Liability insurance is required for all drivers in the state Wisconsin. However, about 10 percent of drivers use an automobile without car insurance, per the Insurance Research Council.  If someone without liability insurance is at fault for your car accident, you must take special steps to have your injuries compensated.

Negotiating with Your Insurer

Under Wisconsin law, all drivers must carry uninsured motorists insurance. If you have injuries to yourself, your car, your or property, you can file a claim against your own insurer under your uninsured motorist policy. You may be entitled to the same compensation under your policy as you would if you filed a claim against the at-fault driver’s insurance company. Those damages include lost wages, medical costs, and pain and suffering.

Because they have such a high prevalence of fatality, pedestrian accidents have always been a major area of concern. In fact, many states and cities have implemented awareness initiatives, new and updated traffic control devices, and stricter laws to protect their pedestrian citizens. Yet the growing problem shows that the issue is getting worse instead of better. A recent study attempted to understand why, despite all efforts, the prevalence of pedestrian accidents seems to be growing. They also looked at possible pedestrian accident risk factors and the losses that victims may experience.

How Big Is the Problem?

In the year 2004 alone, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported more than 70,000 pedestrian injuries and more than 4,600 pedestrian deaths. On average, that means that one pedestrian is killed every 113 minutes, and every eight minutes, one is injured. In Wisconsin, specifically, pedestrian fatalities account for approximately 9 percent of all annual traffic fatalities (about 60 per year) and around 350 are seriously injured. That averages out to about one pedestrian death or injury in Wisconsin every five hours.

In the past five years, almost 4,500 people have been killed in construction zones, and more than 200,000 have been injured. Sometimes, construction zone accidents are the fault of one or more drivers. Other times, the construction company or an individual worker acted with negligence. Then there are those incidents in which more than one party is at fault. Such was the case in a fatal crash along Interstate 75 in Tennessee, where as many as four different parties are being accused of negligence.

Multiple Parties Accused of Negligence in Fatal Crash

In a crash that killed six people, four different parties could face consequences for negligence. The first party is the semi driver who was allegedly intoxicated when he slammed into the vehicles in front of him. Consequently, the trucking company is also being named as a negligent party because they reportedly knew that the driver had been over federal driving limits. The final two parties being named are the construction companies. Court documents allege that they had been working at a dangerous and unauthorized time and location and that they had failed to implement an effective traffic control plan.

How would you feel if, while purchasing your next vehicle, you were told that the seatbelt was a “luxury” feature – one that would cost you extra? What about the airbag? It seems ludicrous to consider, yet this is exactly the issue that new car buyers are facing. New technology, such as forward collision warning, blind spot detection, automatic braking, and adaptive cruise control, are not considered “standard” vehicle features. They cost extra. Safety advocates are speaking out and pressing to change this. They believe safety and car crash prevention should not cost more.

Collision Avoidance High on the Agenda

Each year, more than two million drivers experience serious injuries in an accident, and another 19,000 are killed. Rear-end collisions account for about 1,700 of those fatalities and 500,000 injuries. In fact, rear-end accidents are one of the most common types of accident in the United States, accounting for about 1.7 million of all roadway crashes each year. Around 80 percent of them could be avoided, safety advocates say, if car makers would simply make collision avoidance technology standard in all vehicles.

Car seats are designed to protect children in the event of a crash. However, studies reveal that as many as 95 percent of all car seats are not being correctly installed or fully utilized for child safety. Know how to ensure that you have installed it accurately, and how you can make the most of the safety features available to protect your baby, should you ever experience an automobile accident.

Use a Car Seat for Every Ride

Nearly every parent has faced the temptation of forgoing the car seat. Maybe it is just for a quick drive around the corner. Or maybe it is because your car has stalled out, you had to call a tow truck, and you do not want to hassle with moving the seat, just to put it back in later. Do not give in! Children’s bodies are smaller and still developing. They are simply not able to sustain the impact of a crash in a regular seat belt, and holding them could actually increase the risk of serious injury to both you and your baby. So, no matter how inconvenient it may be, use a car seat for every ride, long and short, near and far.