Cedar Park made news earlier this week when the city declared that it’s adopting a zero tolerance policy towards uninsured motorists — every uninsured motorist stopped for a ticket or involved in an accident will now be given a citation instead of a warning. 

While I applaud the efforts, I also wonder, “Why now?” 

It shouldn’t be newsworthy that Cedar Park  (or Austin or any other Texas city) is actually enforcing the laws designed to prevent uninsured motorists from driving on our roadways.

The fact that it made the news (and almost every news outlet) is a stark warning sign that uninsured motorists are a problem.  In fact, Texas data indicates that 20% of the motorists on the road do not have the state mandated insurance.

It is also a reminder that you need to purchase uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage when you purchase your car insurance.

This coverage protects you  and your family when you’re involved in a wreck with one of these uninsured motorist drivers.

But uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage doesn’t just protect you from wrecks with uninsured motorists.  It also protects you when you’re in a wreck with an underinsured motorist — a driver who has at least the state minimum insurance, but doesn’t have enough insurance to cover the harm caused by all of your injuries.  While twenty percent of Texas drivers don’t have insurance, when they do have insurance, the vast majority only have the state minimum  (currently $30,000).  While that is enough to cover your injuries in a minor wreck, it might not even be enough to cover a trip to the emergency room and certainly not a surgery.

What does that mean in real life?  I’m sitting here looking at a list of auto accident cases that my firm will wrap up in the next month to six weeks once the paperwork is finalized.  Of the five cases on the list, four of them involved a claim against my client’s uninsured/underinsured motorist carrier.  Additionally, the fifth case would have required an uninsured/underinsured motorist claim had the other driver carried a minimum $30,000 policy (instead the other driver was one of those rare drivers with a much larger policy).

That additional coverage is often the difference necessary to make sure that they can get the medical care they need or pay their mortgage or other bills after being off of work.  In short, it’s important.

That’s why I always advise my clients to make sure they purchase sufficient uninsured/underinsured motorist when buying their car insurance.  You spend a lot of money on car insurance to protect others.  But you need to spend a little bit more to protect yourself and your loved ones.

A study released today found that the number of US pedestrians killed or badly injured while wearing headphones has almost tripled in the last six years.  Not surprisingly, most of the victims are teens or young adults.

More than half of the deaths involved pedestrians being run down by trains, and many involved incidents where the train or vehicle driver were sounding a horn trying to warn the pedestrian of the potential problem.

A constant issue I hear from personal injury clients is that doctors often do a poor job communicating with patients about the patients’ injuries and their course of care.

But with the internet, there are a number of ways for clients to learn about their injuries and treatment themselves.  It is the internet, so some of the information is horrible, but much of it is quite good.

One source that I have found helpful is Up To Date (www.uptodate.com). 

Up To Date is an online medical encyclopedia.  It is written and edited by doctors, updated frequently, and footnoted very well so you can follow up on studies.  It is designed to be used by medical professionals — hospitals, clinics, doctors, etc.  It is set up so that it provides basic information about conditions and then answers many of the most popular clinical questions about conditions.  When you look at the website, you’ll see that it receives good reviews from doctors and medical facilities from all over the world. 

But it also markets to patients.  Up To Date currently has a subscription option where you can have unlimited access to the website for 7 days for $19.95 or 30 days of unlimited access for $44.95.

If you have a condition that you want to learn more about, you might consider paying these fees so that you really understand your condition and your future.

Today’s Austin American Statesman had the inspiring story of Ruby Dee Phillipa.  Ms. Phillipa was a former restaurant owner turned rockabilly musician who suffered a head injury in a 2008 scooter crash.

As part of her therapy, her doctors told her that she should find tasks that helped her brain relearn how to access common words and phrases.  For Ms. Phillipa, that meant writing down the recipes that she had been using for so long.  What she didn’t know was that those tasks would ultimately lead to a cookbook, Ruby’s Juke Joint Americana Cookbook.  (You can buy the book at Rubysjukejoint.com, Amazon.com , or at BookPeople in Austin.)

I think her path has important lessons for all head injury victims about the work necessary to make a recovery.  Too often, I see victims of head injuries who have been told by doctors or others that they’ll “get better with time.”  Sometimes, that’s correct.  But in many instances, getting better requires hard work and rehab.  Sometimes it’s work you can do on your own — like writing familiar recipes.  And sometimes it’s formal cognitive therapy — work that you have to do with the aid of a trained assistant. 

If you’re not getting better after waiting it out, you need to go back to your doctor and tell them that, and ask for help.  Ask them to provide pro-active things you can do, whether informally or through formal cognitive rehab.  In many instances, waiting it out isn’t a solution, and you shouldn’t just live with your condition.  You need to be working wth your doctor as a team to make sure you’re improving as much as you can.

Recently, a family member was complaining about sending text messages using the keyboard on her new iPhone.

In an effort to help, I tried to show her a feature that allows you to speak your text message.

Her response was, “Great, now I can send texts while I’m driving.”

And my response was, “No! No! No!”

As a personal injury lawyer, I know too well the dangers of distracted driving.

Some of the distracted driving statistics are startling:

• At a minimum,  3,000 people per year die from distracted driving  (that’s equivalent to a regional jet crash every week).
• Almost 30% of car crashes are caused by cell phone use.
• Texting takes your eyes off the road for an average of 4.6 seconds  (at 55 miles per hour, that’s like driving an entire football field blind-folded).
• Study after study finds texting while driving to be more dangerous than driving while intoxicated.

Those problems are getting worse —earlier this month, a government study found texting while driving had almost doubled this year.

Because of those dangers, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended in early December that each state ban all uses of cell phones while driving (except for emergency calls). 

I don’t think that proposal will go anywhere, but I hope it at least starts a conversation because we need a culture change.  This is an increasing problem and we all need to do our part. 

For most drivers, that means making their own change — a resolution to decrease their own distracted driving.  I’m going a step farther this year.  I’m joining up with personal injury lawyers from across the country who have pledged to help take this message into schools and to other groups of drivers.  Because if we’re going to reduce these dangers this year, we’ll all need to work together.

If you’re one of our clients, we might send you a draft demand letter to the insurance company that tells the insurance company that the letter is intended to be a “Stowers demand.”  What does that phrase mean?

Every insurance policy has a “policy limit” — the maximum amount of coverage the policy offers.  (You can read more about that here.)

Way back in 1929, the Texas Supreme Court, in the G.A. Stowers Furniture Co. v. American Indemnity Co. case, ruled that insurance companies had a duty to their insureds to accept a reasonable settlement offer if the offer is within the policy limits.  If the insurance company rejects a reasonable settlement offer within the policy limits and the case later resulted in a verdict higher than the policy limits, then the insurance company could be liable for the full amount, even though the amount is higher than the policy limit.

For cases with values near or above the policy limits, an offer to settle for the policy limits puts pressure on the insurance company to settle because they don’t want to be liable for an amount more than the policy.

This can sometimes result in funny phenomenon.  For example, if a car wreck case is worth between $25,000 and $35,000, an insurance company with $30,000 will likely pay the amount due to the Stowers pressure.  However, if the same case had $300,000 of insurance (instead of $30,000), the insurance company doesn’t have any pressure, and they might hold fast to paying $25,000 or less.

Whether talking to clients or providing information on this website, we often talk about the other driver’s “policy limits.”  What does that phrase mean?

Every insurance policy has a maximum amount that the insurance company will be required to pay, regardless of the severity of the injuries suffered by people in the wreck.  This maximum amount is referred to as the “policy limits.” 

In most instances, you will see or hear policy limits referred to with two numbers — the per person and per occurrence limits.  For example, current law requires Texas drivers to carry insurance with limits of at least $30,000 per person and $60,000 per occurrence. 

The first part of that is fairly easy to understand — in an example like that, the most the insurance company could be required to pay any single person in a wreck is $30,000.

The second part is more tricky.  The “per occurrence” limit is that maximum that the insurance company could be required to pay in total, regardless of the number of people injured in a wreck. 

For example, if two people are injured in a wreck, the insurance company couldn’t be forced to pay either of them $30,000 and couldn’t be forced to pay a total to them of more than $60,000.

This applies regardless of the number of people hurt.  If someone with a $30,000/$60,000 policy causes a ten car pile-up that injures fifteen people, the insurance company is not required to pay more than $60,000 in total to all of the injured people.

While $30,000/$60,000 is the minimum allowed by law, those amounts may increase.  It is not unusual to find policies that are $50,000/$100,000 policies or even $100,000/$300,000 policies.  But policies much higher than that are very rare except in cases involving commercial vehicles.

Like many of you, I’ve never been to a hockey game.  But despite that, we have much we can learn from the National Hockey League.

You see.  The NHL has a concussion problem.

The NHL’s most recognizable player is young star Sidney Crosby.  But last January, Sid the Kid took a high hit and sustained a concussion.  His concussion caused him to miss half the 2010-2011 season, the 2011 Stanley Cup playoffs, and the first quarter of the 2011-12 season.  He finally came back, but after eight games back, Crosby sustained another hit and symptoms of concussions and is again out indefinitely.

Crosby isn’t alone. In about a quarter of the season, 23 different NHL players have been limited by concussions.

What I take from this is that the NHL, unlike the NFL or some other sports, take concussions and head injuries seriously.  And I think it’s important for all of us to learn that.

I frequently tell people that the thing that scares me the most about our car wreck or other personal injury cases are the potential head injuries.  They are difficult to diagnose, and the consequences can be life-altering. 

So if you or a loved one is hurt in an accident, make sure you’re on the lookout for potential signs of head injuries.  Don’t dismiss those headaches, changes in temperament, feelings of confusion, nausea or vomiting, or fatigue.  Take them seriously, and seek the care you need.

Tuesday, the National Transportation Safety Board urged a complete ban on the use of cell phones while driving.  The Board has recommended that all states adopt a complete ban on the use of cell phones while driving — including texting and emailing — except in emergency situations.  It would include a ban on using phones even with hands-free devices.  While the Board doesn’t have the authority to enact any legislation, its opinion does hold sway with federal and state regulators and legislators.

The impetus behind the suggestion is the increasing problem of distracted driving.  According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration data, at least 3,092 roadway fatalities involved distracted driving, though it suspects the number is much higher.  And cell phone use is one of the sources of distraction.  At any given daylight moment, an estimated 13.5 million drivers are using their phones.

The proposal appears to have support among many Central Texas traffic enforcement officials.  In an Austin American Statesman article this morning, Texas Department of Transportation spokesman John Hurt said he thought transportation departments would support the ban.  Also, spokespersons for the Austin Police Department said they’d support a ban.

I can’t imagine such a ban passing, but I do hope that the proposal starts a discussion about the increased dangers of distracted driving.  This is a serious problem that we see every day.  One of the APD officers said in best in the Statesman article when he said that we need a culture change.  Hopefully we can start moving to that change.

Despite all the outcry and the increasing number of laws banning texting while driving, it’s a problem that’s getting worse, not better.

Yesterday, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration released its first major study on distracted driving.  It found that at any one time, 1 in 100 drivers are using a hand-held device for texting, emailing or surfing the web, a number that was an increase of 50% over the prior year.

The study also found that twenty percent of drivers admitted to texting or emailing while driving.   That number increased to 50% of drivers when looking at the 21 to 24 year old demographic. 

Folks, this is a problem.  The study found that this type of distracted driving accounted for 3,092 deaths in 2010.  And the number of injuries were many times that.

If you read this blog, you know that this is something that I vent about all the time  (doing a quick search, I found over 40 prior posts on the dangers of texting and driving).  We need to understand the dangers being created by use of electronic devices.  There aren’t any emails or texts important enough to seriously injure or kill ourselves or others.