Columbia, Missouri Personal Injury Law Blog

People on the roads in Missouri may be troubled to learn that poorly maintained brakes are one of the top reasons that trucks are pulled out of service following inspections. Due to the size, mass and weight of large commercial trucks, an accident that involves these vehicles can easily lead to catastrophic injuries, permanent disabilities and even fatalities. Negligent maintenance of brakes can mean that a trucker is unable to stop his or her vehicle, especially in slippery, wet or emergency conditions, causing it to slam into other cars, properties or even pedestrians.

In response to this danger, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance conducts an annual Brake Safety Week for enhanced inspection of trucks on the road in an attempt to cut down on the number of truck crashes caused by negligent equipment maintenance. During 2018, the event will take place from September 16 to 22. While the brake initiative was reduced to a one-day event in 2017, it was expanded once more to a week after 14 percent of all of the trucks inspected on that day had to be removed from the roads due to violations of brake safety regulations.

While we often hear the phrase, "minor concussion" the reality is that any bump on the head can result in significant and long-term harm. A concussion is a traumatic brain injury (TBI) that requires immediate medical attention. 

After suffering a blow to the head or sudden deceleration caused by whiplash in a car accident, you may not recognize common symptoms for many days. If you feel something is out of sorts, see a doctor to determine whether you may be suffering from a concussion.

Missouri drivers may be curious about the potential posed by autonomous and semi-autonomous vehicle technologies. Once the stuff of science-fiction portrayals, self-driving cars are being explored by a number of companies. For many, the technology presents an opportunity to significantly reduce the over 100 deaths that take place every day across the country as a result of motor vehicle collisions. However, there have been a number of accidents that have involved vehicles using some kind of semi-autonomous technology, all while a human driver was also present inside the car. These incidents have received widespread media attention, something executives and others involved in the industry have condemned.

People like Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, have criticized media coverage of autonomous car accidents, accusing the press of bias for putting more attention on these crashes than on deadly traditional crashes. These claims have been amplified when the car accidents involved cause few or no injuries. The industry supporters argue that fatal accidents receive no national attention, unlike relatively minor incidents involving some form of semi-autonomous technology.

Drivers in Missouri and across the U.S. tend to text the most during afternoon rush hours, according to data released by app company Drivemode. However, the data also showed that New York drivers are the worst offenders when it comes to rush hour texting.

Drivemode's app helps drivers of older vehicles use certain cell phone functions in hands-free mode, and analysts with the company studied data from the app's users to find out when drivers interact with their phones the most. They found that over a 12-month period, 177,000 Android users accessed the app 6.5 million times to send or receive hands-free messages. They also discovered that the peak messaging time was between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m. with users sending an average of 6.87 messages per hour. The second highest period was between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. with an average of 6.59 messages sent per hour. Overall, 22 percent of all messages were sent between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m.