created the unsafe conditions that led directly to the accident. In hitting Mateja's vehicle, Hoelscher also caused her injuries, or at least a jury concluded that Hoelscher is legally responsible for those injuries.

Continue reading "Jury Awards $75,000 in Missouri Car Accident Trial" »

A new survey finds that Springfield, Missouri has some of the safest drivers in the country. The results of the survey, which was conducted by Allstate Insurance Co. is presented in a report titled Allstate America's Best Drivers Report.

The report ranks the country's top 200 largest cities ranked on the basis of car accident frequency. This year, the safest drivers in the country were found in Fort Collins, Colorado. Here, the average motorist is involved in an accident only once every 14 years. That is much lower than the national average of once every 10 years.

Springfield ranked at number seven on the list with a collision likelihood that was 17.9% lower than the national average. The average motorist in Springfield will likely spend 12.2 years between accidents. Other cities on this list include Boise, Idaho; Lincoln, Nebraska; Chandler, Arizona; Huntsville, Alabama; Knoxville, Tennessee; Reno, Nevada; Eugene, Oregon; and Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Missouri car accident lawyers find that cities that see frequent law-enforcement activities preventing drunk driving and other disruptive behaviors, are much better equipped to control their accident rates. While drivers in Springfield seem to be doing a good job of keeping accident rates under control, there's more that can be done to reduce those rates further. Drivers in other cities in Missouri should also pay attention.

The basic tips to prevent accidents remain the same. Never drive after drinking alcohol. Minimize all kinds of distractions, including cell phone use, applying makeup or fiddling with radio stations and other devices while driving. Make sure that you are prepared for driving, and learn about the weather conditions on your route before you drive. Do not tailgate. Make sure that your vehicle is properly maintained.

AllState Insurance Company has released its "America's Best Drivers Report" for 2011, and the news is mostly good for Kansas and Missouri drivers. Of 200 U.S. cities surveyed for the report, Kansas City, Missouri ranks 22nd, and Kansas City, Kansas ranks 37th. Rankings for cities in Kansas and Missouri are as follows:

AllState based its figures on the number of automobile accidents requiring insurance claims for the 200 largest American cities. Its analysis was limited to claims made through their own insurance policies, but as the second-largest auto insurance company in the U.S., its figures cover a relatively large percentage of accident statistics. The report also only covers accidents in urban areas, leaving accidents in rural areas unaddressed.

Drivers in Springfield, the Missouri city ranking highest in the report, will go an average of 12.2 years between auto collisions, and they are 17.9% less likely to have a collision than the average American driver. AllState offers the following tips to avoid collisions:

- Minimize distractions
- Be aware of road conditions
- Leave a safe distance between your car and others around you
- Steer clear of road rage
- Maintenance matters

Despite advances in safety technology and an overall decline in automobile accidents nationwide, AllState reports that there are an average of 32,000 traffic fatalities per year in the United States. Missouri's high ranking in driver safety is only a matter of comparison. The Kansas Department of Transportation reports 385 traffic fatalities and 21,058 injuries for 2008, the most recent year for which it has statistics. The Missouri Department of Transportation reports 652 fatalities and 20,178 injuries for 2009.

Recent news also demonstrates the need for caution on the roads. The Missouri Highway Patrol reports nine traffic fatalities for Labor Day weekend 2011, the same number as in 2010. The Patrol attributes most of these fatalities to a lack of protective gear, such as seat belts or life jackets in the case of boating accidents. Holiday weekends always seem to bring an increase in accidents on the roads, but the need for care when driving is never-ending.

Continue reading "Missouri, Kansas Rank High on AllState's Safe Drivers Report" »

A study released by Johns Hopkins has identified a link between an increased rate of medication errors in hospitals and the use of temporary staff, including temporary doctors and nurses, in hospital emergency rooms. The study, which covers 592 hospitals over the period from 2000 to 2005, reviewed nearly 24,000 medication errors and found that temporary staff were twice as likely as permanent staff to be involved in medication errors.

The researchers give several possible reasons for this correlation, including the lack of familiarity of temporary staff with a hospitals policies and procedures. Johns Hopkins professor Dr. Julius Cuong Pham noted, however, that the problem may be more endemic than merely staff errors, stating that "a place that uses a lot of temporary staff may have more quality of care issues in general. It may not be the temporary staff that causes those errors but a function of the whole system."

The emergency room is an especially troubling place to have workers unfamiliar with the systems and procedures of the hospital, since it handles the most critical medical needs and often operates at a much faster pace than other areas in a hospital. Medication errors are a major cause of injury and even death in hospitals across the United States. A fast-paced, high-pressure environment combined with temporary staff and the possible associated quality of care issues is serious cause for concern.

The use of temporary emergency room staff has been increasing for at least a decade. An overall shortage of nurses in hospitals has led to an increased number of nurses employed by temporary employment agencies, who work brief assignments at multiple hospitals. A 2008 handbook from the National Institutes of Health found a steady increase in the use of temporary nursing staff from 1996 to 2004, and it posited the same theories regarding increased risk to patients noted by the Johns Hopkins study. A 2010 paper published in the medical journal Health Care Management Review found an increased incidence of both patient injuries and back injuries among nurses in hospitals using temporary staff.

Temporary hospital staff work under the same professional licensing and regulation as full-time staff, and they have all the same professional and ethical obligations to patients. In the Kansas City area, nurses are governed by the Missouri Board of Nursing or the Kansas Sate Board of Nursing. Hospitals have an obligation to ensure competent and diligent care for their patients, and to ensure that their staff operate fully within the requirements of their profession. The American Nurses Association has supported legislation to mandate nurse staffing plans in hospitals in order to maintain a sufficient number of licensed and registered nurses to serve the hospital's needs. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have enacted legislation or regulations addressing nurse staffing levels, but Missouri and Kansas are not among them.

Continue reading "Study Links Temporary ER Staff to Medication Errors" »

Missouri Crash Lawyer, Douglas R. Horn, is citing to a new report that shows that a high number of fatal traffic accidents occur on rural roads. According to the report, the traffic accident rate per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in Missouri in 2009 was 2.31, compared to 0.75 for other roadways. In fact, Missouri is included in a list of the top twenty states with the worst rural fatality rate per vehicle miles traveled.

In 2009, there were 530 rural traffic accident deaths in Missouri, the ninth highest number in the nation. Missouri ranked ahead of many other states that have large swathes of rural areas, including Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

It's not hard for Missouri car accident lawyers to understand the reason for the high death rates in rural areas. These roads are typically poorly designed, and have inadequate safety aids. For instance, a rural road in Missouri is much more likely to have inadequate shoulders and narrow lanes. There are more sharp curves and steep pavement drop-offs and slopes. Rural roads in Missouri may be designed with limited clear zones along the roadside.

Additionally, many rural roads in the state suffer from a lack of maintenance. Illumination may be poor, and signs may be damaged. Also, because so many of Missouri's roads have been built over the years, they have some very inconsistent design features that take drivers unawares and increase the risks of an accident. Poor design is the reason why so many fatal accidents on Missouri's rural roads involve vehicles going off the road.
Another very important factor in these high death rates on Missouri's rural roads is the inadequate emergency response times in these areas. Rural roads have lower access to trauma care which can help a person survive after a serious accident.