Illinois Department Of Transportation Launches 2013 Yellow Dot Program

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Imagine for a minute
that you and your family are involved in a serious car accident. I know this is
a scary thought that people do not like to think about. What if one of your
children has a serious medical condition or allergy that alters the type of medical
treatment he or she can receive. Thanks to the Illinois Department of
Transportation (“IDOT”) and their new yellow dot program, you can
count on the first responders to the auto accident will have to knowledge to
administer the proper medical treatment.

According to a press
release on the IDOT website, they are initiating the yellow dot program
which supplies drivers with a simple,
bright yellow decal for their car and a folder. The decal is placed in a
conspicuous and consistent place – in the lower left-hand corner of the rear
window on the driver’s side. The dot signifies there is a folder in the glove
compartment containing the following medical information about the motorist:
participant’s name, current close-up photo, emergency contact information, patient’s
physician information, medical conditions, recent surgeries, allergies and a
list of current medications. You can read the press release here or visit www.yellowdotillinois.org to become enrolled in the program.   

Many
drivers and their families have pre-existing conditions that require specific
medical treatment when in a trauma situation.  Hopefully this program will
help save lives and prevent serious injuries in already dangerous situations.

Should
you or someone you love become injured in a Chicago auto accident or Chicago truck accident, call Chicago personal injury attorney Aaron Bryant for a free consultation at 312-588-3384 or go to the firm website at www.blgchicago.com. 

Pedestrian Safety Is Main Concern During Halloween

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Years ago (at least when
I was a kid) there always seemed to be a frenzy in the media about the dangers
of tainted Halloween candy. There were reports of poisoned candy and even stories of people
inserting needles into candy. In fact, I remember my parents always checking
our candy before the letting us dig in. The fact is, most of those reports were
false or at the very most, overblown.  

Today, if you talk to
traffic safety experts and police officers, they will all tell you that the
main concern during Halloween is pedestrian safety.  According to an Associated
Press article, the U.S. Department
of Transportation reported that in four out of six years between 2006 and 2010,
more pedestrians under the age of 21 were killed by cars on Oct. 31 than on
Oct. 30 or Nov. 1.  Most cases involved pedestrians hit while crossing
streets or walking along roads; one case resulted in a drunk driving arrest. In
another case, parents were injured along with their child.

The best way to protect your children is to be vigilant and
accompany them while they trick or treat. For those who have kids that are a
little older and want to go out on their own, it is recommended to give their
kids a flashlight or glow stick to carry, or add glow-in-the-dark necklaces or
reflective tape to costumes. Another suggestion would be to stick to an area
you are familiar with or even go somewhere indoors like a shopping mall. 

Have fun with your kids on Halloween but be careful because there
is always a lot of traffic out that night.

If you or someone you love has been injured in a Chicago caraccident or Chicago pedestrian accident, then call Chicago personal injury attorney
Aaron Bryant for a free consultation at 312-588-3384 or go to the firm website
at www.blgchicago.com. 

Federal Law Enforcement Grant To Focus On Texting & Driving

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The Nation Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (“NHTSA”) announced this week that they
are issuing a federal grant in the amount of $550,000 to police departments in Massachusetts
and Connecticut allowing them to crack down on texting and driving. Police
officials throughout the country have discussed how difficult it is to actually
catch someone who is texting and driving. This new grant will pay for officers
whose sole focus will be staking out drivers who are typing on their phones and
driving. The plan is for the officers to patrol in unmarked or undercover
vehicles and place themselves on overpasses. 

Currently it is illegal
to text and drive in 38 states and in 10 states it is illegal to use any type
of hand held device while driving. Although this is a positive step to curbing
the dangers that come from texting and driving, the question remains whether
this will be enough. I would like to know what the typical punishment or fine
that comes along with a texting and driving ticket. As I have written numerous
times in the past: without higher fines and stricter punishment, it will be
hard to convince drivers to change their habits.

If you or someone you
love has been injured in a Chicago auto accident or Chicago truck accident,
then call Chicago personal injury attorney, Aaron Bryant, for a freeconsultation at 312-588-3384 or go to the firm website at www.blgchicago.com. 

Illinois Governor Signs ‘Julie’s Law’ To Prevent And Punish Excessive Speeding

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Last year a Lemont,
Illinois teenager, Julie Gorczynski, was
tragically killed in an auto accident when she was struck by a driver who was
driving 76 mph in a 40 mph zone. That driver was recently sentenced to 6 months
in jail for vehicular manslaughter.

For
obvious reasons, there was an outrage following this accident about punishment
involved for excessive speeding. Before going into the specifics of the new law, it must
be pointed out that 2 years ago Governor Quinn signed a bill into law which
eliminated court supervision for drivers who are convicted of or plead out to
speeding 40 mph over the speed limit. That same law also made a driving 30 mph
over the speed limit a class B misdemeanor. After Julie Gorczynski’s car accident, a new bill was sponsored
and eventually signed into law in July by Governor Quinn. This new law
prohibits judges from granting court supervision to anyone charged with going
30 mph or more over the speed limit on highways and 25 mph over or more in
urban areas.

“This
legislation addresses motorists who are pulled over for driving more than 25
miles over the speed limit in urban areas and more than 30 miles an hour over
on highways,” said bill sponsor, Rep. Sidney Mathias (R-Arlington
Heights). “It is my hope that the more stringent penalties will serve as a
deterrent for motorists who put their lives and the lives of others at risk by
driving too fast.”

It is unfortunate that
a sad case like this young girl’s had to bring about this legislative change,
but hopefully it will make drivers think twice about speeding at excessive
speeds. These are the same types of measures I have been pushing for regarding texting and driving. Why not make texting and driving a Class A misdemeanor if there is a car accident or someone is injured?

If you or someone you
love has been injured in a Chicago car accident or Chicago truck accident, then
call Chicago personal injury attorney Aaron Bryant for a free consultation at
312-588-3384 or go to www.blgchicago.com.  style=”font-size: 12pt; font-family: ‘Times New Roman’, serif; “>

Chicago Launches First Pedestrian Safety Plan

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Per the Chicago
Tribune, the city will be launching its first city-wide pedestrian safety
plan. I have written about this subject numerous times on this site, and about
the effort Rahm Emanuel has taken to make the streets safer for pedestrians.
Earlier the city implemented the controversial speeding cameras located in
school zones. The city also recently installed stop signs at many pedestrian
crossings on busy streets. Last year the city enacted stiffer penalties for
drivers who ignore pedestrian cameras. 

According to the Chicago
Department of Transportation (CDOT), the goal of this initiative is to improve safety for children and seniors
around schools and parks, improving access to transit, safer
crossings at intersections and increasing space for pedestrians.

The hundreds of
recommendations include better-marked crosswalks, the establishment of
pedestrian islands in the middle of multilane streets, better signals and beacons,
and pedestrian countdown timers at crossings. Other long-term improvements
discussed in the plan include staggered midblock bump-outs on residential
streets to slow traffic.

Continental-style
crosswalks were among the first changes, CDOT Commissioner Gabe Klein said,
largely because the department began to weave in the new pedestrian plan in time for
already-scheduled construction projects.

The crosswalks have big
rungs across the walkway for higher visibility and are made of a reflective
material, Klein said. More than 100 such crosswalks were installed in 2012,
Klein said.

Pavement markings — on
crosswalks and stop lines for vehicles — are faded across Chicago,
and Klein said millions would be spent this year repainting such markings so
they are visible to drivers, pedestrians and bicyclists.

The overall goal by the
city is to decrease the number of pedestrian deaths to zero within ten years.
This is a lofty goal, but I take my hat off to Mayor Emanuel and to the city
for taking these initial steps to make our streets safer for pedestrians. 

If you or someone you
love has been injured in a Chicago car accident or Chicago pedestrian accident,
then call Chicago personal injury attorney, Aaron Bryant, for a free consultation at 312-588-3384 or go to the firm website at www.blgchicago.com. 

All State Releases List Of Cities With The Best Drivers

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All State recently
published its annual report of the cities with the best drivers, which can be
seen here.  The report, based on Allstate claims data, ranks
America’s 200 largest cities in terms of car collision frequency to identify
which cities have the safest drivers. Sioux Falls South Dakota was ranked the
number 1 safest city for drivers. Unfortunately, Chicago ranked number 152 out
of 200. The report noted that drivers in Chicago are 25.9% more likely to
be involved in a car accidents compared to other cities and drivers average 7.9
years in between vehicle collisions. 

All
State also provided in their report some helpful advice on ways to avoid car accidents for drivers in big cities like Chicago:

1.         Allow plenty of time to reach your destination;

2.         Know what is going on in the city during the time you
are driving;

3.         Stay Alert (for pedestrians, emergency vehicles,
delivery trucks, taxis buses etc…) and; 

4.         Get directions to where you are going.

If you
or someone you know has been involved in a Chicago car crash or Chicago truck accident, then call Chicago personal injury attorney Aaron Bryant for a free
consultation at 312-588-3384 or go to the firm website at
www.blgchicago.com.

Train Industry Acknowledges Serious Design Flaw In Specific Rail Car

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Business Week published an interesting article last week
about a specific rail car that transports thousands of gallons of ethanol every
year across the United States. If there is a train crash, the thin exterior of
this type of rail car is almost guaranteed to sever and leak fuel which and
lead to fires and explosions that will pretty much destroy all of the shipped products in the car. That is why it is important for a company to know exactly what they sent out by using a supply chain management just in case of emergencies like this.

The railroad industry
has vowed to manufacture and use a new rail car that has a stronger shell,
which will help prevent leaking in case of an accident. Regardless, the train
industry has pushed back requesting lawmakers not require them to modify the current
design of existing rail cars. The first question that needs to be asked about
this resistance, is why? The short answer is money. There are apparently 30,000 to 45,000 of these types of tankers out there today. The article reports that
the railroad industry has known about this design flaw since 1991, yet have
done nothing about it until 2011. Despite knowing about this design flaw, there
have been 40 serious train accidents since 2000, which has caused 2 deaths and
multiple injuries. 

The National Traffic
Safety Board has asked for the higher standards to be applied to all tankers,
meaning existing cars would have to be retrofitted or phased out.

The industry’s
proposal “ignores the safety risks posed by the current fleet,” the
NTSB said in a report on safety recommendations, adding that those cars
“can almost always be expected to breach in derailments that involve
pileups or multiple car-to-car impacts.”

The federal Pipeline
and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, part of the U.S. Department of
Transportation, is considering both arguments, but the regulatory process is
slow and could take several years, experts said.

If there is another
crash involving these existing faulty rail cars and people are injured (or even
killed), then the rail road company will be on the hook for those injuries. Why
not bite the bullet now and start removing these existing cars from their
fleets as soon as possible. It could save lives and their company’s money in
the long run.

If you or someone you
love has been injured in a Chicago car accident or Chicago train accident, then
call Chicago injury lawyer, Aaron Bryant, for a free consultation at
312-588-3384 or go to the firm website at www.blgchicago.com. 

AT&T Chief Executive Speaks Out Against Texting & Driving

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Unless you are living
under a rock, it would be hard to miss out on all of the anti texting and
driving campaigning that has been going on. There have been multiple public
service announcements on TV, multiple articles (and blogs) written and most
states (39 total) have outlawed the practice. Recently, and I think
importantly, the heads of the major telecommunications companies have been
speaking out. Specifically, Randall Stephenson, the CEO of AT&T discussed
the subject at the outset of a speech in front of investors at a conference on
the state of the telecommunications business.

The New York
Times reported that Stephenson began his speech before hundreds of
people by stating that there must be a change regarding the use of phones in
cars. “the Smartphone is a product we sell
and it’s being used inappropriately. We have got to drive behavior.”  He
went on to state that since he has gone public on this issue he has had to curb
his own practice of using the phone in the car. “When I went public, I
told my wife: ‘You know what this means? I can no longer touch this iPhone or BlackBerry in the car.’ ” He puts his
devices in a cup holder and silences them. “It was a habit I had to break.”

This is
a small step but still meaningful. It must be pointed out the AT&T and
other cell phone companies only recently stopped their lobby against the
curbing of cell phone use in cars.  This was a significant move on these
companies part, but real progress will take place when they actually put their
money where their mouth is and join the lobby towards approving cell phone and
driving laws.

If you
or someone you love has been injured in a Chicago car accident or Chicago truckaccident, then call Chicago personal injury attorney, Aaron Bryant, for a freeconsultation at 312-588-3384 or go to the firm website at www.blgchicago.com. style=”font-size: 12pt; font-family: ‘Times New Roman’, serif; “>

NY Times Video On Distracted Driving Points Out Dangers Of Texting & Driving

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If you click here you can view a video on the New York Times website regarding the dangers of texting and driving. The video clip points out all of the statistical dangers of using your phone while driving. For example, studies have shown that talking on your phone while driving is so distracting that it is the equivalent of having a blood alcohol content of .08, which is legally drunk for driving.

I have written on this subject and discussed multiple studies in the past on this blog. The reason I am posting this video is due to all the people interviewed in the clip. Many of the people all admit to using their phone (talking and texting) while driving. People know it is dangerous – – they see others being distracted by it – – yet they continue to do it. It is kind of funny because the only person interviewed who admitted to switching to a blue tooth for his ear stated that he switched over because he had received 5 tickets for using his phone while driving. I find this amusing because I have argued over and over that the only way to convince people to stop texting in driving is to increase the penalties. Raise the fines, require safety classes and if someone is injured in a crash, then suspend the license and threaten jail time. I am convinced that this is the only way to convince people to stop texting and driving.
If you or someone your love has been injured in a Chicago car crash or Chicago truck accident, then call Chicago personal injury attorney, Aaron Bryant, for a free consultation at 312-588-3384 or go to the firm website at www.blgchicago.com.  

New Online System Allows Tracking Of 311 Calls In Chicago

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In 2007 a giant concrete chunk fell
from a viaduct in Chicago landing on a pregnant woman’s windshield causing her
injuries. The lawsuit, which was recently settled by the city for $450,000,
alleged that the city new about the condition five months prior based on a 311 call
from a man who complained that a concrete block had fallen on his car from the
same location.

As a result, the Chicago
Sun-Times reports that the city has implemented a new online tracking
system that residents can use to follow the results of their 311 calls. The
so-called, “service tracker” feature will allow people who call 311 for 14 of
the most requested city services to track their service requests from the time
they are submitted and receive an email when the issue is resolved.

Nearly 40 percent of the most requested service calls
fielded by the 311 non-emergency system are duplicates or follow-up calls from
Chicagoans checking on the status of their requests.

By giving people a tracking number that allows them to chart
the progress of their requests online, call volumes and waiting times should be
reduced.

“Allowing Chicagoans to track and submit service requests in
real-time brings an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability to
city government,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel stated in a press release. Emanuel’s
transition report called for an “Open 311” system to provide an “easy and
transparent way” for Chicagoans to submit and monitor their service requests on
the Internet.

The service-tracker technology was developed by Chief
Technology Officer John Tolva and Innovation and Technology Commissioner Brett
Goldstein in partnership with Code for America. The program is being funded, in
part, by a $300,000 grant from the Chicago Community Trust’s so-called “Smart
Chicago Collaborative.”

Chicago is one of eight cities chosen to participate in Code
for America’s national fellowship program and the only city in the country to
include a service tracker in its open 311 system.

I love this new system for multiple reasons. First, I think
it will make our city safer by helping prevent accidents that happened to the
pregnant woman in 2007. Second, transparency in government is always important
as residents want to know what is being done to correct issues and also keep
transparent where tax dollars are being spent. Hopefully this new system will
help our city government be more efficient while also protecting people from
dangerous situations.

If you or someone you love has been seriously injured in a
Chicago car accident or a Chicago premises accident, then call Chicago personalinjury lawyer, Aaron Bryant, for a free consultation at 312-588-3384 or go to
the firm website at www.blgchicago.com.