Posts Tagged ‘drunk driving’

By now, you’ve likely heard the story about 9 year-old Ryan White, a Philadelphia tourist visiting San Francisco to see the Phillies play the Giants. After the game, White was hit by an alleged drunk driver in San Francisco. White suffered bone injuries to his pelvis, left leg, and ankle, as well as internal injuries and a serious brain condition. But it looks like White has turned a corner following this tragic car accident. On Tuesday morning, doctors downgraded his condition from critical to serious, following White’s first spoken words since the accident.

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As part of GJEL’s state-by-state drunk driving laws and driving fatality research, Steve Gursten, a partner at Michigan Auto Law, recently shared these updated statistics about drunk driving and auto accidents in Michigan. Steve has been very active in promoting efforts to reduce drunk driving and car accidents in Michigan. This guest blog post analyzes car accidents and wrongful deaths from 2009, the latest year with available data.

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Last Friday, 61 year-old James Hudson was killed by a drunk driver while crossing San Francisco’s Masonic Avenue, one of the city’s busiest and most dangerous arteries. The suspect, 23 year-old Jose Jimenez, who was driving over 50 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone, is expected to be charged this week with vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence of alcohol. Masonic Avenue is one of San Francisco’s most notorious pedestrian accident hot spots, and last week’s death indicates the city’s obligation to make significant steps to make it safer to reduce future deaths.

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The GJEL Blog has always kept a close eye on the driver safety laws of each state, with a particular interest in California. Fortunately, the “Golden State” has maintained a record of progressive safety laws, including strict distracted driving laws and penalties for drunk drivers. Other states have been less receptive to driver safety laws, and some have even openly opposed legislation that would save lives and reduce car accident injuries. So in honor of Distracted Driving Awareness Month, we thought it would be useful to highlight the five worst states for road safety based on our research on teen driver and distracted driving laws, drunk driving penalties and statistics, and bicycle safety laws.

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For many, St. Patrick’s Day is a time to celebrate Irish heritage and the legend of St. Patrick. For many others, it’s a time to get drunk on green beer and (potentially) drive drunk. Clearly, driving drunk is incredibly dangerous and friends should be vigilant year-round, preventing their friends from getting behind the wheel after drinking. But as a day so infamous for binge drinking, people should be especially careful while on city streets and highways this Thursday. Some cities are helping, with free public transportation this St. Patrick’s Day.

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Most penalties for dangerous driving tickets are designed to prevent the perilous behavior from reoccurring. If you’re fined for driving 80 miles per hour in a 60 mph zone, for example, you are more likely to think twice before driving too fast the next time around. But when drivers don’t seem to mind the penalties, are state enforcement agencies responsible for adopting stronger measures to get habitually dangerous drivers off the road?

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Each year, holiday weekends are the most vulnerable to DUI arrests and accidents. Each year, for example, about 40 people are killed and 2,100 people are injured in accidents over Christmas weekend, according to the California Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System. Of those, 23 of the deaths and 431 of the injuries resulted from alcohol-related crashes. The numbers are nearly identical for New Years Eve weekend. To improve this daunting statistic, major California cities are joining others nationwide in offering free public transportation on New Years Eve. See what cities are providing free cab and public transportation fares this holiday season.

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Like we’re back in school, 34.4 million Americans, including more than 4 million Californians will join me this Friday night to travel more than 50 miles to a vacation getaway for the long Labor Day weekend. In California and across the country, this holiday weekend’s travel predictions mark a ten percent increase over 2009 numbers, which indicates that it will be marked by more traffic, and likely more accidents, than last year.

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Two weeks ago, a Greyhound bus carrying 31 passengers collided with an overturned SUV near Fresno, California. The accident, which killed six and injured dozens, was tragic and proved the necessity of stricter highway safety regulations. Though Greyhound has had its share of tragic bus accidents over the past decade, new information indicates that this crash was likely not the driver’s fault. A coroner announced today that autopsy results indicate that the driver of the overturned Chevrolet Trailblazer was drunk when her car capsized in the middle of the highway.

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This Saturday night 17-year-old Oakland driver caused an fatal accident while under the influence of alcohol. The driver, whose name has not been released because he is a minor, was arrested on vehicular manslaughter charges for the death of 22-year-old Martin Contreras. He has been busted on DUI charges before, which carries a suspended license penalty of six months for a first-time offender in California. If California had stricter ignition-interlock laws, the accident could have been avoided.

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