Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyer Notes Wrong-Way Highway Accidents Are Often Deadly

Eleven people died last week in two highway collisions, one in Florida and one in California, caused by drivers going the wrong way. Driving the wrong way on highways has been a traffic safety problem since the interstate highway system was first developed. Despite decades of sign improvements at interchanges, the problem persists.

According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), hundreds of people are killed each a year when drivers turn the wrong-way into the face of oncoming traffic, causing head-on collisions on high-speed highways, and a majority of the crashes involves drivers with blood alcohol levels more than twice the legal limit. A Ford Expedition SUV traveling south on northbound Interstate 275 in Tampa, Florida, collided head-on with a Hyundai Sonata just after 2 a.m. on Sunday, killing the SUV driver and all four people in the other car according to the Florida Highway Patrol. […]

Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyer Says Distracted Driving Kills

In a statement released on January 28, The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reported that the rise in mobile device usage while driving has caused an increase in auto accidents. The National Safety Council reports that in the U.S. texting while driving causes 1.6 million accidents annually. Researchers fear that this trend will continue. Drivers who read or write text messages while operating vehicles are 23 times more likely to be in a crash than non-distracted drivers, according to researchers at the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute.

As a result, states have passed distracted driving laws. 41 states plus D.C. have banned text messaging behind the wheel. The report also revealed that 12 states plus D.C. have implemented laws prohibiting all drivers from using handheld devices while operating a vehicle. Additionally, all 50 states have implemented police reports that include sections for distracted driving information in the event of an auto accident. […]

Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyer Reports on the Hazardous Combination of Drinking and Driving

Every day we read and watch more news reports of drunk driving accidents, many involving children in the vehicle, and a high percentage resulting in fatalities. Any crash involving a driver with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of .08 or higher is considered to be an alcohol-impaired driving crash. According to a recently released report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Impaired, there were 10,322 fatalities in alcohol-impaired crashes in 2012. 28 people die every day in America as a result of these crashes. NHTSA also reported that car crashes are the leading cause of death for teens, and about a quarter involve an underage drinker.

The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD), reported that an estimated 32% of fatal car crashes involve an intoxicated driver or pedestrian. Alcohol affects attentiveness and one’s ability to make quick decisions on the road, […]

Dan Munley, Scranton Injury Lawyer, Explains Why The Roads Can Be Dangerous the Day After Bad Weather

During the winter months in Pennsylvania everyone knows that bad weather can create hazardous road conditions, which lead to car accidents.

But snow and ice can even create dangerous conditions for motorists long after the snow has been cleared from the roads. After the streets have been plowed and the walkways shoveled, ice and snow may still be present on the rooftops of vehicles. This build-up of snow and ice may dislodge while the car is being driven, and cause serious injury to others. This danger is increased when the vehicle is a tractor trailer that can hurl ice from its roof at dangerously high speeds while driving on the highway.

As a personal injury lawyer at Munley Law Personal Injury Attorneys of Scranton, Pennsylvania, I have handled cases where tractor trailer drivers and other motorists forget to remove snow and ice from their vehicles before taking to the road, […]

The REAL WAY Most Bus Accident Cases Are Settled by Personal Injury Lawyers in Pennsylvania

Not all Bus Accident Cases are settled in Pennsylvania – what are some factors that lead to a case being settled? Personal injury lawyer explains:

• What percentage of bus accident cases do Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers manage to settle?
• What are some factors that lead to a case settling?
• What kind of money will Personal Injury Lawyers in Pennsylvania charge to represent you in a bus accident case? 

WATCH VIDEO: PENNSYLVANIA PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS WHO WILL ANSWER QUESTIONS FOR FREE:

What percentage of bus accident cases do Pennsylvania personal injury lawyers settle?

Some bus accident cases are settled by Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers before trial, some are settled at trial, and some are never settled. Your settlement amount and the chances of the case settling at all are determined by a huge amount of factors. […]

Most People Will Be Surprised to Hear How Much Money Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers Can Get For a Bus Crash Settlement

Bus Accident Cases are complicated in Pennsylvania – there are many damages you could potentially sue for. Personal injury lawyer explains:

• What damages could you sue for?
• What percentage of bus accident cases do   Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers settle?
• What kinds of fees do Personal Injury Lawyers in Pennsylvania charge and when are these fees imposed? 

WATCH VIDEO: THE PENNSYLVANIA PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS AT MUNLEY LAW:

What kinds of damages can Pennsylvania personal injury lawyers recover after your bus crash?

After you or a loved one gets into an accident with a bus or while riding on one, you may be wondering what kinds of damages you could get reimbursed for if your Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers are able to settle your lawsuit for you.

In a Pennslyvania Bus Accident case, […]

Who Can Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers Sue After a Bus Crash? The Answer May Surprise You

After a Pennsylvania Bus Accident, there are more possible parties that could be sued than you may think. Personal injury lawyer explains:

• What parties could be responsible?
• How does the number of parties involved in a lawsuit affect how much settlement money your Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers could get for you?
• Do Personal Injury Lawyers in Pennsylvania charge you any initial fees? 

Who can Pennsylvania personal injury lawyers sue after your bus crash?

After you or a loved one gets into an accident with a bus, or while riding in one, there are a number of possible parties that could be held responsible in your lawsuit.

Here’s a list of possible parties that Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers could sue:

• The Owner of the Bus: Potential owners of the bus that Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers could pursue in your lawsuit include; […]

What Pennsylvania Personal Injury Lawyers Will Tell You About Insurance Policies That Big Insurance Companies Don’t Want You to Know About

Pennsylvania Law gives you two options for car accident insurance coverage: your insurance company won’t like one of them. A Personal injury lawyer from Munley Law Personal Injury Attorneys explains:

• What’s the difference between a full tort and limited tort policy?
• How much do personal injury lawyers in Pennsylvania charge you to handle your car accident case?
• Do Personal Injury Lawyers in Pennsylvania charge up-front fees? 

WATCH VIDEO: PENNSYLVANIA PERSONAL INJURY LAWYERS TALK ABOUT CAR ACCIDENTS:

Pennsylvania personal injury lawyers will advise you to choose “full tort” on your policy

When trying to get money after you get hurt in a car accident, Pennsylvania law provides two options:

Full Tort

or

Limited Tort

If you choose “Limited Tort” […]

Teens and Distracted Driving Could Require a Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer

As an experienced injury lawyer at Munley Law Personal Injury Attorneys of Scranton, Pennsylvania, Marion Munley has seen many teens start out as careful, cautious drivers, but it only takes a few months behind the wheel before teens feel over-confident in their driving skills and get involved in a car accident. Dialing cell phones, texting, eating, and talking to passengers are all examples of things that teens may do while driving. Multitasking distracts teens and all drivers from the road, a skill that still requires their full attention.

This topic was recently published in the Jan. 2 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine from a study conducted by the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute and the National Institutes of Child Health and Human Development. The data reveals that, compared to experienced drivers, new drivers engaged in secondary tasks less frequently during the first six months. Between months 7 and 15, […]

Snow and Frigid Temperatures Cause Dangerous Road Conditions in Pennsylvania

Snowy road conditions have already caused hundreds of accidents in Pennsylvania this winter, shutting down highways and resulting in deaths and many injuries. During a sudden heavy storm over the recent holidays, a chain reaction crash involving 35 vehicles closed down a section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Several tractor-trailers were mixed in the wreckage, which caused a 4-mile traffic jam. Ten people were taken to area hospitals.

According to a Pennsylvania personal injury lawyer, those same wintry conditions existed when more than 40 vehicles piled up in multiple crashes on I-78, closing the interstate for a time, and resulting in more than 60 injuries. State Police also reported that sudden snow squalls causing numerous accidents resulted in the Northeast Extension of the turnpike being closed on Christmas Eve from Clarks Summit to Allentown. Numerous accidents have also been reported on smaller roadways throughout Pennsylvania.

Advice from Pennsylvania personal injury attorney Julia Munley on what to do if you are in an accident. […]

A Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer tells you what you should do right after a car accident

Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer: After you get into an accident, there are things that you can choose to DO and NOT DO right afterward that may affect your injury claim against the other driver’s insurance company.

A Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer will advise doing the following right after the accident takes place:

• Stay inside your vehicle unless it’s too dangerous to do so
• Turn on your hazard lights
• Call 911 even if the accident didn’t seem too bad
• Seek medical help for anyone involved in the accident if needed
• Don’t move any vehicles or alter the scene unless you have to
• Don’t leave the scene
• Write down the names, addresses and phone numbers of everybody involved in the accident, including witnesses
• Write down the names/badge numbers of police officers who come to investigate
• Take pictures of injures and damage
• DON’T admit fault
• Call your insurance company right away and let them know what happened
• DON’T talk about the accident with anyone except the police and your own insurance company. […]

How Much Will You Have to Pay an Injury Lawyer to Help Win Your Car Accident Case?

How much may you have to pay a Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer to help you?

Here’s something that may make you feel better if you’re fretting about getting a Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer involved in your case: Pennsylvania Injury Lawyers work on a contingency fee basis; this means that they don’t make any money unless they win your case. So you don’t have to worry at all about paying them out of pocket.

Another reason you shouldn’t worry about talking to a Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer:

You can call a Pennsylvania Injury Lawyer at Munley Law Personal Injury Attorneys anytime, or come into our office and talk to us – all for free. We know you have questions, and we can answer as many as you’d like. We don’t bill by the hour, we’re not out to take money from you; as injury lawyers in Pennsylvania, our job is to deal with the insurance companies – […]

Car Runs Into House in Lancaster County

Driver falls asleep at the wheel and crashes into home

Not all car crashes in Pennsylvania involve one motor vehicle colliding with another. Some wrecks are the result of rollovers and other single-vehicle accidents. Other times, automobiles crash into fixed objects – like a house.

A case in point happened February 16 in Lancaster County, when a passenger car smashed through the wall of a private home in East Earl Township. A resident inside was knocked from the couch where he had been sleeping. He suffered minor injuries.

The accident occurred in the early morning hours. The driver apparently fell asleep at the wheel, and police are investigating whether alcohol was a contributing factor.

There were 121,312 traffic crashes in Pennsylvania in 2010, according to reports filed with the state Department of Transportation. These wrecks claimed the lives of 1,324 people and injured another 87,949 people. […]

Red Light Cameras Reduce Intersection Wrecks

Placing video cameras on stoplights cuts down on drivers running red lights by more than 80 percent, new research suggests. The result: fewer intersection crashes and auto accident deaths.

Those are the key findings from a just-released traffic safety study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS).

“This study provides fresh evidence that automated enforcement can get drivers to modify their behavior,” said Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at IIHS and the study’s lead author, in a news release.

Approximately 540 towns and cities nationwide have red light cameras. A growing string of studies have shown that the devices curb automobile accidents and improve road safety.

The most recent study involved filming traffic flow at four heavily-traveled intersections in Arlington, Virginia. One camera was installed at each intersection.

Motorists were given a 30-day warning period before enforcement began. […]

One in Four Moms Text While Driving With Babies

New mothers are talking and texting on cell phones – and even checking e-mail – while driving with their baby on board, according to a new survey.

Seventy-eight percent of mothers with children under two years old admitted talking on the phone while driving with their babies. And more than a quarter of them said they text and check e-mail.

The survey was conducted by the child-protection advocacy group Safe Kids Worldwide and American Baby magazine.

One scary conclusion: The driving habits of new moms are every bit as dangerous as that of teenage drivers.

Texting while driving creates a crash risk 23 times higher than driving while not distracted, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Following is from USA Today:

The survey of 2,396 mothers finds an attitude among new moms that is reflected in the general population: They tend to think they’re safe drivers but actually engage in risky habits. […]

Wrong-Way Interstate Crash Claims Two Lives

Two drivers were killed in a Dauphin County head-on wreck caused by a driver going the wrong way on I-283.

The deadly accident happened in the early morning hours of February 4 in Lower Swatara Township near the Turnpike interchange.

Motor vehicle crashes involving wrong-way drivers cause nearly 400 fatalities each year, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. About 22 percent of wrong-way automobile crashes are fatal – compared with less than one percent of all other crashes.

This is from WGAL News 8:

Investigators said the driver of a silver Hyundai Accent was traveling northbound in the southbound lanes. The Hyundai hit a Volkswagen Jetta head-on.

Neither car had any passengers and the drivers died on impact, state police said. The driver the Volkswagen was a 59-year-old man from the Jonestown area. […]

10 Tips for PA Winter Driving Safety

A recent article in the New York Times Magazine has found that dangerous driving is once again a serious issue in America. According to the article, in September 2023, the U.S. Department of Transportation released data that showed that 21 states had recorded climbing rates of fatal crashes in 2023 compared with the same period in 2022.

Not only is it dangerous for other drivers to be on the roads, but pedestrians as well — a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found that SUVs or vans with a hood height that’s greater than 40 inches are 45 percent more likely to kill pedestrians than smaller cars.

Unfortunately, the winter weather does pose a significant threat to many Pennsylvanians each year. Snowy weather causes treacherous conditions on our roadways. Each winter, we hear stories of people injured and killed in auto accidents across Pennsylvania caused by drivers who don’t use proper care in hazardous conditions. […]

Nurse Killed Crossing Philadelphia Street

A woman dashing across a Philadelphia street January 11 was struck by a car – and then run over by at least one other vehicle.

She was pronounced dead at the scene.

In 2011, pedestrian-related crashes represented 3.6 percent of all reported traffic crashes in Pennsylvania. That year, 149 pedestrians were killed.

Following is an account of the fatal pedestrian accident from the Philadelphia Inquirer:

A woman attempting to run across Penrose Avenue in South Philadelphia was hit by a car, then run over by at least one more vehicle, in light rain about 5:30 PM Friday, police said.

Maria Mercer, 42, of Olney, was a nurse at Catch Inc., a community mental health center. Police said she was scheduled to work through midnight and took a break to go to a cash machine at a nearby gas station. […]

EMS Driver Caught Driving Drunk

State police in Swiftwater arrested a woman for driving an EMS vehicle drunk on December 29.

The emergency service driver was stopped for speeding and following another vehicle too closely. Arresting officers determined she was too impaired to drive.

Each year automobile accidents in Pennsylvania claim the lives of more than 1,000 people and injure another 85,000 more. More than 70 percent of the state’s auto accidents in 2010 resulted in an injury or fatality.

Far too many of these wrecks were caused by a driver’s negligence or recklessness.

Following is from the Scranton Times-Tribune:

A Monroe County woman was arrested Saturday for driving an emergency medical services vehicle while under the influence.

State police at Swiftwater stopped Stacy M. Ems, 23, Paradise Twp., around 1 AM for speeding and following another vehicle too closely on Buttermilk Falls Road, […]

Disaster Averted With Wrong-Way Driver on I-81

Law enforcement had to form a moving road block to stop a confused Carbon County motorist who drove 18 miles the wrong way down Interstate 81.

Amazingly, nobody was hurt in the incident.

There are more than 100,000 motor vehicle crashes in Pennsylvania each year, according to the state Department of Transportation. These wrecks will claim the lives of 1,000 people and injure and disable many thousands more.

Here is one newspaper account of the wrong-way driver on I-81:

State police formed a rolling road block to stop a Carbon County woman who drove the wrong way on Interstate 81 for 18 miles starting near Dickson City.

State police at Dunmore received calls around 5:30 a.m. about a vehicle, driven by Paige Cicardo, 22, of Albrightsville, traveling south on I-81 north near the Main Avenue exit. […]