A study published recently in the research journal Accident Analysis and Prevention analyzes the habits of drivers who only occasionally use seatbelts. The report, which used data from monitoring devices installed in 100 vehicles, shows that reluctant seatbelt users are more likely to buckle up for trips on high speed roads.

The majority of accidents – and the majority of driving – occurs on low-speed roads close to drivers’ homes, where drivers and passengers use seatbelts at lower rates. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that if drivers and front-seat passengers always used seatbelts, traffic fatalities would fall by 45 percent.

“We wanted to find out what makes occasional seatbelt users buckle up more than half the time,” said Jon Hankey, a director of the study at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute. “They know it is a good idea, so why don’t they do it all of the time?”

The study was the first of its kind. Over the course of one year, instruments in 100 cars gathered data on more than 150,000 trips by 108 primary drivers and 299 secondary drivers. Participants answered questionnaires designed to measure certain personality traits such as aggression and risk-taking.

“The first objective was to determine if there were variables, such as trip distance, speed, and time of day, that uniquely characterized consistent, occasional, and infrequent seatbelt users,” said Hankey.

“The second objective was to conduct a more detailed analysis of the group defined as occasional seatbelt users to identify factors associated with these drivers’ decisions to wear their belts on some trips but not others,” he added.

Data showed primary drivers wore their seatbelts 79.1 of the time and second drivers buckled up 81.2 percent of the time. Researchers found that during trips around town averaging 30 mph, occasional seatbelt users opted for the seatbelt 72.7 percent of the time, but trips averaging 50 mph saw seatbelt usage at 89.0 percent.

“Occasional users may have an unrealistic view of a certain trip’s risk, and an education program targeting this unrealistic view may have a significant impact on seatbelt compliance,” said NHTSA fellow Sharon P. Berlin.

The study also showed that individuals with more formal education were more likely to be consistent seatbelt users, and those with aggressive driving habits were more likely to be occasional seatbelt users.

The NHTSA is planning another, much larger, study, called the Strategic Highway Research Program. The study will involve driving data on 2,000 cars.

If you need to speak with a auto accident lawyer, Call Joyce & Reyes at 1.888.771.1529 or visit more of http://www.joyceandreyespa.com/.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) encourages car owners to file complaints when they have safety concerns about their vehicles. Consumers play an important role in helping automakers and government understand the threats to safety that cars present.

Some issues with cars are so rare that they may only present themselves to a handful of customers; automakers may never encounter them despite extensive testing. This is why it is important for you to file a complaint if you believe your vehicle has a safety issue. Every piece of available data is valuable in solving these difficult problems.

The NHTSA receives many complaints, and some are more useful than others. If you file a complaint, take care with your submission to be sure you are part of the solution.

DO include:

• your vehicle identification number, which is not required, but which gives investigators important details about where your car was made and how it is configured;
• a clear statement of how you expected the car to behave and how it actually behaved;
• whether you can duplicate the malfunction – that is, it happens every time;
• any relevant information about maintenance and repairs; and
• any relevant aftermarket equipment installed on the vehicle.

DO NOT include:

If you believe your vehicle may have a safety issue, visit the NHTSA website and file a complaint.

Call Joyce & Reyes at 1.888.771.1529 or visit more of http://www.joyceandreyespa.com/.

Backing crashes deaths are on the rise in the U.S.

Each year in the United States, approximately 228 people are killed in “backing crashes” – crashes in which a vehicle is traveling in reverse, often striking a pedestrian. Of those, about half are children under age 10. Another 17,000 are injured in such crashes.

Restricted rear visibility is a factor in the vast majority of these crashes. In many vehicles, particularly SUVs and pickups, vehicle design is increasingly resulting in large blind spots directly behind the car.

In 2008, President George W. Bush signed into law a measure passed with strong bipartisan support in Congress that requires car manufacturers to improve rear visibility in order to help prevent such accidents. But after nearly five years, new standards have yet to be issued to auto makers. Ray LaHood, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), has pushed back the deadline to issue new mandates four times, most recently in January, and safety advocates are growing frustrated.

The proposed rules would require expanding the driver’s rear field of view in all new passenger vehicles in the U.S. In the case of many car models, this would mean that rearview video cameras and in-dash video screens would be standard equipment.

In a letter to Congress in February 2012, after the third delay in rule implementation, LaHood said the DOT needed to conduct more “research and data analysis” to “ensure that the final rule is appropriate and the underlying analysis is robust.”

But some suggest that the real sticking point is money. Lawmakers are likely reluctant to place any additional regulatory burden on an auto industry hobbled by a stagnant economy.

According to NHTSA estimates, a mandate requiring rearview cameras on every passenger vehicle would add between $58 and $88 to the price of cars that already have in-dash video screens and $159 to $203 to the price of cars without them.

The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, an auto industry lobbying group, says that the total cost to the car industry would be approximately $2 billion per year. In December 2011, the group made an alternative proposal to government officials: rearview cameras in vehicles with very large blind zones and wide-angle convex mirrors for the rest.

Automakers are increasingly integrating cameras and video screens into their models even without rules requiring them. Edmunds, an automotive research firm, rearview cameras were standard equipment on nearly half of all 2012 models and optional on another 27 percent. According to iSuppli, another research firm, 90 percent of 2012 models had in-dash video displays as standard or optional equipment.

Robert Joyce is a Tampa personal injury attorney at Joyce & Reyes Law Firm. To learn more about the Tampa personal injury lawyer, visit http://www.joyceandreyespa.com/ or call 1.888.771.1529.

An auto accident on a Sunday afternoon shortly before Christmas claimed the life of a Spring Hill woman.

Cecilia Diaz, 75, was killed when another driver ran a red light, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. She was turning left onto Mariner Boulevard from Landover Boulevard when police say Gregory Gerard Sanchez, 26, struck the left side of her Mitsubishi with his 2004 Ford Ranger.

The patrol said that Sanchez had been traveling northbound on Mariner and failed to stop at a red light.

Diaz was returning home following the afternoon service at St. Frances Cabrini Church. She died at the scene, and Diaz had slight injuries.

Authorities said the crash was still under investigation, but they do not believe alcohol was a factor.

According to police records, Sanchez, also a resident of Spring Hill, was charged in May with driving under the influence and arrested, but that charge were dropped in July. He is also named as a defendant in a civil suit in Hernando County for “auto negligence.”

Diaz, a native of Puerto Rico was deeply religious according to family members. She attended church weekly and had been planning her yearly Christmas Eve family dinner of traditional Puerto Rican dishes.

Diaz left Puerto Rico for Connecticut after graduating from high school and moved to Tampa in 1980. She was formerly employed as a teacher’s aide at Tampa’s Woodbridge Elementary School.

Call Joyce & Reyes at 1.888.771.1529 or visit more of http://www.joyceandreyespa.com/.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has recommended new federal mandates requiring auto makers to include modern crash-avoidance systems as standard equipment in all new cars. They say the systems have the potential to reduce by half the number of fatalities on American roads.

The safety systems include collision detection, adaptive cruise control, lane drift detection, and electronic stability control. Each of these safety features is available already on some new vehicles, but some are found only on high-end models.

Electronic stability control controls braking and throttle on a per-wheel basis in the event of a loss of traction. It is currently required on all new passenger vehicles weighing less than 10,000 pounds.

Lane drift detection systems monitor the vehicle’s position within its lane, warning the driver if the car begins to wander without signaling.

Forward collision detection, automatic braking, and adaptive cruise control all interact to autonomously control the vehicle’s speed. All require embedded sensors to detect the location of obstacles in the car’s path. Adaptive cruise control selectively applies a portion of the car’s available throttle or brakes to maintain a safe following distance. Collision detection alerts the driver when the vehicle is on a collision course. Automatic braking systems apply up to 100 percent of the car’s braking power in order to avoid a collision.

The NTSB also recommended mandates for tire-pressure monitoring systems and, for commercial trucks, speed-limiting systems.

Automakers warned of the effects such mandates would have on the cost of new cars, but safety advocates pointed out that economies of scale would likely reduce the per-vehicle cost.

Call Joyce & Reyes at 1.888.771.1529 or visit more of http://www.joyceandreyespa.com/.

A weekend of campaigning by President Obama in Florida ended in tragedy as an officer of the Jupiter Police Department was killed while assisting with traffic control for the president’s motorcade.

Officer Bruce St. Laurent, 55, had worked for the department for 20 years. He was one of a number of officers from local departments who had come to West Palm Beach, Fla., to assist with security for the President’s entourage. St. Laurent was riding his motorcycle southbound on Interstate 95 with the presidential motorcade. He moved to an onramp in order to block traffic from entering the highway and was struck from behind by a pickup truck.

Susan Holloway, 56, was driving the Ford F150 up the onramp, accelerating in preparation to merge with highway traffic. She braked to avoid the accident, but nevertheless struck St. Laurent, knocking him off his motorcycle. The officer then became trapped under the truck when it came to rest.

St. Laurent was rushed to St. Mary’s Medical Center nearby, where he died later that day.

The Florida Highway Patrol and the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office will conduct investigations that may take months to complete. After the investigations are concluded, state attorneys will decide whether to file any charges in the case.

White House spokesman Jay Carney said that the president was informed of the officer’s death and said the first family’s prayers were with the officer’s family.

A Wauchula, Fla., brain-injury rehabilitation facility has been ordered to relocate dozens of its patients after a recent surprise inspection by three state agencies.

Officials reviewed the records of 98 patients receiving inpatient treatment at Florida Institute for Neurologic Rehabilitation and found that 50 of them do not meet criteria that the facility is licensed to treat. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration order requires FINR to submit to the state a plan to relocate those patients. Officials also found that the facility was treating patients for too long, in violation of its license as a “transitional living facility.”

Although the violations detailed in the report may seem mostly technical or procedural, the surprise inspection may have been motivated by allegations far more sinister in nature. Shortly before the inspection, Bloomberg News reported on dozens of cases of alleged neglect and abuse at the facility. Indeed, in at least five cases of patient death since 1998, families or state officials have alleged abuse or neglect by FINR staff. Three former staff members currently face criminal charges.

FINR is fighting the relocation order, claiming regulators overstepped their authority. They are appealing the case to the Division of Administrative Hearings and say they will not submit a plan to comply with the order unless their legal challenge is defeated. FINR claims the state is enforcing a too-narrow definition of brain injury limited only to that which results from physical trauma, such as a car accident. That unfairly denies treatment to patients with other kinds of brain injury, the company said.

The matter has recently grown even more complicated for FINR. Allstate Corp., the second-largest auto insurance company in the U.S., filed suit against the company recently in the U.S. District Court in Tampa, Fla. Allstate seeks fraud damages of $7.6 million it says it paid FINR to treat its auto insurance claimants.

Florida’s claim that FINR treated patients for longer than its licensing allows is central to Allstate’s lawsuit. The insurer alleges that FINR aggressively recruited brain injury patients from Michigan, where insurance companies are required to provide unlimited medical benefits for auto injury coverage, and promised those patients services they never received. The lawsuit further alleges that FINR tried to prevent patients from leaving the center with incentives and threats. One patient was told that if she left, Allstate would not pay for any further treatment, but if she stayed, she would get a trip to Busch Gardens.

A lawyer representing FINR said the company would not comment on pending lawsuits.

A high school student from South Fort Myers was reportedly hit by a woman driving a Toyota Tacoma in the predawn hours last Thursday. It is not clear exactly what caused the accident. The driver admitted to being aware of having hit something, but claimed to be unaware that it was a person.

A man on his way to work came upon the injured girl, age sixteen, and noticed she was barely able to breathe. He called 911 and stayed with her, reporting later that he worried that she was going to die before medical care arrived. He said the driver was no longer in sight, but pieces of the vehicle were scattered about the scene. Other teens were also nearby, also calling for help.

Authorities said the driver’s failure to remain at the scene of the accident could result in two felony charges against her.

Florida Highway patrol said they do not believe either cell phone use or alcohol contributed to the accident. The truck was reportedly traveling under the speed limit. Even absent those factors, however, the smallest distraction may be enough to cause an accident. This is especially true at night and during twilight hours. Insufficient street lighting can also play a role. The 911 caller commented to reporters that he wished the area where the accident occurred had better lighting.

Call a Tampa auto accident lawyer with Joyce & Reyes at 1.888.771.1529 or visit http://www.joyceandreyespa.com/

A seventeen-year-old girl is in critical condition after driving her car off an Interstate 75 ramp. The vehicle landed upside-down in a retention pond. She was nearing the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway from the I-75 exit ramp when she went off the north shoulder. At this point it is not clear what caused the accident, but the Infiniti sedan fell about 50 feet before landing in the pond. She is very fortunate to be alive after falling such a distance and landing in water.

Tampa General Hospital is the medical facility where she was taken to be treated and where she remains in critical condition. Road workers witnessed the accident which took place at about 10:18 a.m. Monday. They assisted in retrieving her from the wreckage and reportedly one worker conducted CPR.

The exact cause of the crash remains unknown. If investigators discover that cell phone use played a role, the accident may renew calls for Florida to legislate cell phone use while driving. Teenagers tend to be particularly active cell phone users. Driving and phone use is clearly ill-advised, but various studies have shown it to be commonplace. In a sense, technology has surpassed society’s ability to regulate it effectively.

When public policy catches up with technology, there will be fewer injuries and deaths related to distracted driving. No young person’s life should be endangered because of distracted driving.

To learn more, contact a Tampa auto accident attorney with Joyce & Reyes at http://www.joyceandreyespa.com/

A high school student from South Fort Myers just sixteen years of age was reportedly hit by a woman driving a Toyota Tacoma in the predawn hours Thursday. It is not clear exactly what caused the accident. The driver admitted to being aware of having hit something, but claimed to be unaware that it was a person.

A man on his way to work came upon the injured girl and noticed she was in trouble, and barely able to breathe. He called 911 and stayed with her, noting she was very badly hurt. He said he thought she might have died on the spot.

The man who called 911 said the driver was no longer in sight, but pieces of the vehicle were scattered about the scene. Other teens were also nearby, screaming for help.

Authorities said the driver’s failure to remain at the scene of the car accident could result in two felony charges against her.

Florida Highway patrol said they do not believe either cell phone use or alcohol contributed to the accident. The truck was reportedly traveling under the speed limit. Even absent those factors, however, the smallest distraction may be enough to cause an accident. This is especially true at night and during twilight hours. Insufficient street lighting can also play a role. The 911 caller commented to reporters that he wished the area where the accident occurred had better lighting.

Call a Tampa auto accident lawyer with Joyce & Reyes at 1.888.771.1529 or visit http://www.joyceandreyespa.com/