According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA), none of those activities -- either alone or in concert -- really changes one whit the degree to which you are a dangerous driver when drowsy and more prone to being involved in a car accident.
]]> And make no mistake about it: Drowsy drivers are dangerous.In fact, the NHTSA states that more than 11,000 roadway fatalities owed to sleepy motorists over a recent 10-year period.
That number of dire outcomes makes drowsy driving every bit as problematic out on the roads as is drinking and driving, which makes it puzzling for some safety advocates why it isn't being more prominently addressed.
"It's just as bad as drinking and driving," says Mark Rosekind, an ex-director of a sleep research center and current National Transportation Safety Board member. "As far as public awareness, drowsy driving is in the dark ages compared to that, but it's just as dangerous."
Some efforts have been made to legislate against it, but doing so in a way that makes sense -- that can effectively measure over-the-top fatigue in drivers and fairly enforce against violations -- is flatly difficult, say a number of persons who have closely studied the problem.
Thus far New Jersey is the only state to have passed a law focused on drowsy driving, but the burden that prosecutors have in establishing a motorist's recklessness is difficult: They must prove that a driver was awake for at least one day without sleep before being involved in an accident.
The default tack that is emphasized by most safety advocates is, unsurprisingly, educational campaigns and a constant reminder to motorists to pull off the road when overly tired.
Source: ABC News, "Drowsy driving remains an elusive highway dilemma," Frank Eltman, May 11, 2013
]]>That is less often the case with sports injuries involving baseball pitchers, who do not wear helmets. It is often startlingly clear, in fact, when a pitcher has sustained a head injury while playing, given his close proximity to home plate and the near-lethal power of some professional hitters.
]]> As AP national writer Paul Newberry notes, Major League Baseball (MLB) hurlers -- as well as college throwers, high-school pitchers and even little leaguers in Connecticut and throughout the country -- are all at evident risk and easy targets for head injuries resulting from balls hit sharply right back at them. Much video footage exists showing how vulnerable and compromised a pitcher can be when a ball streaking at speeds of up to 100 mph or more comes hurtling at his unprotected head.What Newberry seeks to emphasize is that word "unprotected." He notes that, because baseball is a storied game of tradition, suggested change to it of any sort -- and that would centrally include added protection for pitchers' heads --will almost certainly be objected to at the outset.
Yet we need such a change, he says, A hard blow to the head off a batted ball may be a relatively uncommon occurrence, but it does happen. And when it does, participants suffer concussions, diminished vision, skull fractures and other injuries.
Those types of outcomes should promote purposeful change, says Newberry, at every level of the game.
Source: Denver Post, "Column: Baseball must act now to protect pitchers," Paul Newberry, May 10., 2013
]]>State Transportation Commissioner James Redeker calls the endeavor "a smart investment of technology."
]]> Redeker has strong reasons for believing that, with his view seconded by a number of state transportation experts and engineers who say that an online system will allow for faster and more accurate reporting, which in turn will lead to better analysis of accidents throughout the state.And the strong upside of that, the experts add, is that problems can be quickly seen and addressed, with the public's safety enhanced thereby.
Most municipalities throughout the state currently use a paper reporting system, with only state police routinely sending in electronic reports to the state Department of Transportation. There are reportedly close to 300 car accidents occurring in the state every day on average, with the governor's office stating that the DOT is inundated with about 5,000 paper crash reports monthly. Officials concede that it is hard keeping up with that and, as a result, prominent accident problems and trends aren't routinely noted and addressed.
The governor believes that won't be a problem once a digital system is fully implemented. Faster analysis will allow for quicker identification of particularly dangerous roads and conditions, with subsequent engineering fixes. Certain roads can be re-engineered to optimally accommodate traffic, and police patrols can be more efficiently allocated to areas where a high degree of drunk driving activity has been observed.
"Information is power," says Kazem Kazerounian, the interim dean of the UConn School of Engineering. Kazerounian believes that the new system will greatly reduce both the number of fatal vehicle accidents and the costs associated with them.
Source: CT Newsjunkie, "Modernizing traffic accident reporting," Hugh McQuaid, April 29, 2013
]]>The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is not one of them.
In 1983, when Ronald Reagan was president, about 21,000 persons reportedly died in car accidents involving a drunk driver. That number began to steadily slip following a change from a threshold BAC of 0.10 for drunk driving to a national standard of 0.08 signed into law by President Clinton in 2000. The number of fatal DUI-related accidents in recent years has, as a result of the change, dropped to about 10,000 annually.
]]> Officials from the NTSB say that such logic would continue to prevail were the limit to be adjusted even lower and aligned more closely with the BAC level that is operative in most industrialized countries. Government regulators are recommending a new limit of 0.05, which they say would lower accidents involving drinking appreciably and potentially save thousands of lives each year.Government statistics posit a nearly 170-percent spike in accidents for drivers who are at the current BAC limit as compared with completely sober motorists. If that number was lowered to 0.05, states the NTSB, the increased risk of a crash would fall to about 38 percent.
Not everyone agrees with the logic or stated rationale for a change, with a spokesperson for the American Beverage Institute calling it "ludicrous." Sarah Longwell, the institute's managing director, says that changing the law "would criminalize perfectly responsible behavior" and do nothing to deter truly problem drinkers from driving drunk.
Source: New York Times, "U.S. urges a lower blood-alcohol limit for drunken driving," Matthew L. Wald, May 14, 2013
]]>In fact, note researchers, personal injury risks to children are ever-present and easily underestimated.
]]> Connecticut parents and their peers across the country might want to note that the next time their kids are pulling their arms toward rides at a nearby park, carnival or shopping mall.With the caveat that it is not reasonable to be overly dramatic about the potential downside risk of amusement rides, given the many millions of children who have fun and safe experiences engaging with them, it is still instructive noting some of the relevant statistics relating to them.
Here's one. According to the hospital study, appearing in the May issue of Clinical Pediatrics, more than a dozen kids are hurt every day of the year, on average, in ride-related injuries. In the summer months, that number rises to 20 injuries daily. In fact, well more than 90,000 minors under the age of 18 were seen in emergency rooms across the country for ride-related injuries between 1990 and 2010.
Most commonly, those injuries followed a fall from a ride. The most prevalent types of injuries are consistently head and neck injuries, followed by injuries to the arms, face and legs, respectively.
The study examined data from injuries sustained in rides at three types of venues, namely, fixed sites such as permanent amusement parks, moving fairs and festivals, and shopping malls.
Source: News-Medical.net, "New study examines injuries to children related to amusement rides," May 2, 2013
]]>There are a number of reasons for that which apply equally in Connecticut and other states.
One is focused centrally on sports injuries, especially in contact sports such as football and hockey that involve hard hits to the head and where personal injury risk is heightened for concussions and other traumatic brain injuries.
Another reason is armed conflict, with scores of thousands of injured combat veterans returning to the United States following service in the Middle East. The head and brain injuries that many of them have suffered are so commonplace that they are referred to as the "signature wound" of the military's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.
]]> And, of course, there is the ongoing and massive class-action litigation in which more than 4,000 current and former professional football players have sued the NFL for the head injuries they sustained while playing.The NCAA is certainly cognizant of all those matters and readily points to purposeful actions it has taken and continues to take to protect its college athletes. The association recently hired its first-ever Chief Medical Officer, for example, and has instituted changes to football that officials say have reduced concussion-related incidents by as much as half.
The sports body now also requires each participant school at every division level to establish and maintain a concussion management plan. Absent such a program, a school is deemed to have committed an institutional violation, for which penalties can be assessed.
Source: U-T San Diego, "NCAA works to prevent brain injuries," Stephanie Loh, April 28, 2013
]]>There were 292,000 medical procedures using da Vinci Surgical Systems -- robot surgery tools manufactured by the company Intuitive Surgical -- performed in hospital operating rooms across the country in 2011. Last year, that number had risen sharply to 367,000, an uptick of 26 percent.
Unfortunately, the number of reported adverse events associated with that spike is dissimilarly high, with 34 percent more errors being reported to the FDA in 2012.
In the minds of FDA inspectors, that clearly evidences a problem of increased surgical error and medical malpractice related to use of the da Vinci systems, and the agency has actively solicited the views of surgeons to ascertain what underlies the troublesome trend.
]]> Robot-assisted surgery, once a highly anticipated and often discussed next-generation medical development, is now an ensconced reality in many American hospitals. The number of da Vinci systems installed in operating rooms across the country was reported as 1,957 at the end of March this year. That number was nearly double what it was just three years prior to that.The cost for a robotic system ranges from approximately $1 million to $2.3 million, depending upon the types of surgeries it is configured for. Advocates routinely cite the enhanced ability of robot-assisted surgery to be minimally invasive, more accurate across a wide spectrum of surgical procedures and a comparatively cheaper alternative than non-robot surgeries.
That might all ultimately turn out to be true, although a number of critics are currently challenging those claims. The FDA wants to know more about the manufacturing process involved with the systems, patient selection, user training and other matters, and various groups are stating that robotic surgery is not routinely the most minimally invasive and cheapest surgical option.
Source: Medscape Today, "FDA investigates robotic surgery system after adverse event spike," Robert Lowes, April 30, 2013
]]>One such area of potential clash is -- and always has been -- parental counseling (sometimes read as hectoring by juveniles) relating to driving. Parents instinctively worry about the young drivers in their families; after all, they were once teens themselves and well remember the experience.
The proactive involvement of many parents when it comes to teen driving is motivated by an obvious concern regarding the inordinately high car accident rate among the teen driving population.
]]> That is certainly no secret, with myriad sources across the country being replete with dire crash-related numbers involving novice drivers.Here's one sobering statistic: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 2,700 teen motorists suffered fatal injuries in motor vehicle accidents in 2010, with hundreds of thousands of others being injured. Many of them had been drinking.
Here's another: According to a recently issued survey carried out by insurer Liberty Mutual and a national student safety group, many teen drivers say that they actually improve as drivers following alcohol or marijuana use.
News like that should prompt parental concerns across a broad front, say safety advocates. Educators state that ongoing concerns with young drivers that encompass their driving acumen, perceptions and attitudes should result in constant and close parental interaction with them as they seek to hone their skills and mature as drivers.
Source: USA TODAY, "Nearly a quarter of teens drive while impaired," Larry Copeland, April 25, 2013
]]>Statistics from a report issued by the Tri-State Transportation Campaign have ranked Route 1 as the highest-risk road for pedestrian accidents every year since 2008, and one critic -- Amy Schwartz, a doctor working in West Haven -- says it is high time to do something about that.
]]> Schwartz notes that fatal accidents have already occurred this year along Route 1 in Milford and Westport and that, until material engineering and traffic-enforcement changes are made, more will likely follow.Fatal personal injury outcomes are of course a common result in accidents involving pedestrians and vehicles. It is estimated that about 12 walkers die each day in the United States after being struck by cars and trucks, with scores of thousands more being injured annually.
Schwartz says that improvements on Route 1 can help ensure that Connecticut statistics don't add to those numbers. She cites to recommendations made by the South Western Regional Planning Agency, which stresses a number of engineering tweaks to make Route 1 more pedestrian-friendly.
Schwartz calls the ideas being promoted "traffic-calming measures." Among other things, they include these recommendations:
Schwartz calls on Governor Malloy to push the Connecticut DOT to redesign the state's highway manual, its blueprint used by engineers designing streets and roadways.
She also advocates a law mandating enhanced penalties beyond those presently provided for motorists who injure walkers, construction workers and bicyclists, referring to such legislation as a "vulnerable-users bill."
Source: ctpost.com, "How to make Connecticut roads safe for pedestrians," Amy Schwartz, April 12, 2013
]]>That story concerns a girl who is now 10 years old and suffering from cerebral palsy that renders her incapable of speaking or walking. The girl's family brought a medical malpractice birth injury lawsuit against the delivering hospital in 2009, alleging that errors committed during the delivery directly resulted in the girl's subsequent need for life-long round-the-clock medical care.
]]> The hospital sought to settle, offering the family $8 million. The attorney advised against that, and the matter went to trial, where the family lost. The attorney was subsequently mocked publicly by a hospital spokesperson for that decision.An appeals court reversed that outcome, though, sending the matter back to trial, where it resulted in a hung jury the second time around.
The third time brought vindication, with a jury just last week awarding the family a staggering $130 million in damages. The trial judge approved the award.
The family was understandably elated, with the girl's mother stating that, "The agony of the last 10 years is finally ended."
The family's attorney simply stated that he was "humbled" by the trial outcome.
"The family never gave up and I never gave up," he told reporters, adding that, "[J]ustice has been done."
Source: New York Post, "This lawyer turned down $8M ... and got them $130M," Julia Marsh and Bob Fredericks, April 18, 2013
]]>On an immediately encouraging note, DOT statistics indicate that, collectively, the state's youngest drivers seem to be improving. That is attributed in large part to Connecticut's graduated driver's licensing program, which DOT spokesman Kevin Nursick calls "a great step taken by the legislature."
]]> There's more good news. The number of car crashes statewide fell from nearly 104,000 in 2009 to about 78,500 in 2011. Nursick says that, "No one has a definitive answer as to why that happened," and traffic observers find it inexplicable, given the proliferating news stories about motorists being distracted by cell phones, GPS systems and other distracting devices.More people, too, are wearing their seat belts, according to the DOT.
Of course, with nearly 80,000 motor vehicle accidents reported, not all the news is good, and safety commentators point to the specifics of the DOT report to readily note what too many Connecticut drivers are doing wrong.
For one thing, too many motorists tailgate, which is the leading cause of accidents in the state. Following too closely was the cause of more than one third of all crashes during 2011, with more than 37 percent of all accident being rear-end collisions.
And nearly 6,000 accidents were caused by speeding.
Here are a few additional Connecticut traffic safety facts to note. January is the most dangerous month for crashes. More accidents occur on Friday than on any other day.
And the county with the highest car-accident risk? Fairfield County, with more than a quarter of all crashes statewide.
Source: Wallingford Patch, "Snapshots of car crash tends in Connecticut - and Wallingford," Ronald DeRosa, April 17, 2013
]]>If, conversely, you're a little uptight about your knowledge concerning things like the iPhone, Android, Bluetooth technology, BlackBerry and other tech assists, perhaps their relevance to teen safety will promote a little self-learning.
It is anything but a secret that teen drivers comprise a problematic demographic when it comes to car accidents and fatal traffic outcomes across the country. The stark statistics relating to the number of car crashes involving novice drivers and the personal injuries sustained by teen motorists have resulted in numerous programs and initiatives aimed at curbing adverse outcomes.
]]> Those include the graduated driver licensing programs instituted across the country, including in Connecticut, and various age-specific restrictions imposed on young motorists.They are now also encompassing constantly evolving applications geared toward honing young drivers' skills and ensuring a more focused and safety-conscious driving environment.
One such app, called "Time to Drive," is available for under $4.00 for iPhone users. It works while a car is being operated, and can be opened later to enter experience on weather, nighttime driving and other factors. It is interactive and can be used by both teen drivers and their parents to set driving goals.
Other apps disable texting and Web surfing while a car is in motion. One new interlock system makes drivers put their phones in a disabling docking station as a prerequisite to starting their vehicle. A new Sprint app will automatically take away a driver's ability to text if he or she is driving at a speed faster than 10 mph.
New apps are continuously coming into the marketplace, with safety experts lauding them and hoping that they make a discernible impact on improving teen driving and safety outcomes.
"We really want to be on the side of the angels in being able to prevent these tragedies," says the maker of an app aimed at reducing motor vehicle accidents involving inexperienced drivers.
Source: USA TODAY, "Honk if you love apps that protect teen drivers," Larry Copeland, April 8, 2013
]]>We chronicled the growing concern of medical experts, parents, school administrators, coaches and others in Connecticut and nationally with concussion identification and treatment as it relates to young sports enthusiasts in a recent blog post (please see our March 22, 2013, post entry).
]]> One entity especially preoccupied with the subject of TBI is the National Football League (NFL), as anyone who follows football well knows. Over the past few years, the league has faced a veritable onslaught of litigation from former and current players who allege they suffered severe head injuries while playing. Pointedly, they say that NFL team owners and officials have known about the risks of concussion and other head injuries for players for decades and intentionally hid them.A signal moment occurred in that litigation just this week, with an initial hearing being held before a federal judge on Tuesday. The hearing focused on whether the consolidated suits of thousands of players can proceed to federal court or must instead be resolved through collective bargaining between NFL officials and player representatives.
The league obviously argues in favor of the latter outcome, with its attorney saying that the case is "about workplace safety in an industry where issues of workplace safety are subject to collective bargaining."
The players' legal defense team strongly disagrees with that view and has consistently pointed out that no provision in the collective bargaining agreement reached between the NFL and players preempts lawsuits being filed in court.
There will likely be no quick developments in the matter. The judge is expected to take weeks, if not several months, to rule on the issue.
Source: Washington Post, "Fate of retired players' concussion claims against the NFL rests in hands of a judge," Rick Maese, April 9, 2013
]]>Consumers in Connecticut and nationally have been subjected to a number of call backs over the past handful of years prompted by design defects that have resulted in car accidents, many of them fatal. Problems with sudden acceleration, engine fires, air bag malfunctions and other maladies have plagued manufacturers such as Toyota, Ford and General Motors, as well as engendered a considerable amount of product liability, personal injury and wrongful death litigation.
]]> Hyundai has been noticeably spared from that -- until now. Last week, the world's fifth-largest vehicle manufacturer announced the biggest recall in its history, with spokespersons stating that more than 2.2 million models are being called back to address safety defects.The recalls involve multiple problems and extend to vehicles in both the United States and Canada. The recalls include models manufactured by both Hyundai Motor Company and its affiliate Kia Motors Corp.
The problem that is considered most pressing concerns faulty brake light switches in many vehicle models from earlier years, including particularly well-known vehicles such as the Santa Fe, Sonata, Tucson, Sedona and Sportage.
The issue: The switches can cause intermittent brake-light operation and interfere with cruise control and other functions.
A second recall involving nearly 200,000 Elantra models highlights concerns with injuries that can be suffered following side air bag deployment.
Hyundai has noted and worked on the brake problem multiple times in past years. The issue has been duly noted within the industry, with a quality survey conducted by J.D. Power and Associates dropping the company from 11th in 2011 to 18th last year.
Source: Detroit News, "Hyundai, Kia recall more than 2.2M vehicles in for electrical, air bag issues," David Shepardson, April 3, 2013
]]>That is toxic workplace air, which is estimated to cause incapacitating illnesses and injuries, as well as result in lost wages, medical expenses and workers' compensation claims for scores of thousands of workers across the country.
]]> In fact, more than 200,000 workers in industries ranging from electronics enterprises and automobile body shops to dry cleaners and factories of all sorts miss work each year owing to noxious chemicals and other substances at their workplaces.The cost to the domestic economy for workplace injuries and illnesses is both stark and staggering, being an estimated $250 billion annually.
Discussion of accident-related facts and statistics of such magnitude invariably invokes the federal overseer of workplace rules and safety, OSHA, with the agency frequently suffering moderate to withering criticism for what is deemed by many persons to be its ineffectual oversight of workplace dangers.
In particular, the administration is targeted with a particular criticism that a recent New York Times article says connects centrally to "a startling fact," namely this: The agency focuses overly on comparatively routine and immediate workplace concerns at the expense of "the silent, slow killers, that, in the end, take far more lives."
OSHA officials themselves have candidly noted their difficulty in consistently meeting safety challenges, owing to squeezed funding and a shortage of investigative resources.
Going forward, the agency will simply have to find ways to focus more time and effort on toxic substances in the workplace, given the estimated 40,000-plus employees who are believed to succumb prematurely from their exposure to toxic elements at work every single year.
Source: New York Times, "As OSHA emphasizes safety, long-term health risks fester," Ian Urbina, March 30, 2013
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