Miami Personal Injury Law Blog

There is an ongoing debate among safety advocates, car manufacturers and cell phone companies regarding distracted driving. The Department of Transportation, National Transportation Safety Board and National Highway Traffic Safety Administration are all convinced that text messaging and cell phone use in general lead to distracted driving car accidents. They also believe that car makers should limit the potential distractions to drivers. Auto makers believe that in-car technology can improve the situation by making technology easier to use, which will in turn keep drivers from turning to their cell phones for information. Cell phone makers are reluctant to take any action that would discourage their customers from using their products.

Interestingly, drivers seem to fall on both sides of the fence at the same time. Some 87 percent of drivers support text messaging bans while nearly one third acknowledge that they have read an email or text while driving within the last month. Legislation banning text messaging has spread throughout the country. Safety groups like the NTSB have called for a ban on all cell phone use while driving. These sweeping changes in law and attitude have come with little reliable research regarding the actual impact of cell phones on driving.

The Florida Supreme Court has heard arguments in a case challenging the state's cap on damages for medical malpractice. Enacted by the state legislature in 2003, the law caps non-economic damages for medical malpractice liability at $500,000 in most cases and $1 million in those involving catastrophic injury or death. Caps in cases involving emergency medical services are set at $150,000 and $300,000, respectively. Caps are higher, at $750,000 and $1.5 million, when injury results from the negligence of parties that are not licensed health care providers. The damage caps target non-economic damages, namely pain and suffering and punitive damages, and do not impact compensation for medical costs to injured parties.

In the case challenging the law, Evette McCall v. United States of America SC11-1145, the argument was over whether the law was unconstitutional because it limited access to the courts. Lawyers for the estate of Michelle McCall argued that the law was unconstitutional because it denied access by McCall's estate to the jury award of $2 million for McCall's pain and suffering. McCall died in 2006 shortly after giving birth to a child in 2006 due to blood loss. A judge reduced the award to the law's $1 million cap.

Fatal accidents have been decreasing on a per-mile driven basis for many years. Fewer fatal car accidents occur today than at any point in the last 50 years. While that is good news, we should not be too quick to congratulate ourselves. Much of that improvement has come through improved technology and safer vehicles. Poor driving behavior is still the cause of many deadly accidents. According to a report from the Governors Highway Safety Association, aggressive driving, including speeding, is still the cause of more than 10,000 deaths a year. That number is roughly one-third of all motor vehicle fatalities.

Thirty-five states have passed legislation in the last few years regarding cell phone use by drivers. Distracted driving, whether it is caused by text messaging or GPS devices, has been a hot topic among safety experts, lawmakers and the media. When it comes to aggressive driving and speeding, there have been almost no efforts to curb the problem in years. Indiana's law about aggressive driving was the first since 2005 and made it one of 11 states to specifically ban aggressive tactics. The penalties for speeding have remained basically unchanged all across the country. Given the number of fatal accidents caused by speeding, this lack of attention is surprising.

When she lost her son to a form of medical malpractice known as 'failure to rescue' Helen Haskell realized how unprepared most patients and family members are to protect their safety in a medical setting. She believed that many instances of medical malpractice could be prevented in patients understood their rights and exercised greater control over the process. She began a group call Mothers Against Medical Error designed to advocate for patient safety laws and to help parents protect their children when medical issues arise. She teamed up with other safety advocates and medical professionals to craft a guide for people who are going through the health care system.

Many of the tips involve one thing that most patients do not understand: doctors, nurses and other health care professionals make mistakes. They make lots of mistakes. A massive report regarding medical error was compiled in 1999 and estimated that somewhere between 44,000 and 98,000 deaths are caused by medical errors every year. The medical error rate is significantly higher than for air travel and other things considered risks by many in the population. Medical errors should be considered as a distinct possibility by people who are considering elective procedures or who are going in to a hospital for any form of treatment.