Missouri Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

Our Springfield car accident lawyers were troubled to see the Missouri Highway Patrol's news release on March 7. The headline reads "Missouri Traffic Deaths on the Rise After Six Year Drop." According to the release, the Patrol is reporting a sharp increase in auto accident fatalities in early 2012: "When comparing early last year to the same time period this year, as of the date of this release, Missouri has experienced an increase of 29 traffic crash traffic crash fatalities." All Missouri drivers would do well to take note of the Patrol's findings, as many of these fatal accidents share common characteristics.

• Of Missouri auto fatality victims in 2012, 2/3 were not wearing seat belts.

• In recent fatal crashes, a "common theme of the contributing circumstances" is lane departure. Many of these accidents involved drivers who ran off the right side of the road, often overcorrecting in response; or drivers who crossed the center line and collided with other vehicles head-on.

It's difficult to identify a single causal factor for the increase. According to stltoday.com, Captain Tim Hull declined to single out texting and driving as the sole culprit: "It's a lot of things that take their mind off that full-time job of driving," Hull said.

This point is an important one. By now, most people know that texting and driving is dangerous, and that it has caused numerous fatal accidents (although many of those same people still admit to doing it anyway). However, it's a misconception that the "distracted driving" label is all about texting. A distracted driver is any driver whose focus is divided between driving and another task. Distracted drivers might be talking on handheld or hands-free cell phones. They might be eating lunch, or putting on lipstick, or flipping through iPod playlists. Or they might be texting. The crux of the matter is this: when your focus is divided, you are much more likely to cause an accident.

Continue reading "Missouri Highway Patrol Reports Increase in Fatal Car Accidents in 2012" »

In the moment just before an accident occurs, Missouri drivers have to make snap decisions about how to react. The Jasper County personal injury attorneys know all too well that these decisions, made in fractions of seconds, can have a tremendous impact on the outcome of a collision. One common mistake that drivers often make is called overcorrecting, or over-steering in response to an event, which normally results in loss of control of the vehicle. When a driver's right-side tires drop off the road into the shoulder or grass, the instinctive response is to panic and jerk the wheel to the left. Often, this means sending the vehicle directly into oncoming traffic. And even if there isn't another vehicle approaching, overcorrecting frequently causes overturning, or collisions with stationary objects, like trees, light poles, etc. As we've seen recently, that kind of mistake can be a costly one.

Within the last two days, two Missouri drivers were killed in accidents because of overcorrecting. On Christmas Day, a Lebanon woman was killed in Pulaski County crash caused by driver overcorrection. 41 year-old Nancy Feldmeier was traveling north on Missouri Highway 133 when she ran off the right side of the road. She then overcorrected, causing her vehicle to run off the left side of the highway and crash into an embankment. Feldmeier was taken to a hospital, but died a few hours later.

Then, on December 26, another overcorrecting error claimed the life of a Jasper County woman. 21 year-old Chelsey Burgess was killed in a collision on Cedar Road, near Carthage. Burgess was traveling west when her car was struck head on by another vehicle: 47 year-old Janiece Siebert had run off the road, overcorrected, and crossed the center line. Burgess was taken to the hospital by ambulance, but died shortly thereafter. Siebert was hospitalized with moderate injuries, and her infant passenger, Malachi Siebert, suffered minor injuries.

MSN Autos ranks overcorrecting in its Top 10 list of Most Lethal Driving Mistakes, right alongside drinking and driving, distracted driving, and running red lights. And a 2005 study by the Department of Transportation found that overcorrection accounted for 25% of run off the road (ROR) crashes.

Continue reading "Driver Overcorrection to Blame for Two Fatal Missouri Car Accidents Within Two Days" »