Trucking Accident

Florida truck accident attorneys Farah & Farah, P.A., are pleased to announce the creation of Florida-TruckAccidents.com—an information site which exclusively covers trucking accidents.

Truck accidents injure or kill thousands of people on America’s highways each year. Yet, many victims feel that they are helpless and alone. Florida-TruckAccidents.com offers truck accident victims the opportunity to connect with others who have had their lives forever changed in an accident. By staying abreast of news and information about truck accident statistics, insurance settlements and other relevant issues, accident victims can reclaim their lives.

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Florida truck accident attorneys Farah & Farah, P.A., are pleased to announce the creation of Florida-TruckAccidents.com—an information site which exclusively covers trucking accidents.

Truck accidents injure or kill thousands of people on America’s highways each year. Yet, many victims feel that they are helpless and alone. Florida-TruckAccidents.com offers truck accident victims the opportunity to connect with others who have had their lives forever changed in an accident. By staying abreast of news and information about truck accident statistics, insurance settlements and other relevant issues, accident victims can reclaim their lives.

Read the rest »

This month, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) presented a fifteen-year trend in work-related accidents and fatalities, as the country recognizes National Safety Month. The span of years between 1992 and 2007 shows a declining rate of workplace fatalities, but also spotlights other trends on accident occurrences in the workplace. Read the rest »

It happened in early February. Middle school students from Ribault in Jacksonville were misbehaving by setting off an alarm on the emergency exit. This made it unsafe to continue to drive the bus. Instead of pulling over and transferring students to another bus, or calling police, the school bus driver instructed them to get off the bus at Rutledge Pearson Elementary School and find their own way home. Thankfully, no students were injured to due any Jacksonville pedestrian accidents that could have resulted from the kids being off the bus.

This is an unacceptable reaction by an employee of First Student, the bus company. There are rules and regulations in Duval County for bus drivers. Students are supposed to conduct themselves in a respectful way to keep everyone safe. If not, they can be suspended from school and parents have the responsibility to make sure that their children understand that.

But a bus driver also has a huge responsibility, delivering those children safety to and from school. For a child to find their way home from a different school, meant many walked to a bus stop or called their parents. Many parents understandably were angry. First Student says it is conducting an investigation. Cameras on the bus will help tell the story, but even with misbehaving children, this is not the proper response, but a response of pure frustration. The liability of the school district if something had happened is not something they want to hear about.

Fortunately no children were injured due to the bus driver’s negligence. If you have any questions regarding the safety of your child in relation to bus-driving laws, please contact the skilled Florida personal injury attorneys at Farah and Farah by calling 1-800-533-3555.

In order to reduce aggressive driving as part of the teen web site, recently mentioned in another blog Take The Wheel, Florida is defining aggressive driving.

Aggressive driving is responsible for 2/3rds of all fatalities on the road each year, or 27,000 deaths. That number is four times the number of deaths resulting from DUI or drunk under the influence.

Aggressive driving is driving under the influence of “impaired emotions” which then leads to high-risk decisions. It is a choice and can be modified with attitude and behavior modification.

Aggressive driving can precede Road Rage when others react on the roads from aggressive and careless drivers.

In order to crack down on teens who take out their aggression, the state is defining “aggressive driving” (Florida Statute 316.1923) as committing two or more of the following acts simultaneously or in succession:

1) Exceeding the posted speed limit by 15 mph or more
2) Unsafely or improperly changing lanes
3) Following another vehicle too closely
4) Failing to yield the right-of-way
5) Improperly passing
6) Violating traffic control and signal devices

Unfortunately this statute is not a charging statute. The office can mark the ticket that the driver was an aggressive driver. The Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles in Tallahassee then takes this data to provide statistical information on aggressive driving in the state which is used to make new laws.

Road Rage is a felony and a criminal assault using an automobile on another driver/passenger of an automobile. There are at least 200 deaths a year in Florida attributed to road rage. #

A driver from Kingsland, Georgia died Friday afternoon after a chain-reaction on the road involving a tractor-trailer.

The tractor-trailer was hauling a load of beer, heading south near Pecan Park Road, when he rear-ended a pickup truck that was pulling a cement mixer. All of this occurred on North Main Street in north Jacksonville, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.

The 45-year old driver, Tony Baker, was in a truck heading northbound when his truck hit the jackknifed tractor-trailer.

Baker was pronounced dead at the scene while the other drivers were okay.

There is no word on what caused this accident but it should remind us all of a report issued by the Associated Press last summer. It was reported that sick and disabled truck drivers carry commercial licenses even though they also qualify for disability payments. The Associated Press identified drivers who blacked out, collapsed or suffered major health problems behind the wheel of vehicles that can weigh 40 tons or more.
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This story found its way on the front page of our paper complete with a picture of a smiling, friendly looking elderly couple.

James and Blanch Whiddon had been married for 65 years. They told relatives recently they could never live without each other. After a car accident, they died three days apart last week.

James, 85, and his wife who was 79, were on their way home from the grocery store September 30th. They had gone to dispute a bill, and did many things together.

Just before noon on U.S. 1 a tractor-trailer ran a red light and James, traveling on a green light, drove his pickup under the trailer.

James died at the scene. His wife was hospitalized in a coma. Both had their seat belts on. Blanch died in three days.

She leaves behind her daughter, three grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. “They wouldn’t have been able to survive without each other,” their daughter, Marie Copeland tells Jacksonville.com. “It’s just a tragedy.”
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With more than 36,000 teen drivers involved in car crashes in Florida last year –and a teen killed every 6.5 minutes nationwide, the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles has created an interactive web site to drive home the message of safety on the road.

With great graphics, bold music, and production techniques, TakeTheWheel.net was created by teens for teens. It’s a very powerful and effective way to communicate the truth about the responsibility of taking the wheel, including the facts:

• According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) more than two-thirds of teen passengers and drivers who die in nighttime car crashes are not wearing their seat belts.
• Teens are involved in three times as many fatal crashes as all other drivers.
• Distractions such as loud music, texting, cell phone use, driving tired combined with inexperience and speed and drug use all aggravate the problem.
• In addition to the 36,000 involved in teen crashes last year, more than 479 people were killed in auto accidents where a teenager was behind the wheel.
• Auto accidents remain the number one cause of death for teenagers.

In the teen videos- Alexa tell story of her cousin Mandy, now in a vegetative state, after an accident in December of 2004. She was in a car that was t-boned by another car driven by a student driver.

Alexa says, “She starts to cry and she has feelings she needs to get out but she can’t because of the way she is. Being in an accident and almost dying changes everybody life not just around them, but the whole school. People may not realize it but people have a lot of value. People take their life for granted.”

Dustin watched his 19-year-old cousin, Frankie die after his car flipped 15 times. Frankie had been drinking and driving. His much larger cousin stopped him when depressed and drunk, Dustin tried to get behind the wheel. ” I broke down and cried and my parents came and picked me upl. I will not let anybody get in the car if they’re drunk,” he says.

Megan was in a car that hit the back of a truck, then split into a “V”. Her boyfriend died, as did the driver of the other vehicle. Megan begins crying on camera when she tells her story. “I have friends who street race and they still do it, and I don’t undertand why. If someone is in the car with me I make them put their seatbelt on. I’m really serious about it. You’re not going to die while I’m driving.”

Kudos on talking to teens in a language that matters. I hope every young driver in Florida takes the time to listen to the experiences of people who have suffered from the loss of a loved one. I can happen to you. It happened to them.

The web site is here TakeTheWheel.net.

Incredible details are coming out about a school bus crash in Citra, Florida that killed one 13-year old girl. A tractor-trailer driver was talking on his cell phone when he slammed into the school bus Wednesday. Four bystanders who witnessed the accident ran to the school bus and pulled out half of the students from the burning bus.

The Marion County Superintendent of School Jim Yancy says it amazing most of the students were saved. “This was a tragedy, but it’s also a miracle, he tells the Ocala Star-Banner.

One 13-year old middle school student, Frances M. Schee lost her life.Chris Mann, an elevator installer who stopped to help said, “The kid was lodged and I just couldn’t get her out. There was nothing I could do.” Nine other students were injured- two critically.

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School has barely been in session one week and we have a horrible accident to report involving a school bus, a minivan, and a cement mixer truck.  

One eight-year-old girl is dead and seven other children were injured Friday when they got into an accident in a bus owned by a Boys and Girls Club.  It was transporting 27 Tallahassee-area students from Apalachee Elementary School to the club. 

A cement truck rear-ended the bus while it stopped at a red light. It was waiting in the left-turn lane.  The impact tipped the truck to its side and caused the bus to hit into a minivan that was sitting in front if it. 

8-year-old Roshay Dugans died at Tallahassee memorial Hospital.  The other injured students were treated and released.  Apparently the children sitting in the back of the bus had the fewest number of injuries. 

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