Where should you get medical care after you've been involved in an accident? Obviously, it's important to get medical care to treat your injuries following an accident, but a common question we receive is, how do you go about doing that or deciding where to go treat? I want you to remember two things when looking into somebody to treat with following an accident. First, your treatment has to make sense. So, you can't treat [...]

 Do you need to see a doctor if you don't feel any pain after a crash? Sometimes the answer is yes. If you're involved in a serious accident with a serious impact, then you probably want to go and get checked out, even if you don't feel any pain immediately after a crash. If you don't feel any pain immediately, that doesn't mean you're not going to feel pain at some time in the future. [...]

If you’re hit by an uninsured or underinsured driver, you may need to rely on your own policy for help. Today, T. Scott Jones answers some common questions about uninsured motorist coverage. Do I Need to Have Uninsured Motorist Coverage?  Why you need to have uninsured motorist coverage. Uninsured motorist coverage is like any other insurance coverage: it's there to protect you, particularly in the event that you're involved in an accident with injuries or [...]

The state of Tennessee was recently branded with an unfortunate mark. Among all 50 states and the District of Columbia, it is the worst state for distracted driving deaths involving cell phone use. The study, released by Value Penguin, looked at the statistics on deaths in the state connected to cell phone use and driving from 2015 to 2017. Tennessee fared miserably when compared to all other states. During this time period, more than 1,400 deaths [...]

When serious accidents happen, drivers have a duty to contact the police. A serious accident usually means that a driver, passenger, pedestrian, or bicyclist was injured. If a car isn’t drivable after a crash, that also suggests the accident was serious. A question that often arises after an accident is, What must drivers do if the car accident doesn’t cause any injuries or massive property damage? And where does Tennessee draw the line between minor accidents [...]

 An interesting question is whether or not you can recover for an injury when you're involved in a hit and run accident. There are a couple of factors that come into play and need to be considered. One is, whether or not there was an impact with your vehicle. If there was an actual physical impact, then yes, you can recover. In the event there wasn't an impact – say someone cut you off and [...]

Being hit and injured by drivers who are high on prescription drugs, non-prescription drugs, and/or illegal drugs always has been a problem. However, the number of auto accidents related to people who are high on opioids, marijuana, and other drugs has been increasing recently, in part because some states have legalized the use of marijuana – and opioids seem to be everywhere. If you are injured in a crash with a drugged driver, you have the [...]

You can face devastating consequences after experiencing a spinal cord injury in Knoxville or anywhere throughout the State of Tennessee. These consequences can include long-term injury, the inability to work or engage in everyday activities, the inability to care for yourself or your family members, severe disability, and even paralysis. According to the National Spinal Cord Injury Statistical Center (NSCISC), car accidents are the number one cause of spinal cord injury (SCI) in the U.S. They [...]

Court documents recently made public reveal the Goodyear G159 RV tire to be “the worst tire made in history.” This is not hyperbole, as a shocking article from Jalopnik disclosed that the tire was linked to hundreds of vehicle crashes and several fatalities. New evidence disclosed in an Arizona court on April 4, 2018 revealed that the product is tied to more than 700 complaints. The issue at a glance Jalopnik's investigation of the court documents [...]

An auto recall is when automakers or the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has identified a safety defect in one or more vehicle models. As a result, the vehicle with the defect violates the safety standards established by the federal government, and a defect can concern either the entire vehicle or a part thereof, such as the design. Therefore, a recall can involve: Broken steering parts Broken or stuck accelerator controls Fractured wheels Malfunctioning windshield [...]

Distracted driving includes texting while driving, talking on your smartphone while operating a vehicle, eating, playing with the radio, looking at a GPS system, or any activity that takes your hands off the steering wheel and your eyes off the road. Distracted driving also includes driving while under the influence of alcohol and driving while drowsy. The statistics are overwhelming. Distracted driving is a leading cause of death, catastrophic injury, and permanent harm to vehicle drivers, [...]

Statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration confirm that 40% of car accidents in the United States occur at intersections. Intersection accidents are common because there at least two crossing roads. Roads typically have at least two lanes of travel, which means most intersection traffic involves four lanes of travel. Cars at intersections can either turn left, right, or travel straight through the intersection. Drivers need to look out for all three types of traffic [...]

You are driving into the sunrise or sunset when suddenly you collide with another vehicle. Finding the answers to who, what, why, and how is important in a successful auto accident case, and one method to find said answers is to look at your vehicle’s event data recorder (EDR). What is an event data recorder? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) says that an EDR is a device, installed in an automobile, that records a [...]

Driverless cars used to be the perfect symbol for the future. Thanks to companies like Tesla and Google, though, the future is now – and driverless cars are a real thing. As exciting as that is, though, there are still issues when it comes to liability and driver safety, so back in 2016, the United States Government unveiled guidelines concerning driverless vehicles. The guidelines cover many points. We’ve created a summary of them here, so you [...]

There is a critical piece of safety equipment that can protect you from serious injury if it works and kill you if it fails. We are not talking about safety belts or airbags, but the guardrails that you see every day along the side of the highway, but probably don't even notice. What most drivers do not know is that not all guard rails are created the same. Some guardrail terminals, instead of slowing down a [...]

Seat belt use saves lives: period. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has crunched those numbers for us. In 2014, the CDC found: In fatal crashes, more than 50% of teens and adults under 44 were not wearing seat belts. About 1 in 7 people don’t use a seat belt. Overall seatbelt use throughout the country was 87%. (from DefensiveDriving.org) The National Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) published a report recently that shows overall seat [...]

Drivers share the roads in Tennessee with operators of various vehicles, including motorcyclists and truckers. No one can control anyone’s actions, except for his or her own, so there’s always a risk of an auto accident because of a drunk driver out on the road. Unfortunately, sometimes auto accidents are deadly, and a recent example of deadly auto accidents is the case of Tennessee trucker Randall Weddle. What are the basic facts of the Weddle case? [...]

Auto accidents occur virtually every day, and a large number of Tennessee drivers who are involved in auto accidents, are uninsured or underinsured. The Tennessee state government deems the large number of uninsured drivers unacceptable and way too large; therefore, as of January 1, 2017, a new Tennessee state statute came into effect and imposes tougher penalties on uninsured drivers. The new statute In Tennessee, drivers must now have liability insurance for auto accidents, and that [...]

School buses are an important mode of transportation for children, and they usually provide safe transportation for children. Nevertheless, the fact that school buses are a safe mode of transportation for children is not always the case, as the horrific November 21, 2016 school bus crash in Hamilton County, Tennessee clearly demonstrates. In fact, the crash claimed the lives of 6 children and left many others with injuries. As of December 16, 2016, six lawsuits assert [...]

Auto accidents occur every day, due to a variety of causes. Some occur because of driver error; others occur because of vehicle problems associated with defective products. When a faulty or defective auto product leads to an accident, identifying the root of the vehicle problem isn’t always easy. You cannot just say the accident was the vehicle’s “fault.” There are several different auto parts that can be defective. The most common ones include: Faulty brakes Defective [...]

We share the road with other drivers, pedestrians, emergency vehicles and bicyclists all the time. To let others pass is common courtesy. But to specifically let emergency vehicles pass or precede us is legally required, and refusal to do so is considered a violation of the law. In Tennessee, the law governing emergency vehicles on the road (and violation thereof) is called the “Move Over Law.” It was passed in 2006, “and requires motorists to move [...]

Also known as multi-vehicle accidents, multi-car accidents, and pileups, chain-reaction auto accidents are a kind of rear-end auto accidents. They involve three or more vehicles rear-ending each other in a series, or chain, of collisions. Usually, chain-reaction auto accidents happen when the last car in the chain collides with the car before it, forcing that car to collide with the car before it, so on, and so on. Caused of chain-reaction auto accidents So what causes [...]

Autumn is a perfect time of year; the leaves change colors, the smell of apple cider begins to fill the air, and the cooler weather finally starts to come in. But like any season, fall presents some dangers to drivers that don’t necessarily occur during other times of the year. You could be at risk of serious injury because of: School traffic, including buses, newly licensed teen drivers, and small children darting out in the roads [...]

Often, when people talk about auto accidents, they usually talk about the injuries sustained by drivers and passengers. But the people inside the cars and trucks are not the only ones who get injured in auto accidents. Pedestrians get injured too, and pedestrian injuries are just as prevalent as driver and passenger injuries. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has compiled some statistics on this matter. According to its latest data in 2013, more than [...]