2010 February Archive

The mother of a monorail driver at Disney World who died last July in a crash, has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the theme park. The woman says that Disney did not follow its own monorail-safety procedures and that is what killed her 21-year-old son. Her son was in the front of a monorail, moving the car in reverse through track switches that were supposed to move it eventually onto the system’s maintenance bay. But another monorail was backing up over a track switch at the same time and the track switch was never realigned. The train went into reverse and into the resort’s Epcot line and into the young man’s vehicle.

His mother contends it would be safer to have twin controls in the rear cab giving the operator a clear view when he backs up.

While no litigation can bring back her son, it is pointing out some safety violations of the theme park, perhaps preventing it from happening to someone else. Her lawyer says that Disney’s own policy of having drivers stay in the front cab during a track switch is in violation of the parks own training manual that calls for drivers to switch cockpits. The driver of the trail that hit the 21-year-old worker stayed in the front cab of his train during the track switch. To switch cabins involves powering down the front cab and powering up the rear cab which takes several minutes and if passengers are present can slow the unloading process.

OSHA has cited Disney for one “serious” safety violation - Disney failed to use spotters to keep an eye on the back end of any train that is reversing.

Changes have been made. After the wrongful death accident, Disney required monorail operators to switch cockpits before transferring off the Epcot loop, and now an operator cannot move a train without the use of spotters. Our condolences go out to his mother and other family members for their loss, which it appears was a preventable accident that safety guidelines were written to prevent.

A father and his four-year-old son are recovering in a hospital after a boat with four people onboard crashed into a dock. It happened in Pottsburg Creek in Jacksonville. Four people were onboard the fishing boat when it struck the dock in the 500 block of Bayridge Road. The man and his son are at Shands Jacksonville Hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries. Police say they will need facial surgery and that two others on the boat were not injured. We hope and pray for the speedy recovery of a father and his son.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which investigates accidents on the water, says that the father, realizing it was too dark, tried to turn back to the boat ramp. In the dark, nothing looked familiar and the river took a bend at that point. That is where the dock was located, says the FFWCC officer at the scene.

Fortunately it was not traveling at a fast rate of speed, about 20 mph, so nobody was ejected. The little boy was the only one wearing a life jacket, which is required by Florida law.

Florida Boating Laws
Florida law requires there to be a floatation device for every person as part of the required equipment on the water. That’s because even an adult can lose consciousness and a life jacket is the only thing that will keep your head above water and increase your chance of survival. In this case, the boat went under the dock, which could have easily knocked someone out. Luckily, only the windshield was broken.

Florida law also requires anyone born after January 1, 1988 to carry a Boating Safety Education ID Card in order to legally operate a boat in Florida. That is because the state is the Top Ten state for fatalities. In 2007, there were 77 boating fatalities in Florida, which exceeds the next closes state, California at 48 fatalities, according to Fish and Wildlife. By 2008, that number had dropped to 54.

A collision with a fixed object is the fourth leading cause of boating accident after falling overboard, capsizing, and collision with a vessel. When you look at the stats with the state, the primary cause of death onboard a boat is drowning (70 %), followed by trauma (30%). Overwhelmingly, males (96%) are the operators. If you have been injured in a boating accident, please contact a Jacksonville boat accident attorney who can help you with answers you need to get your life back in order.

Sources:http://www.news4jax.com/news/22357973/detail.html;http://www.myfwc.com/docs/Safety/2008_Boating_Statbook_fatality.pdf

Early Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected campaign spending limits on corporations with a 5-4 vote that opens the floodgates to what many fear could become corporate-sponsored elections. The Justices struck down a long-standing ban on corporate spending on candidates. Since 1907, the nation’s campaign finance laws have prevented corporate spending on candidates up for election.

In 1947, that ban was extended to unions and in 2002, the McCain-Feingold bill further extended the ban to cover loopholes, including restricting corporate-funded election ads 30 days before an election.

Judge Anthony Kennedy wrote the decision for the court saying that the marketplace of ideas includes corporations, which represent a significant segment of society. He suggested that government interference might amount to censorship since the First Amendment guarantees free speech. I didn’t know corporations had a right to Free Speech. Sounding like a frightening chapter out of the book, The Corporation, which outlines how our laws give corporations rights and privileges, but corporations have none of the downside of personhood. A corporation can’t be charged with murder, even though some of its actions can lead to the death of others.

The Center for Media & Democracy and Public Citizen, both advocacy groups, are circulating a petition, Americans Before Corporations, to pass a constitutional amendment to restore humans to the center of the political process, not corporations.

Public Citizen has prepared a video on what is it planning in response to the Supreme Court’s decision. Their Web site with the petition is Don’t Get Rolled. No one imagined we would ever need to specify that laws belong to people not corporations. The case before the court was Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.