It was only later that police officers found Hickey, with a bleeding wound in his head. He was rushed to the Cooper University Medical Center in Camden, where it has been confirmed that he has suffered a traumatic brain injury.   Witnesses at the scene reported hearing a loud bang, and the screech of tires as the motorist fled form the scene. The skid marks on the road were the first indication to police officers that this had been a hit and run accident.

My heart goes out to Brian Hickey and his family. Angela has been posting updates on Facebook to let their community know of her husband’s progress. To have a loved one unconscious and not in a position to respond to you because of the injuries to his brain must be devastating for Hickey’s family.

Police have yet to zero in on a suspect, and they are focusing on locals who probably knew the area well. The spot where Hickey was hit is a little known short cut, probably familiar to a local, they say. The motorist is also likely to have suffered damage to his car.

A traumatic brain injury or TBI can be caused by injury, a stroke, aneurysm, or any other kind of severe damage to the head. These injuries are especially common when there is an automobile accident involving a pedestrian or bicyclist. These two groups pf people tend to have the least amount of protection, especially pedestrians who have no way of sheltering their head from the shattering impact when they are thrown to the ground, as often happens when they are involved in an accident. The force of a car weighing close to 3000 pounds can be enough to throw a person into the air, to land on the ground with a tremendous impact. 

Immediate care is essential to reduce the long term impact of a traumatic brain injury.   Emergency care in the first hour or so after the injury can help prevent further injuries to the brain. In Hickey’s case, the motorist didn’t even stop to offer some help to his victim. If he had, maybe Hickey’s prognosis would have been markedly improved.

As a New Jersey traumatic brain injury lawyer, and NJ car accident lawyer, I have represented victims who suffer from these debilitating injuries and have seen first hand the profound impact they have on their lives, as well as their families.

 As Monmouth County and New Jersey motorcycle accident attorney I have witnessed first hand the devastating life altering effects of motorcycle crashes. In this particular situation there could be many factors that made the rider swerve into the opposite lane leading him to strike the curb. What ever the cause of the accident may be, drivers on the road have to make sure they are careful around motorcycle riders. A simple act of having your high beams on can blind a driver and when the driver is a motorcycle rider they can more easily lose control and crash. One way to simply lower the motorcycle fatalities is to always keep a safe distance between your vehicle and the motorcycle and always proceed with caution before entering into a turn or a lane change. Motor vehicle drivers can do their part by being more responsible on the road and hopefully motorcycle riders will do their part by taking the right safety precautions.

 As a Monmouth County and New Jersey car accident attorney I have represented hundreds of victims that suffered critical injuries because of alcohol related car accidents.  This news story above highlights a all too common scenario whereby alcohol appears to have impaired this driver’s sense of judgment. The alleged intoxicated driver may have destroyed the lives of these innocent grocery shoppers who never would have imagined that they would fall victim to a drunk driver while going through their normal every day routine of pushing their grocery carts at their local supermarket.  Drinking and driving frequently leads to victim's extreme suffering.  I have witnessed first hand clients that have suffered at the hands of drunk drivers’ : traumatic brain injury, loss of limbs, spinal cord injuries including paralysis fractures, herniated disc injuries leading to spinal fusion or inter-body fusion surgery and a myriad of other life altering injuries and even death.  So as a seasoned New Jersey and Monmouth County accident attorney lawyer I can attest unequivocally that alcohol mixed with driving of motor vehicles, motorcycles or trucks many times equates with the total destruction of innocent life and also destroys both individuals and their families.  We can significantly reduce the number of serious injuries and fatalities in New Jersey by never ever driving while intoxicated or in any way impaired.  

State Police Deputy Superintendent of Operations Juan Mattos said, "Four of the seven fatal motor vehicle accidents on Memorial Day 2007 were alcohol related. This is a pointless waste of lives we will attempt to avoid by relentlessly pursuing intoxicated drivers." Superintendent Fuentes added "We can only do so much to encourage safe behavior. In the end, New Jersey's drivers must decide to act responsibly."

As a Monmouth County and New Jersey auto accident lawyer attorney, I have witnessed over the past decade the horrific shattering of lives far too often as the direct result of alcohol consumption while driving cars, trucks and motorcycles. Obviously, we should never ever drink and drive. More safety tips can be found at The American Society of Civil Engineers link and I hope this information will be useful and if applied may even help to reduce the number of traffic related fatalities and severe injuries.

According to the Federal Highway Authority about 2,500 New Jersey motorcyclists are involved in crashes each year. In 2006, in NJ there were 89 deaths which have more than doubled the 40 motorcycle deaths in 1991. As reported in a recent Glouster County Times article, Rowan University partnered with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission and Virginia Tech to promulgate a study gathering data about motorcyclist habits that may help to reduce the incidence of motorcycle related fatalities and injuries.   Dr. Yusuf Mehta, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Rowan said”Motorcyclists are vulnerable highway users, and we have been watching the number of motorcycle fatalities in our state increase. The goal is to understand the root cause of increasing motorcycle fatalities." Dr. Mehta said his students will look at police reports of motorcycle crashes and investigate several factors such as pavement conditions, street lighting, and visibility. The study will continue through June 2009 and is funded through a $199,000 grant from the State Department of Transportation.

THAT'S RIGHT if you are injured while on a motorcycle or in a cab ride or on a bus or in a commercial vehicle, your medical bills will not be paid by available insurance.  Thus, it becomes even more important to make sure that you retain a personal injury attorney who is proficient in New Jersey motorcycle accident law, truck accident law or taxi related motor vehicle injury law.  This is because your attorney will seek compensation for your pain and suffering and for your outstanding medical bills from the at fault driver.  This area of law has become very complex and requires counsel that has extensive experience in representing persons injured in truck accidents, motorcycle accidents, taxi cab accidents and bus accidents.  This is particularly true in the case of victims of serious injuries because their mounting current and future medical debts with traumatic brain injury (TBI) or spinal cord injuries (SCI) could leave a family into life altering financial ruins. 

My clients are often times totally shocked when I explain to them the realty of the PIP laws in New Jersey.  They often ask how is this possible that I was riding in a taxi and the driver was in a major accident and his insurance company is not responsible for payment of my injury related medical bills? I tell them to thank the powerful insurance lobby who has done an amazing job blaming the "trial lawyers" like myself  for your exorbitant insurance rates while netting BILLIONS in record profits and shielding themselves by succeeding in having the New Jersey legislature pass laws exempting them from payment to their insured's or insured's immediate family member's medical providers where medical claims have become exempt from coverage.  

Representing clients throughout New Jersey including but not limited to Manalapan, Marlboro, Holmdel, Freehold, Millstone, Colts Neck, Howell, Old Bridge, Jackson, Red Bank, Hackensack, Saddle Brook, Paramus, Ridgewood, Teaneck, Demarest, Dumont, Pompton Plains, Glen Rock & Fairlawn the Law Offices of Scott D. Grossman, LLC brings extensive experience, individual attention and compassion for all of our clients.  Please visit our website for further information.       

But recently in Michigan, the group called American Bikers Aiming Toward Education (ABATE) authored a bill which was introduced to the State House which would allow motorcyclists to forego wearing a helmet when they ride as long as riders pay a $100 fee, are at least 21 years old, are licensed to operate a motorcycle for at least two years, have completed a motorcycle safety course and have insurance or security of $20,000 for first-party medical benefits in the event of an accident.

ABATE believes that wearing a helmet infringes on individual freedom of choice and the right to privacy. While that may be arguably true, if you look  at the other states that have repealed mandatory helmet laws, Florida, Kentucky and Louisiana, and you see the exponential rise in injuries and deaths to motorcyclists following the repeal of their helmet laws, you'd have to agree that the interest in keeping the public safe, with something so easy as wearing a helmet is extremely compelling. 

In a recent article in Insurance Journal about the Michigan law, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that in the three years after Florida's repeal of its mandatory helmet law in 2000, 933 motorcyclists were killed, an 81 percent increase.

Another study found that fatalities grew by more than 50 percent in Kentucky and 100 percent in Louisiana after those states struck down mandatory helmet laws.

The problem is that when pharmacy errors happen, the national chains most often times strong arm the victims into signing confidentiality agreements so the public never knows the extent of the problem that is pharmacists' negligence. And, in 46 states across the nation, there is no requirement for drug stores to report pharmacy errors.

Pharmacy negligence is on the rise, especially among the nationally recognized chains, because the pharmacists working there are overworked, often pulling twelve hour shifts, and this pressure is leading to fatal mistakes. This is a classic example of how corporate profits, the need to boost them at all costs, trumps the public interest.

Even if pharmacy errors are reported to the pharmacy board of a given state, most states have enacted legislation protecting the data, treating it as privileged and confidential; therefore, not subject to discovery, use or subpoena, or admissible as evidence in any administrative, disciplinary, civil or other proceeding, except for internal review purposes. So essentially pharmacies across the nation get the green light to police themselves, a task at which they are failing, and no one else gets to know about it.

The intent of these protective laws is to encourage the reporting of such errors by the pharmacists themselves so that the industry can learn from these mistakes, thus reducing the incidence of misfills. While that may be a good objective, on the flip side, it also serves to completely insulate the public from vital information they need in order to protect themselves from egregious or repeat offenders. We need to strike some level of balance, to encourage safer practices, to encourage the reporting of incidence, and to keep the public informed and safe.

• "Delay, deny, defend" is the battle cry for the auto insurance industry to protect their multi-billion dollar empire. In a recent report filed by CNN's Drew Griffin, he uncovered that this practice is rampant among the nation's auto insurance companies when people are injured in what insurance representatives consider a "minor impact" auto accident.   New Jersey attorneys representing persons who have suffered injuries in auto accidents have long experienced first hand these tactics of the nation's largest insurance companies.  Throughout the past decade I have represented many individuals that were involved in what the insurance company deemed a "minor impact" and as a result of the accident they suffered serious permanent injuries such as a herniated disc. Many times the injuries were so debilitating that after multiple steroid injections, extensive narcotics usage, physical therapy and chiropractic care, spinal surgery became the only option.   The suffering was very real.

• The auto insurance companies do not want the public to understand the most important of Newton's Laws on Physics.  Energy does not dissapear, it is transmitted to the impacted vehicle and hence to the occupants.  Often times at trial, after years of delays from the insurance company,  defense counsel will blow up a photo of the impacted vehicle that does not show significant property damage. A strategy frequently successful in having jurors draw an inference that the injuries claimed by the plaintiff are either untrue or if true they must have been from some other cause unrelated to the auto accident.  The CNN news story referenced above did an excellent job exposing the tip of the iceberg when it comes to insurance companies doing whatever it takes to put corporate profits above the interests of those very individuals they are supposed to help.