Florida Injury Lawyer Blog
Our veteran personal injury lawyers and wrongful death attorneys throughout Southwest Florida were heartened to learn Florida is adopting the Safe-System Approach to improving traffic safety. We were also struck by how each element of the approach highlights the complex nature of car accident claims here in the Lee, Collier and Charlotte county area.
The five focal points of the Safe-System Approach are safe vehicles, safe speeds, safe roads, safe road users and post-crash care. WUSF reported via NPR that the Center for Urban Transportation Research at USF says safety advocates hope for results similar to those in Spain and Sweden, where traffic deaths have declined by 50 percent in the course of a generation. The main thrust of the approach is that death or serious injury is unacceptable.
An admirable aim and one which we fully support. But as it stands now those same elements are often critical factors in your car accident claim:
- Safe Vehicles: This includes a wide number of factors, including whether the collision was in some way caused by negligent vehicle maintenance, such as bad brakes or bald tires. But it can also extend into defective vehicle claims for things like faulty airbags and seat belts. Without a veteran car accident law firm, such factors often go unidentified.
- Safe Speeds: If there is anything we have talked about over nearly 20 years of articles here at Florida Injury Lawyer Blog, it’s that the vast majority of collisions are caused by one or more dangerous and negligent driver behaviors, including distracted driving, aggressive driving, particularly speeding.
- Safe Roads: Unsafe conditions on public streets, or on streets located inside planned communities, can cause or contribute to a collision. This can include missing street signs, lack of pedestrian infrastructure, and overgrown vegetation that causes obstructed views.
- Safe Road Users: Driver behavior is so important that it is listed twice. In addition to speed and unsafe driving behaviors, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs is responsible for about one-third of all motor-vehicle-related deaths each year.
- Post Crash Care: During our more than half a century of advocating for the rights of accident victims and their families, this is an area where our car accident attorneys have spent significant focus. This includes not only careful review of medical care, but advocacy for all of the benefits to which a victim and family are entitled during the rehabilitation and recovery period that so often follows a serious or fatal traffic collision.
We applaud this comprehensive approach to reducing the risks of traffic collisions for everyone. We know it works because it’s how we have approached fighting for the rights of injury victims and their families for more than five decades. By focusing on shared responsibility and a proactive approach to traffic safety, we can all reduce the chances of becoming another Southwest Florida traffic statistic.
If you or a loved one is injured, call Associates and Bruce L. Scheiner, Attorneys for the Injured, at 1-800-646-1210.
