Houston Personal Injury Attorneys – Smith & Hassler

A bicyclist was killed in Houston yesterday in an accident with a garbage truck. Police say the collision happened on Briar Forest Drive near Wilcrest at around 9:50am. Authorities say the trash truck was heading westbound on Briar Forest and had started to make a right turn onto Wilcrest. The garbage truck hit the front tire of the bicycle throwing the bicyclist to the ground. The bicyclist, whose name has not been released, sadly died at the scene.

http://www.click2houston.com/news/25672260/detail.html

A woman died this morning in a multi-vehicle collision in North Harris County at the intersection of Hopper Road and Bentley Street at around 8:30am. Deputies say a woman driving in a pickup truck with a child passenger ran a red light, causing the accident. The pickup truck hit a car, pushing the car into a flatbed truck.  The woman in the car, whose name has not been released, was killed. The woman in the pickup truck was transported to Memorial Hermann with non life threatening injuries. News Channel 2’s report is here.

Some of the most challenging cases for personal injury attorneys and their clients are automobile accidents that involve minor property damage.  The insurance industry has a term for these cases: M.I.S.T. for Minor Impact, Soft Tissue.

The acronym MIST is problematic in itself because it uses the term “Impact” interchangeably with “Property Damage.”  Just because a vehicle does not have heavy damage on visual inspection does not mean a vehicle sustained low impact forces.  For example: if one armored car rear-ends another armored car at 35 miles-per-hour, neither armored car will sustain much visible damage but that doesn’t mean the occupants inside the armored cars weren’t subjected to a significant impact.  Of course, we don’t all drive armored cars but the example illustrates the basic concept.

SUVs and pickup trucks typically sustain significantly less damage in a car accident than passenger cars, particularly when the car or SUV is rear-ended.  Insurance adjusters are very quick to point to the minimal damage to the injured person’s pickup or SUV and claim that is evidence the impact was minor, hence there should be little or no injury to the people inside.

An interesting journal article published in a 2005 edition of Pain Research & Management and written my medical doctors found little support for the insurance industry’s position that injuries due to low property damage collisions are in people’s heads.  That article is available here: A Review of the Literature Refuting the Concept of Minor Impact Soft Tissue Injury

One occupant of an SUV was killed and another hurt when the SUV crashed into a concrete embankment early this morning. The SUV apparently left the southbound lanes of Highway 288 shortly after 2:00am and crashed through a concrete barrier and a guardrail.  Investigators report that the SUV went airborne and flew over a backhoe and Braes Bayou before smashing into the concrete embankment. One man was killed on impact and the other was transported to hospital. Given the distance the vehicle traveled before impact it appears very clear speed was a factor in the crash, and police are still determining if alcohol was involved.  Click2Houston’s full story, including pictures, is here.

2+ million copies of AT&T’s Yellow Pages are being delivered to Houston homes this week. On the cover is Smith & Hassler’s stick-on advertisement depicting the firm’s celebrity spokesman (and the hardest working man in Hollywood) William Shatner, a.k.a. Captain James Kirk, a.k.a. Denny Crain.  Smith and Hassler is proud of a 20-year history of representing injured Texans.

James Brett Melton, aged 20, of Katy Texas, has been charged with felony racing in connection with a car accident authorities say he caused and that injured a bystander. The criminal complaint filed against Melson alleges that on Friday October 22nd he participated in a two vehicle race on Franz Road in Katy. Witnesses to the car accident have said that a dark colored Toyota Scion and a black Volkswagen Jetta engaged in the street race as they pulled away from an intersection. The Toyota then rear-ended a silver vehicle, causing the silver vehicle to flip over four times. Warren McFarland, driver of the silver car, was taken to a local hospital to be treated for his injuries which included a suspected fractured arm. Melton has been released from Harris County jail on $5,000 bail.

You may be surprised to learn that the answer to this question is: YES.

Texas Penal Code Sec. 49.04(a) sets out the elements of the criminal offense of Driving While Intoxicated and reads as follows:

(a) A person commits an offense if the person is intoxicated while operating a motor vehicle in a public place.

Under Texas law intoxicated means: (a) not having the normal use of mental or physical faculties by reason of the introduction of alcohol, a controlled substance, a drug, a dangerous drug, a combination of two or more of those substances, or any other substance in the body; or (b) having an alcohol concentration of 0.08 or more.

So in the case of a privately owned parking lot that is accessible and used by the public, if a person is operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, that person can be charged with DWI.

33-year old Nydia Alipaz has been charged with hindering a police investigation and making a false police report in a car versus pedestrian accident at 8:40pm on Thursday October 21st. The accident happened on the U.S. 59 service road in southwest Houston. Police said the 21-year man that was killed, whose name has not been released, was running alongside a Mercedes car shouting at Alipaz prior to the deadly accident. Click2Houston.com has issued a report conflicting with the Houston Chronicle’s report which states Alipaz was NOT facing any charges for the incident.

Graco’s official recall listings are here on the Graco web site

Graco is recalling approximately 2,000,000 of its strollers after receiving reports that a defect with the stroller may have caused the deaths of four infants. The strollers being recalled are older versions of the Graco Quattro Tour and MetroLite strollers and travel systems, all of which were made before 2007 and were distributed by Graco Children’s Products, Inc. of Atlanta.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission says that if babies are not properly strapped into the strollers the child can slip through the opening between the stroller tray and the seat bottom where they can become struck and be strangled. The strollers involved in the recall were made before a voluntary standard was introduced in 2008 addressing this issue. The strollers were sold nationwide between November 2000 and December 2007.

A recently published Wall Street Journal article reports an experience common to almost all of us: long waits at the doctor’s office. This issue can be particularly problematic for people injured in accidents who often find themselves facing multiple appointments in the weeks and months following an injury. According to a health care consulting firm, the average wait to see a health-care provider is 22 minutes. More than 2.4 million patients attending more than 10,000 locations nationwide were surveyed. Of significance to accident victims orthopedists have the longest waits at 29 minutes. Dermatologists have the shortest waits at 20 minutes. The report noted that patient satisfaction dropped with each additional 5 minutes of wait time.

Patients can help themselves somewhat by asking for the first available appointment of the day or the first appointment after lunch, the times at which a doctor is least likely to be backed up.