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Proper Documents Needed for Auto Accident Claim in Wisconsin
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation reported 109,385 total crashes and 39,369 injuries in its last crash report in 2012. Car accidents occur unexpectedly and even if there are no injuries involved, an accident can still prove to be painful due to unforeseen costs, hassle, and stress.
There are several details that go into filing an auto accident claim, which include requesting reports, gathering information from medical providers, and ensuring that all of documents are received and recorded in a timely manner. Wisconsin maintains a statute of limitations on recovering personal injury damages that cannot exceed three years from the date of the accident.
Increase in Car Accidents Predicted for Holiday Season
Last year the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel named Highway 100, northwest Milwaukee, and area malls as having intersections with the most car accidents in Milwaukee County from 2007-2011. It should come as no surprise that the high volume of cars in mall parking lots is what has led to the annually high number of crashes. With the upcoming holiday season inviting an influx of shoppers, collisions should remain constant as reflected in recent years.
Fender benders are common in congested places and what might seem like a minor accident can turn into a major headache down the road. Understanding the claim process is helpful in order to correctly gather all pertinent information necessary for requesting compensation for damages.
Drivers who have been involved in a car accident need to collect all documentation of the incident, including any records pertaining to required medical care. There is a statute of limitations when filing a claim that personal injury victims should also keep in mind.
New Interactive Map Shows Traffic Fatalities
It seems like every day the news has a report about a tragic traffic accident, but hearing about them just one at at time can make it difficult to visualize the full scale of the problem caused by careless drivers. However, there is now a tool available that can change that. The University of Wisconsin Madison's Traffic Operations and Safety Lab, with the help of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation and a local news website, has created a map that allows the public to view the traffic fatalities across the state.
How the Map Works
The software, which appears to be built on top of Google's framework, displays markers representing traffic fatalities over an interactive map of the state of Wisconsin. Clicking on a marker yields more information about the crash, such as when it happened, the number of deaths, and any factors that may have caused the accident.
Police Find Texting and Driving Bans Difficult to Enforce
The advent of text messaging and the rapid spread of smartphones has led to a common problem, texting and driving. People who are texting and driving take their eyes and concentration off the road and that can cause deadly accidents. In response, numerous states have passed laws making it illegal to text and drive; however, these bans are proving challenging for police officers to enforce. In fact, a local Wisconsin news station recently compiled the citation statistics for the four years that the ban has been in place. It turns out that the state police have only issued 229 citations during that entire period.
The Problem with Texting and Driving
The core problem with texting and driving, apart from the fact that it takes people's eyes off the road, is in the way the human brain multitasks. Although the expression “multitasking” is common enough and many people brag about their skill at it, the actual phenomenon itself is something of a myth. People can certainly do multiple things at once, but the brain cannot. Instead, the brain rapidly switches back and forth between the two tasks. At the speed that it does this switching, it seems like multitasking, but the problem is that the constant switching takes a toll on the brain's abilities. What this means for texting and driving is that even when a person is looking at the road, his or her divided attention is preventing him or her from seeing about half of what is going on in his or her visual field. This sort of carelessness can cause accidents, and it is what led the state legislature to pass the texting ban.
Wearable Computers: Anything You Wear Can and Will Be Used against You in a Court of Law
Wearable computers have been hailed as a major technology breakthrough over the past few years, and the technology industry has been betting heavily on their success. From the Google Glass to the Apple Watch, these new computers are slowly making their way into people's lives. Now, they have started making their way into the courtroom. A plaintiff in a personal injury case in Canada is now using evidence from a Fitbit, a wearable computer that tracks a person's activity level, to prove that a person's quality of life changed after an accident.
What Fitbits Are
Fitbits are a wristband that contains a small computer display. Fitbit was designed as an exercise and weight loss aid, a sort of pedometer plus. It links up with a person's smartphone to measure his or her activity, how he or she eats, how he or she exercises, and even his or her quality of sleep. This essentially creates a record of how active someone is throughout the day.
Transportation Projects Commission Recommends Three Major Highway Projects
Preventing the deadly crashes that lead to personal injury lawsuits is the responsibility of a lot of different parties. Drivers have a duty to use caution whenever they get behind the wheel. Automotive manufacturers are obliged to design and build safe cars for the drivers to use. Even state and local governments play a role, making sure that the roads and bridges are up to proper safety standards.
As a part of that ongoing effort, the Transportation Projects Commission has recently recommended three separate highway projects to the governor and the legislature. These three projects each focus on roads that have accident rates that exceed the national average. All told, the total price tag for the projects would be $670 million.
The Transportation Projects Commission
Teens and Distracted Driving: 25 Percent Admit to Texting While Driving
In Wisconsin, the use of a mobile device while driving is considered a primary offense. This mean a driver can be ticketed for texting while driving or for using a cell phone, even if hands-free, while driving without first being pulled over for another type of traffic violation.
There are several types of distracted driving that put people on the road in danger, including:
- Eating and drinking;
- Reading maps;
- Grooming; and
- Using a navigation system.
However, the frequency of mobile device use can be directly linked to increased distracted driving accidents. According to Distraction.gov, as of this time last year, over 153 billion text messages were sent each month and a high number of those were sent while driving. Additional statistics from the website show that a quarter of teens respond to texts once or more every time they drive.
Statute of Limitation: A Time Limit on Your Case
Filing a lawsuit quickly after a traffic accident occurs is important because the sooner the process starts, the sooner the victim can be compensated for his or her medical bills and other injuries. However, there is another important reason to file a lawsuit quickly: the statute of limitations. The statute of limitations is a time limit that the law puts on filing a case. Wait too long and a victim's opportunity to recover damages for the harm that he or she suffered can vanish. While this may seem like a harsh rule, there are good reasons for it to be in place, and it is important for people injured in accidents to understand these statutes.
The Statute of Limitations in Wisconsin
Statutes of limitations are time limits that vary depending on the type of case. A suit for breach of contract may have a different time limit that a suit for medical malpractice. Under Wisconsin law the statute of limitations in a personal injury case, the type of case arising from a traffic accident, is three years. This means that people have three years from the date of the accident to file a lawsuit over it.
Types of Car Accident Claims
Lawsuits arising out of car accident claims are about assigning fault to the person who caused them, so that they can compensate the victims of the accident that they caused. When most people think of who caused an accident, they assume it must have been one of the drivers, but that is only one of the possibilities. With over 100,000 crashes in Wisconsin every year, there are also other potential causes. For instance, some accidents are the result of poor design or manufacturing on behalf of car makers. Other accidents can be caused by poor design of the roads themselves. Each of these causes requires its own legal theory during the lawsuit.
Negligence
The legal theory of negligence is the most common of the three legal theories. It applies in cases where the accident was caused by the carelessness of one of the drivers. Prevailing in a lawsuit based on negligence requires the plaintiff to prove four things. First, the plaintiff must show that the other driver had a duty to use due care to avoid harming other drivers, which is almost always true. Second, the plaintiff must show that the defendant breached that duty in some way. These breaches are examples of careless driving, such as speeding or driving while distracted. Third, the plaintiff must show that the accident was caused by the defendant's carelessness. Fourth, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the injuries that they are suing for resulted from the accident. If the injured driver can show those four things, then they can likely prevail on a negligence claim.
What to Do If You Spot a Drunk Driver on the Road
While there are many dangers present on the road, one of the biggest is the presence of drunk drivers. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over 10,000 people were killed by drunk drivers in 2012, which makes them responsible for almost one in every three traffic fatalities. While other drivers cannot keep people from drinking and driving, they can keep themselves safer. It is important for everyone on the road to know how to identify a drunk driver, as well as what to do when they encounter one to avoid a traffic accident.
Identifying a Drunk Driver
Identifying a drunk driver is largely a matter of spotting erratic driving, especially when it occurs late at night. However, there are certain poor driving behaviors that drunk drivers are more likely to engage in as a result of alcohol's specific effects on the body. One of the most common of these sorts of behaviors is making turns that are overly wide. Alcohol affects people's ability to properly judge distances, so they may end up taking up more space when they turn. Similarly, this inability to judge distances, combined with poor reaction time, may result in a drunk driver braking erratically.
