Maryland Courts and Judicial Proceedings Code Ann. §10-1101 to §10-1105 (2011) outline the new requirements for a Maryland accident lawyer or individual injured in an accident to obtain information about the maximum amount an insurance company may be required to pay to satisfy all or part of a claim.

After written documentation is provided about the circumstances surrounding a Maryland accident and the injuries sustained, an insurance company must fully disclose the extent of the insurance policy limits within 30 days so long as the claim involves a death or injuries that resulted in at least $12,500 in bills or lost wages.

According to the requirements of the statute, the lawyer or claimant must provide written documentation including the date of the accident, the name and last known address of the driver or tortfeasore, a copy of any accident report, the insurance company’s claim number, lost wage documentation, medical bills and copies of medical records for injuries caused by the accident. If the accident resulted in death, a copy of the death certificate, letters of administration for the estate and the name and relationship of each beneficiary of the deceased must also be provided.

Previously, a lawyer or claimant was only able to Maryland accident insurance policy limits information once a lawsuit was filed. However, obtaining this information prior to a complaint being filed may provide valuable information to assist individuals injured from an automobile accident in Maryland when deciding how to proceed with their claim and whether to accept a settlement offer.

In a study published online in the August edition of the journal Accident Analysis and Prevention, researchers found that pedestrians using mobile devices tend to distract them from their surroundings, making them 2 to 5 times more likely to get hit while crossing the street.

Most surprising to researchers was the fact that listening to music was the most distracting activity while crossing the street, with those listening to portable music devices having a 33 percent risk of getting hit by a car when crossing a two-lane road. Talking on the cell phone while crossing the street resulted in a 12% chance of being hit, and there was a 25% chance of being run over for pedestrians who texted while crossing the street. There was only a 6% chance of being struck by a car for those who were not using any electronic devices.

The study was conducted by the Youth Safety Laboratory at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in a virtual environment lab using 125 college students. Researchers said the outcomes showed a stark difference from what caused drivers to be most distracted. Listening to music isn’t considered a major distraction when behind the wheel, but apparently pedestrians rely far more heavily on their ears when crossing the street, they said.

August often sees a spike in auto accident deaths in Maryland, many of which occur at night, making it the deadliest month of the year. Police agencies across the state will use a battery of measures to increase road safety until the last major weekend of the summer.

One area of intense focus by the state police has been the Capitol beltway, which has been the target of an initiative known as Operation Centipede. On the night of August 5 and early morning August 6, state troopers stopped 195 vehicles, issued 91 speeding tickets, 66 tickets for other violations, and arrested 11 people with driving on suspended or revoked licenses.

Other law enforcement agencies across the state will be increasing the number of officers performing road patrols, and state troopers will begin aggressively enforcing HOV lane restrictions.

State police officials say their goal is to target the drivers who represent the most danger to fellow motorists, including speeders, drunk drivers and overly aggressive drivers. Their goal is to achieve a zero fatality August on Maryland roads.

Photo Courtesy of MikeSchinkel via Flickr CC2.0

The study, conducted by the Governors’ Highway Safety Association (GHSA), found that 15 to 30% of all crashes included reports that the driver was distracted. While true numbers are hard to ascertain, the study determined that cell phone use and typing text messages are likely large contributors to those numbers.

Distracted driving occurs when a driver voluntarily takes his or her attention off of the road. It could involve looking down to read a text message, trying to put on make-up using a rear-view mirror, trying to fit a cup of coffee in a cup holder or even a cognitive distraction, like thinking about a big project at work.

Most of those distractions are hard to measure, but the study was able to come up with some data on electronic device use that is troubling. According to the researchers, drivers are distracted from one-quarter to one-half the time they are on the road. One out of every three drivers regularly uses a cell phone while driving and one-eighth of all drivers admit to having been texting while driving.

Maryland is one of 34 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have texting bans in place, and researchers are encouraging more states to follow suit. However, the bans are difficult to enforce and there is no conclusive evidence yet that the bans reduce the number of crashes.

The Click It or Ticket campaign, coordinated by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will run through June 5, 2011. This year, it will be focused heavily on increasing seat belt use among men ages 18 to 34, which is one of the groups least likely to wear seat belts.

The NHTSA reports that in 2009, 53% of the 23,383 killed in auto accidents were not wearing a seat belt at the time of the crash. Among men ages 18 to 34, 66% of those killed in 2009 auto accidents were not wearing seat belts. The highest percentage of fatalities involving vehicle occupants not using seat belts was among 13 to 15 year olds of both genders.

Researchers also identified pick up truck drivers and passengers as another area of concern. They found that 68% of passengers and drivers in pick up trucks who died in accidents in 2009 were not buckled up.

Nationwide, seatbelt use has increased from 2009 to 2010, from 84% to 85%, according to the NHTSA. In an effort to continue this trend, the agency is pushing for more states to adopt primary seat belt laws that allow police to pull over and issue citations for drivers for not wearing a restraint in a motor vehicle. The NHTSA reports that in states that have primary seat belt laws, compliance is 89%.

Currently, 31 states have primary seat belt laws. In states with only secondary enforcement laws, where police have to have another reason to pull a motorist over before issuing a citation for not wearing a seat belt, compliance was only 76% and actually decreased from 77% in 2009.

According to a report released last year, Maryland is among the top 10 states for seatbelt use. Maryland drivers had a seatbelt compliance rate of 89.6% in 2008, which is nearly 5% higher than the national average.

Regina Cabrales, the daughter of Raymond Veloz, 70, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court, saying that Araceil Beas, who struck Veloz on December 7, was texting an update to the popular social media website at the time of the accident. Veloz had got out of his car after being in a minor accident when Beas struck him shortly before 8 a.m. Veloz’s leg was partially severed and he bled to death, the lawsuit claims.

Beas told police that she had been momentarily blinded by the sun; however the lawsuit claims that Beas’ Facebook page shows that she updated it by mobile phone at the same time that Veloz was standing outside of his car making an emergency 911 phone call, according to a Chicago Tribune story.

According to researchers at the National Safety Counsel (NSC) there are approximately 1.6 million accidents every year related to the use of mobile technology, with 1.4 million due to cell phones and 200,000 crashes caused by text messaging. Another study by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed that texting could increase the chances of having a traffic accident by a factor of 8.

Unlike this case, where the plaintiffs allege that they are able to establish that the defendant was updating her Facebook page at the time of the accident based on the 911-call that the victim was making at the time of the crash, pinpointing the exact moment of the accident is not possible in most instances. Therefore, it is likely that the true number of auto accidents from mobile phone use is substantially higher.

A growing number of states are passing laws that are outlawing the sending of text messages and the use of hand-held cell phones while driving. Maryland outlawed text messaging in October of 2009, and made the use of hand-held cell phones while in control of a motor vehicle a secondary traffic offense last year.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) analyzed motor vehicle death statistics for 2003 through 2007.

According to a report released last month, 7% of all American Indian/Alaska Natives (AI/AN) deaths were attributed to automobile accidents, followed by 5% of all Hispanic deaths being related to a crash. By comparison, less than 2% of all deaths among blacks and whites were caused by car accidents.

The CDC found a direct correlation between the involvement of alcohol among the minority groups and the rate of fatalities, AI/ANs were most likely to be involved in a fatal accident that involved alcohol use, followed by Hispanics, with blacks and whites trailing behind. Almost half of all auto accidents that resulted in the death of an AI/AN involved alcohol impairment.

In addition to drinking, the CDC found that seatbelt use, which is already lower among young drivers, seemed to correlate with the death rates. Looking at high-school students, the CDC determined that AI/ANs had the highest rate of nonseatbelt use at 13.6%, followed by blacks at 11.7%, whites at 9.5%, Hispanics at 8.8% and Asians at 7%.

The CDC urged the enactment of more primary seat belt laws that would allow police to pull over and ticket drivers and passengers for nonseatbelt use across the country, and stricter enforcement of those laws where they already exist. The 19 states that have primary seat belt laws have a higher compliance than states without. The researchers also encouraged more education of child seatbelt use, particularly among minorities, and increased use of sobriety checkpoints, drinking age laws and blood alcohol concentration laws.

The study, released this month by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) found that Baltimore red light accidents that resulted in a death dropped 14% after traffic cameras were installed in some intersections. Nationwide, cities with red light cameras had a 35% drop in red light running fatalities. Overall, the IIHS believes that the cameras reduced all red light auto accidents at intersections with signals by 14%.

Red light cameras automatically take a photo of a vehicle’s license plate when it crosses an intersection while the light is red. The owner of the vehicle is then ticketed for running a red light. Because it is impossible to tell who was driving the vehicle at the time, the ticket is only monetary, and no points are assessed against a driver.

The IIHS study compared the rate of fatalities at intersections in 14 major cities that deployed red light cameras from 2004-2008 with the rate of fatalities in those same cities from 1992-1996; before the cameras were available. The IIHS estimates that the cameras saved 83 lives that would have been lost in fatal accidents involving someone running a red light, and 159 lives due to an overall reduction in fatal auto accidents at intersections.

The Maryland accident reductions in Baltimore were modest compared to other major cities. In the period of 1992-1996 there were 14 fatal accidents caused by someone running a red light, and from 2004 through 2008 there were 11. In overall accidents at intersections with traffic signals, Baltimore actually saw a 50% increase in fatalities.

The numbers are not without some controversy, however. Opponents of red light cameras say the IIHS numbers are flawed because they never distinguished between which intersections in the cities they studied had the cameras and which did not; meaning that it is unclear if the intersections that actually used the cameras saw crash reductions.

Maryland had a seatbelt compliance rate of 89.6% in 2008, according to the latest report on seatbelt use by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That is nearly 5% higher than the national average of 85%.

According to the CDC, a large part of that may be attributable to the Maryland’s primary seatbelt enforcement laws, which allow police to pull over vehicles for carrying unbelted occupants.

The study found that overall, states with primary seatbelt laws performed better, with more people buckling up, as compared to states with secondary seatbelt laws.

Police are prohibited from stopping a vehicle for a secondary violation, but can issue a citation if they notice a secondary violation in a vehicle that was pulled over for another reason.

The top ten states for seatbelt compliance all had primary seatbelt laws. Oregon had the best rate of compliance with 93.7% of its population wearing seatbelts. This was followed closely by California, which had a 93.2% compliance rate. Maryland came in 9th. The state with the worst seatbelt compliance was North Dakota, where only 59.2% of the population regularly wears a seatbelt.

The CDC noted that it is now the social norm in the U.S. for vehicle occupants to wear their seatbelts. By comparison, in 1982 only 11% of the populace buckled up.

The increased use of seat belts have likely contributed in continuing declines Maryland auto accident injuries, as the CDC has determined that seatbelt use reduces the likelihood of a serious injury in a car accident by about 50%.

There is still room for improvement. The U.S. lags behind a number of European countries in seatbelt use. In France, 98% of occupants buckle up. Sweden, Germany, Norway, the Netherlands and the U.K. all report nationwide compliance above 90%. All of those countries have primary seatbelt laws.

Every motor vehicle registered in Maryland is now required to carry a minimum of $30,000 coverage for each claimant and a $60,000 combined total for any one accident or incident. This not only protects motorists in the event that they cause an accident that result in a personal injury or wrongful death to another person, but also ensures that individuals injured in Maryland motor vehicles have additional coverage through uninsured motorist coverage in the event the accident was caused by a vehicle that does not have insurance.

The legislation was approved in March 2010, rising the minimum Maryland auto insurance requirements for the first time since 1972, despite dramatic increases in the average costs of medical care for personal injuries from Maryland accidents over the past thirty years.

While $30,000 of insurance coverage will still be insufficient compensation for a large number of Maryland accident injuries, raising the floor from 20/40 to 30/60 is a step in the right direction. In addition, motorists can (and should) purchase higher insurance for Maryland cars to protect themselves, their riders and household family members in the event they are involved in an accident with a vehicle that only has minimal limits.