Posted on October 23, 2014 in Uncategorized

A new study by motor club AAA confirms that driver education classes for teens decreases the number of car crashes they have and sharply decreases the number of speeding tickets they receive. The study comes at a time when fewer teens are participating in driver education classes. Although there has always been an assumption that these classes help make teens better drivers, until now, there has never been a study that confirmed that idea. According to National Center for Health Statistics, the number one killer of teenager is car accidents, killing more than 4,700 teens each year.

The most dangerous time of a teenager’s life is the first year they have their driver’s license. The crash rate of 16 year old drivers is almost double what the crash rate is for 18 and 19 year old drivers. In fact, the risk of a teen driver being in a car crash is three times the risk of an older driver. AAA utilized statistics from Oregon and Manitoba, Canada. The research team gathered their data from licensing tests, surveys, driving simulators and other records. For the Oregon portion of the study, researchers analyzed the records of 93,942 teenage drivers. According to the study, teens who completed driver’s education typically scored higher on their driving exams and also had “modest increases in knowledge over peers who took no formal training.”

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 Posted on October 21, 2014 in Uncategorized

A frequent sight at carnivals, fairs and children’s birthday parties are colorful bounce houses. The huge inflatable objects are popular with children, but just how dangerous are these items and what liabilities do the people who provide them at these events have when children are hurt?

According to national statics, the number of children injured from bounce houses every year is 11,000. The average age of the patient is 7 years old and the most common injuries are sprains or broken bones. Approximately 20 percent of the injuries involve the head or neck. However, the numbers of injuries that are occurring are increasing, as is the seriousness of the injuries. As one child health advocate put it, “If this were a disease, it would be considered an epidemic.”

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 Posted on October 14, 2014 in Uncategorized

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) recently announced a recall of over 2 million bean bag chairs after reports that two children have died in separate incidents.

According to the recall announcement, the zippers on the chairs are able to be easily opened by children, allowing them to crawl inside the chair. Once inside, a child can become trapped, choke or suffocate on the small foam beads that are in the bean bag chair.

Both of the children who died had reportedly opened the zippers of the bags and crawled inside. Each of the children suffocated inside the chair from lack of air and inhaling the beads. One victim from McKinney, Texas was a 13-year-old boy and the other victim was a 3-year-old girl from Lexington, Kentucky. Both of the victims’ bodies were discovered inside the zippered chairs.

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 Posted on October 10, 2014 in Uncategorized

A report recently released by the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) lists a main roadway less than an hour away from New Braunfels as the second most congested road in Texas. Drivers who travel I-35 between State Highway 71 and U.S. 290 in Travis County that runs through central Austin are most likely not surprised by this information provided by the Austin Business Journal.

TxDOT calculated that I-35 commuters have faced more than 950,795 total hours of delay per mile in 2014. Truck delays reached 116,251 hours per mile, making this section of roadway the worst in the state for commercial traffic. The high volume of traffic delays can lead to increased accidents on the road and has proven to result in high costs. The tallied congested cost totals $196.1 million annually.

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 Posted on October 07, 2014 in Uncategorized

Getting injured at work is an unfortunate and common reality for many Americans. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 3 million accidents resulting in serious injury were reported throughout the country in 2012.

For any employee, getting injured can be a nightmare. Not only must workers endure the physical pain from the accident and subsequent treatment, but facing time off of work can also be a daunting task.

To the benefit of an injured employee, work-related accidents are often covered by workers’ compensation laws and insurance. These provide the means to cover life expenses, as well as medical bills.

The first step any employee should take after a work-related injury is to report the accident to a supervisor. This is an important part of establishing that the injury was directly related to the work environment.

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 Posted on October 03, 2014 in Uncategorized

According to National Safety Council (NSC), in 2012, the average cost of a fatality in a motor vehicle accident in this country was $1,410,000. That number represents both loss of life and loss of productivity. In 2012, there were 5,419,000 police-reported vehicle accidents in this country. There were 33,561 people killed in those car crashes. Another 2,362,000 were injured. It is also estimated that there were another 10 million accidents that were not reported. The cost of those injuries continues to increase. A study conducted by the Insurance Research Council’s (IRC), titled Auto Injury Insurance Claims Study, the cost of medical expenses to motor vehicle crash victims is rising at a faster rate than that of inflation. Figures from the IRC reveal that between the years of 2007 to 2012, the average economic loss suffered by a crash victim increased by 8 percent for personal injury protection (PIP) claimants, and 4 percent for bodily injury (BI) claimants. Expenses that fall under economic loss include lost wages, medical care and other out-of-pocket expenses. The average property damage claim was $3,073 in 2012. That same year, the average claim for bodily injury was $14,653. The top two causes for fatal motor vehicle crashes in 2012 were drunk driving and speeding. There were 10,322 people who were killed in crashes caused by a driver who had blood alcohol content (BAC) of 0.08 or higher. Speeding was the cause of accidents which killed 10,219 people in 2012. Over one-third of 15 to 20 year-old and 21 to 24 year-old male drivers who were involved in fatal motor vehicle wrecks were speeding. Other causes of fatal vehicle accidents in 2012 were distracted drivers (3,050 fatalities) and red light running (900 fatalities). If you have been injured in a vehicle crash caused by the negligence of another driver, contact an experienced New Braunfels personal injury attorney to find out what compensation you may be entitled to.

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 Posted on October 01, 2014 in Uncategorized

There has been a sharp increase in the amount of triple-tragedy vehicle accidents that have occurred on Texas highways. Triple-tragedy is the term used to describe vehicle accidents that caused the death of three or more people. Many in the state are pointing to the increase in fracking as the cause for the spike in accident fatalities.

Hydraulic fracking, also referred to as fracking, is the process of extracting oil and gas from shale reservoirs that are located a mile or more below the earth’s service. In the process, large amounts of water and sand are pumped into the reservoir, which creates cracks in the rock and allows the removal of the oil or gas.

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 Posted on September 29, 2014 in Uncategorized

Two recent studies have concluded that taking niacin to lower your cholesterol to reduce stroke and heart attack risks may be dangerous. Several past studies have shown niacin, which is vitamin B3, can be effective in lowering “bad” cholesterol while raising a person’s “good” cholesterol. Based on those studies, niacin has become a popular choice of prescribed medicine for patients who have high cholesterol. There are more than 700,000 niacin prescriptions written every month at a cost of $800 million per year. But two recent studies show that not only is there little evidence that niacin actually reduces heart attack and stroke risks, the drug can cause serious side effects in those patients taking the drug.

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 Posted on September 18, 2014 in Uncategorized

A recent poll shows that despite being aware of the dangers of texting and driving and other activities that contribute to distracted driving, many Americans still engage in these unsafe driving practices. In an online poll conducted by Harris Interactive, 90 percent of the 2,045 adults who participated in the survey said texting while driving was wrong, yet over one-third of participants admitted they read and send text messages when they are driving. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2012, there were 3,328 people killed in crashes caused by a distracted driver. Another 420,000 people were injured. The risk of getting into a vehicle crash triples when a person uses a cell phone or other mobile device. The large number of distracted driving victims has spurred national campaigns by many organizations to educate the public about the dangers of distracted driving. According to poll participants’ responses, that education appears to be working:

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 Posted on September 16, 2014 in Uncategorized

In 1992, Congress enacted the Prescription Drug User Fee Act. This act enabled the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to accept fees from drug manufacturers when they submit a new drug for approval. In order to keep those fees, the FDA is required to keep on schedule during the testing process, which has resulted in a much quicker approval process than there was before the law was passed. But has that change caused more dangerous drugs to end up in patients’ medicine cabinets? That is the concern of many physicians after the results of a new study were published in the medical journal Health Affairs. Using data from the Tufts Center for Drug Development, researchers looked at the 748 medications which were approved by the FDA from 1975 to 2009 to find out how frequent there were safety problems with medications. What they found was that since 1992, one of four drugs that have gone through the process and have received the FDA’s seal of approval ended up either receiving a black box warning or being pulled off the market completely. A black box warning is the FDA’s most severe warning issued. A black box warning is put on all of a prescription medication’s packaging (including magazine advertisements) when the following apply:

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