The cameras work by taking pictures of cars that run red lights, allowing police to send tickets to the registered owners of these cars. Intersections that fall within the program have been chosen based on the number of violations, and only after the town was able to prove that ticketing motorists for violations has been unable to prevent traffic accidents. The municipalities that are part of the program are required to monitor the effectiveness of the system, and report data annually to the New Jersey Department of Transportation. Red light violations are a major problem contributing to car accidents, and it is proved by Department of Transportation statistics. At one Mercer County intersection, there were 159 red light violation-related accidents between 2005 and 2007, while another intersection in East Brunswick saw a total of 161 accidents traced to red light violations. In Jersey City, the number of collisions at one particularly troublesome intersection crossed 1500 during the same period. 

While some of these concerns may be valid, they are minor when compared to the potential benefits of these red light cameras. As far as the system eating into municipality funds goes, much of the cost will be borne through tickets issued to violators. In New York City, which has the oldest red light camera program in the country, there has been a 75% decline in the number of accidents at these intersections. In my Monmouth county, Bergen county, Passaic county , Middlesex County personal injury law firm practice I often represent victims who met with an accident just moments after another motorist ran a red light. There have to be measures implemented to prevent these violations, and the red light camera system, while it may have its imperfections, is definitely a step in the right direction. When violators break traffic rules, they risk the lives of other motorists, and that should be unacceptable to New Jersey car accident lawyers.

Falls from scaffolding can be prevented by installing guardrails and equipping workers with personal fall protection systems and restraints. Being struck by falling objects or debris at a construction site can cause serious head and brain injuries. This can be avoided by having restraints for materials and tools on elevated surfaces, and providing all workers with helmets. Being struck by forklifts, excavators and other large and heavy machinery can be avoided simply if there are adequate safety procedures in place that encourage machinery operators to warn pedestrian workers in the vicinity. Very often, workers aren’t equipped with the skills needed to prevent such needless accidents because they haven't been trained sufficiently. Proving employees with sufficient training is one of OSHA's guidelines for workplace safety 

Construction Accident Help

A New Jersey  construction accident lawyer can file a worker's compensation claim and can also frequently file third party injury claims against a manufacturer if it is found that malfunctioning equipment or machinery were responsible for the accident.

A man and a woman were killed in two separate pedestrian accidents in Freehold Township and Carteret last month. In Carteret, Kimberly McMickle was killed when she was crossing the street with her friend. In Freehold Township, Toribio Garcia Jiminez, was struck on Route 9. Both accidents continue to be investigated, but it's probably time to step back and see how we can reduce our chances of becoming one of New Jersey's pedestrian accident statistics. It seems that those road safety lessons that our parents taught us are still as valid now as they've always been. In other words: 

• Walk only on the sidewalk.
• Don’t blindly step out onto traffic without looking around first.
• Obey pedestrian traffic signs diligently.
• Cross on a designated, clearly marked crosswalk.
• That old "look left, then right, then left again" rule? It still makes as much sense today as it did when you were a kid.
• Pay attention to vehicles around you.
• Avoid walking with your back to traffic
• Don’t be distracted. If you have to use the cell phone, stop for a while at a safe spot, finish your conversation, and then move on. 
• Drinking and walking is just as dangerous as drinking and driving.
• Wear sensible clothing and comfortable footwear. Don’t wear dark colors if you're walking at night. If possible, wear reflective clothing in the dark.

Motorists can do their bit to make sure that we see fewer needless pedestrian deaths on our streets. 

• Be aware of pedestrian movements. Look out for pedestrians at particular danger spots, like at a turning or an intersection where many accidents are likely to occur.
• Stay within speed limits.
• Don’t drink and drive.
• Switch off your cell phone. All the above three impair your driving skills, and make it harder for you to spot a pedestrian.

Sometimes, an accident can occur even when a pedestrian plays by the rules. In such cases, the accident can often be traced to the negligence of the motorist, or a design flaw in the road that makes it dangerous for pedestrians. In such cases, there may be more than one party who can be named in a civil liability lawsuit including the motorist, as well as any local agencies that may have been responsible for the road construction and design.   A Monmouth county pedestrian accident lawyer will conduct his own private investigation of the accident scene to ascertain responsibility for the accident. If you or a loved one have been injured in a pedestrian accident, contact a Monmouth County pedestrian accident lawyer at my office for a free evaluation of your claim. 

Image Courtesy: Flickr - Gwaar

Last Thursday, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that a club in Burlington County that served alcohol to a guest was not liable for any civil claims arising out of an accident, because he was not visibly intoxicated at the time of leaving the venue.

In Aril 2002, Stephen Mikalic was a passenger in a car driven by John Kinnerman. The two had just left the Happy Hour Social and Athletic Club in Maple Shade, where they had been drinking. The car crashed into a van killing both men, as well as two other passengers in the car. Kinnerman's blood alcohol level at the time of the car accident was .018.   Mikalic's widow filed a wrongful death claim against the club, stating that the club hosted a picnic where guests imbibed drinks from a beer truck at the venue. Her claim was that the staff at the club had a duty to monitor the level of intoxication of guests. The Court has now unanimously ruled that there was no negligence on the part of the club because of witnesses who testified that Kinnerman didn’t appear to be intoxicated as he left the venue.

New Jersey has dram shop laws that hold drinking establishments accountable for serving liquor to persons who appear intoxicated. Besides, there are also social host liability laws that hold persons serving liquor to other persons or minors in a non-commercial setting responsible in any accident claims. These laws can be tricky to apply to a real life scenario, because it isn’t always possible to detect signs of drunkenness in a patron who can hold his drinks very well. What may be enough to have a person lurching his way into an establishment thereby alerting staff, may be barely enough to give another a warm, feel happy buzz. In my years of practice as a Monmouth and Bergen County car accident lawyer, I have represented clients who have been injured by motorists served by bar staff who just couldn’t say no. If you have questions regarding a dram shop or social host liability claim, and need to speak to a Monmouth County personal injury lawyer, contact me at my office for a free consultation.

Pursuing Pedestrian Accident Claims in New Jersey

Recovering damages for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering in a pedestrian accident case in New Jersey involves proving that there was a clear negligence on the part of the motorist, and that this negligence resulted in injuries to the pedestrian. That's not always so simple and straightforward. Insurance companies have a vested interest in trying to limit the amount of damages by proving that the accident was the pedestrian's fault. If you've been injured in a pedestrian accident, talk to a New Jersey personal injury lawyer before you talk to anybody else, including the insurers, to ascertain your options for compensation.

Michael Janicki stabbed his father Ortwin to death in July of 2002. He claimed that he had heard voices that his parents were going to die, but he could save his mother if he killed his father.   He was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was sentenced to treatment at a psychiatric hospital. By 2005, he was believed to have been making progress at the Trenton Psychiatric Hospital. However his mother claims that his progress began to decelerate when staff at the facility delayed their plans to move him to a less restricted facility after he told one of the staff members that he wanted to kill himself because of his guilt at murdering his father. His privileges to wander about the facility campus freely were restricted, but the hospital failed to change his keycard. On August 30, of 2005, Michael walked out of the hospital and onto the grounds with his old expired card. No one saw him again until September 6 when his badly decomposed body was found in the hospital grounds. 

The estimate of the forensic economist in Michael's case did not take into account his projected future earning capacity for obvious reasons. Generally, a wrongful death settlement however, will involve reimbursement that includes loss of future earnings of the deceased. Compensation will also include funeral expenses, hospital or medical bills if applicable, as well as loss of companionship and help that the deceased would have provided to surviving members. By their very nature, such cases are always tragic in a bitter sweet manner for wrongful death attorneys as well as the families they represent, because the family would always prefer to have their loved one back with them instead of a compensation for his or her loss.

The accident occurred when Smith allegedly ignored a stop sign, and drove around a car that was stopped, and into the path of an incoming vehicle. Both Smith and his passenger Andre Bell were ejected from the car, and Bell sustained serious head injuries. He died a couple of days later at the hospital. Smith received citations for improper passing and failure to stop at a stop sign.

The basketball star promised after the accident that he would clean up his act and take more care on the roads. That doesn't seem to have happened at all. Since the crash, Smith has gone on to collect at least three more suspensions and two more tickets for speeding. In July of 2008, he had his license suspended again, this time for a period of two years. With a grand jury indictment out of Smith's immediate future, he doesn’t have to worry about facing any prison time for his role in the accident, although he will continue to face motor vehicle summonses. 

You can't accuse Smith of not having his priorities right. When asked about his reaction to the decision of the grand jury, he was nonchalant -  

"It was a relief that I get to keep playing basketball"

One of his best friends is dead in a car accident that was caused due to Smith's own rash driving, and wanton disregard for traffic laws, and all he cares about is shooting hoops? Such disdain for the life of others is not only troubling, but I suspect it must also be infuriating to the family of Andre Bell, who've had to ensure a terrible tragedy. 

Unfortunately, all too often, criminal courts may not deliver the kind of justice victims' families need, which is exactly where civil courts and Monmouth County accident lawyers come in.   

The accident reportedly occurred at Skydive Sebastian, a recreational center in coastal Florida where Daniel Kulpa was enjoying an adventure vacation with some of his friends from New Jersey. Kulpa was a graduate of the Scotch Plains Fanwood High School right here in New Jersey, and was studying electrical engineering at the Mercer County Community College. He worked part time at a Cranbury technology firm, and even ran his own telecommunications company. He had discovered the thrills of skydiving a couple of years ago, and since then had completed more than 100 jumps.   So the question is, how did a fit, young skydiver with plenty of jumps on his record meet with such a tragic accident?

It's a terrible waste of the life of a brilliant, enterprising young man who no doubt, had a very promising future ahead of him. Police say they are still investigating the accident, and are waiting for his outfit which has been saturated with blood after the accident to be dry, before they can attempt to figure out what exactly happened here.

Interestingly enough, another skydiver who jumped from a Skydive Sebastian plane fell in another accident on the same day at the facility. That man suffered back injuries. The wingsuit that Kulpa was wearing at the time of the accident holds the highest number of clues to this tragedy.  It will have to be thoroughly inspected to look for defects in design or manufacture that led to this young man simply slipping out of his harness in mid air. The kinds of safety precautions and skydiving eligibility requirements that Skydive Sebastian has in place at its facility also need to be probed.  As a recreation center which conducted adventure programs, the center could be named by a personal injury lawyerin a wrongful death lawsuit claiming damages for Kulpa's death.   

The case goes back to April 2000, when a patron at the bar, 23-year-old Humberto Herrera-Salas was served alcohol even after it was obvious that he was intoxicated. Other regulars at the bar were quick to notice that Herrera-Salas was already drunk as he walked into the bar, and drunk driving experts later calculated that his blood alcohol level had to have been at least .18 by the time he entered Cheerleaders. At the bar, Herrera-Salas went on to down three shots of tequila and three beers. When it became obvious that he was too intoxicated to be hanging around the bar any longer, employees forced him outside, and even called a cab to drop him home. 

What happened next seems to have been the crux on which the appellate court upheld the decision to repeal the bar license. The employees should have made sure that Herrera-Salas was safely inside the car, and on his way home. Instead, they left him to his own devices, and went back inside the establishment. Herrera-Salas, too drunk to care, simply got into his car, and sped out of the parking lot.  A few minutes later, he was driving south in the northbound lanes of Route 130. The car accident when it did occur, was devastating in impact. Herrera-Salas' car crashed head on into a vehicle carrying a couple from Gloucester City. Patricia and Robert Reed were killed in the crash, and at least two passengers in their car were seriously injured. 

Tests after the car accident revealed that Herrera-Salas' blood alcohol level was close to .28, almost three times the limit of .10.   He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.

It's evident that the staff at Cheerleaders was negligent in its responsibility, and that the establishment deserved the repealing of its license. Dram shop liability laws allow an injured person of the family of someone who has died in a drunk driving accident, where it can be proved that the establishment in question continued to serve alcohol even after being aware that the driver was intoxicated, to seek compensation from the establishment for their suffering.

Throughout the country, drunk driving is one of the major causes of auto accidents, causing hundreds of injuries and fatalities every year. New Jersey is no exception. Although we have been fortunate enough to witness a steady drop in our drunk driving accident rates, we still have a lot to do to deal with this menace. What we need is a combined initiative that includes all levels of society, including the establishments that serve alcohol to their customers. There's only so much that New Jersey car accident lawyers, the police and courts can do to tackle this problem.

 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.

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.