Arialdi M. Miniño, a statistician at the U.S. Centers for Disease, Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics, compiled a report that broke down the causes of death for teens from 1999 through 2006. The report was released by CDC last month.

Miniño found that an average of 16,375 teenagers from ages 12 through 19 die each year, on average, nearly half of them from accidents. Two-thirds of those accidental deaths, 35% of the total teen deaths, occurred due to a car crash. The next highest ranking cause of death was homicide.

Fortunately, teen deaths account for only about 1% of fatalities nationwide each year. The numbers indicate that older teen males are three times more likely to die than older teen females, and older teens overall are at a higher risk of death than younger ones.

“Starting at age 12 and ending at 19 years, the death rate among teenage males increases 32 percent on average for every additional year of age,” Miniño found. “For females, on the other hand, the death rate increases on average 19.5 percent for every additional year of age.”

In my experience as a Maryland car accident lawyer, the problem may be compounded by the fact that serious car crashes involving teens often involve a number of people in the same vehicle. The reckless actions of a teen driver can not only pose a risk to their own health, but also may cause personal injury or death for other occupants of the vehicle or for those in other cars on the road.

In the March/April issue of the American Journal of Occupational Therapy, researchers from the University of Florida looked at crash data from 5,345 older drivers collected by the 2005 Florida Traffic Crash Records Database. Failure to maintain a lane of travel, yielding and estimating when to cross over lanes of traffic were the most likely causes of auto accident injuries among elderly drivers. Researchers also found that female drivers were more likely to be injured in auto accidents than older male drivers (44% compared to 29%), but the likelihood of either gender being involved in an accident was about the same.

While car accidents caused by errors in judgment, such as staying in their lane, crossing lanes and estimating room between cars resulted in injuries 50% of the time, speed management, distractions and vehicle positioning errors also frequently caused elderly drivers to be hurt in crashes.

A press release from the American Occupational Therapy Association, Inc. (AOTA), said that the study’s results point to a need for injury prevention strategies specifically targeted at older drivers. The AOTA statement indicates that occupational therapists could help identify elderly drivers with judgment problems who were more likely to be injured in car accidents, and said that age-related conditions and judgment errors should be more of a focus on accident prevention than simply the age of the drivers.

The legislation, House Bill 825, increases the minimum required insurance for cars in Maryland from $20,000 to $30,000 for any single person and from $40,000 to $60,000 for the combined total for any one accident.

Motorists can (and should) purchase higher insurance for Maryland cars to protect themselves and ensure that they have more coverage in the event they are involved in an accident with a vehicle that only has minimal limits. However, many vehicles only carry the minimum required coverage, leaving many Maryland personal injury victims without adequate insurance coverage for their injuries.

Automobile insurance coverage not only protects motorists in the event that they cause an accident that results in a personal injury or wrongful death to another person, but it also provides coverage for their own injuries in the event that they are involved in an accident caused by an uninsured motorist of underinsured motorist.

While it is the opinion of our Maryland accident lawyers that the minimum insurance coverage in Maryland should be even higher, raising the floor from $20,000/$40,000 to $30,000/$60,000 would be a step in the right direction. The minimum insurance for Maryland automobiles has not been increased since 1972, while the cost of medical care associated with auto accident injuries has dramatically increased over the past three decades.

The House is scheduled for a final vote on this legislation tomorrow morning, so take this opportunity to email or call your elected official to show your support for this legislation.

A new Maryland traffic law will go into effect tomorrow, banning text messaging while driving in an effort to reduce the number of Maryland accidents caused by distracted drivers.

The new law will make it illegal to type or send text messages while operating a motor vehicle. Being caught texting while driving in Maryland will be a misdemeanor, subject to a fine of up to $500. It will also be a primary driving offense, meaning that police will be able to pull people over and fine them if they suspect them of sending text messages.

Going into effect October 1, 2009, the new Maryland law allows sending messages to contact 911, and does not ban talking on the phone while driving. Playing games and using applications are not banned by the law either, and the law does not explicitly address e-mail, using twitter or updating Facebook, but their legality is up for interpretation and engaging in such activities likely carries the same distractions as text messaging.

The law is seen as a victory for the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, which seeks to have texting-while-driving bans in all 50 states by 2013. The law goes into effect just before AAA’s “Heads Up Driving Week.” from October 5 through October 11, which is designed to bring attention to driving behavior and encouraging distraction-free driving.

A recent study by Virginia Tech has found that truck accidents are 23 times more likely when a commercial driver is sending text messages while driving. The Virginia Tech Transportation Institute looked at a number of different potential distractions for drivers of cars and trucks by adding cameras and instruments to the vehicles of drivers. Above any other distraction, text messaging truck drivers were putting themselves and others at the most risk.

The results were compiled from several driving studies conducted by the institute, and the collected data equaled about six million miles of driving. Heavy vehicle and truck drivers were 23.2 times more likely than a non-distracted driver to have a truck accident if they were texting, 6.7 times as likely to crash while reaching for, or using, an electronic device, and 5.9 times as likely to have an accident while dialing on a cell phone.

Drivers of light vehicles and cars were at much less risk of having a car accident, but still faced a 2.8 times greater risk of crashing while dialing a cell phone than a non-distracted driver and were 1.4 times more likely to crash while reaching for an object and 1.3 times as likely to have an auto accident while talking on the cell phone.

Researchers from the institute said that it was the tasks that drew the drivers’ eyes away from the road ahead of them that were the activities with the highest risk. Sending a text message took a driver’s eyes off the road for 4.6 seconds over a 6-second interval, which equates to driving the length of a football field at 55 mph without looking at the road. The study found that just talking on a cell phone, which does not distract a driver’s eyes from the road, made little difference in the likelihood of an accident.

The NHTSA will coordinate with law enforcement agencies across the country to conduct high-profile police enforcement against alcohol-impaired drivers as part of a campaign called “Drunk Driving. Over the Limit. Under Arrest.” The NHTSA will also conduct $13 million in advertising and public awareness announcing the crackdown and will work with various anti-drinking and driving community activist groups.

The campaign’s ubiquitous commercials are a familiar site to most television watchers, featuring police officers stopping cars filled with alcohol-looking liquid, complete with floating cherries, suds and ice cubes.

The NHTSA estimates that in 2007, 12,998 people died as a result of alcohol-impaired traffic accidents where at least one driver had a blood alcohol content level of .08 or higher, which is illegal in all states. In 2008 that number fell to 11,773, a nearly 10% drop, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Maryland drunk driving accidents dropped 15% drop from 2007 to 2008.

More Information: CDC Notice about National Labor Day Drunk Driving Enforcement Crackdown

The complaint was filed against Candy Lynn Baldwin, the 19-year old woman who was driving the 1997 Chevrolet Camaro that caused the accident. However, the Baltimore Sun also reports that the family has placed the Maryland Transportation Authority on notice of their intention to file a claim under the Maryland Tort Claims Act for the failure of the bridge to prevent the truck from falling off of the bridge, as an investigation found that the metal bars holding the concrete barriers had eroded prior to the crash.

The Maryland truck accident lawsuit was filed in Queen Anne’s County Circuit Court. According to the Sun:

The suit states that Short swerved to avoid a head-on collision but was sideswiped by the Camaro and slid across the bridge and through the concrete barrier. The tractor trailer fell about 30 feet into the Chesapeake Bay, and Short drowned in the cab of his vehicle.

Short’s truck was the first vehicle to crash through one of the safety barriers in the 56-year history of the bridge.

Automobile accidents are the leading cause of death for young adults and teenagers. According to data collected by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the risk of a car crash for teen drivers between 16 and 19 is four times greater than for older drivers.

Maryland teen drivers may soon be required to wait longer to obtain a driver’s license and further restrictions could be placed on their ability to drive at night. The new bills propose raising the teenagers to get a learner’s permit to 16 years old (it is currently 15 years, 9 months) and require that they wait until they are 16 years, 6 months before they obtain a restricted provisional driver’s license. They would not be permitted to get a full license until their 18th birthday.

The law would also require that teenage drivers in Maryland have their cars off the road before 11 p.m., as opposed to the midnight deadline for driving that is currently in place. The penalties for breaking these rules would also be stiffened.

If these bills are passed and enacted as law, hopefully have a positive impact on the safety of our roads and reduce the number of people who will need the services of our Maryland accident attorneys.

Investigators are looking into a report that a cell phone text message was sent by the commuter train engineer minutes before the accident. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is examining the cell phone records of the engineer and of a teenager who claims to have received the message. The engineer was killed in the accident and his phone was destroyed.

Earlier this year, the Maryland legislator rejected a bill that would have banned text messaging while driving in Maryland. The law was designed to reduce the risk of Maryland auto accidents caused by distracted drivers. Similar bans are in place in Washington State, New Jersey and Phoenix.

The Maryland legislation did not pass, as law makers indicated that text messaging does not involve a distraction of a unique nature and therefore does not necessitate a ban. In their opinion, the distractions caused by text messaging is similar to that caused while talking to people in the care, speaking on a cell phone or changing the radio.