Persons in the Houston, Texas area who choose to use the cell phone while driving very likely do so depending on the importance of the person who’s making the call.  According to the results of a telephone survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, persons are also much more likely to receive a cell phone call while they are driving if it is an important communication.

Persons are also more likely to answer a phone call if it is from the office, or is related to work in some way, or if it is an important social call.  However, drivers don’t seem to factor in the traffic safety risks that are created when they decide to use a cell phone while driving.

Texas currently does not have a state law that bans cell phone use while driving or texting while driving for all motorists.  The study shows that even if the state had a law like this, it would probably make little difference to motorists anyway.  Most of the respondents in the survey said that their state’s laws against cell phone use or texting while driving made no difference to their decision to use a cell phone behind the wheel.

Very few respondents or just 9% percent said that they bothered to pull over after answering a cell phone.  About 66% continued driving while having a conversation o the cell phone.

This indicates to Houston car accident lawyers that motorists need to exercise greater restraint and responsibility in their driving practices.

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Repetitive stress injuries are caused when one particular part of the body or a specific group of muscles is placed under excessive stress and strain.  When a worker uses this part of the body over and over again, he’s likely to suffer symptoms that range from swelling and inflammation, to chronic pain and stiffness.

One of the common repetitive stress injuries that I come across as a Cloverleaf work injury lawyer is carpal tunnel syndrome, which results from the repetitive use of the wrist muscles.  These can be some of the most debilitating hand injuries.

Workers who use hand tools, like woodworkers and carpenters may be at an especially high risk of carpal tunnel syndrome.  Persons who are involved in assembly line work are at particular risk.  Additionally, persons working in the meat and poultry industries, and fish packing industries, may have a higher chance of developing carpal tunnel syndrome.

Symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome include chronic burning or itching in the hand and fingers.  A person may suffer swelling in the fingers, especially in the index and middle fingers.  Numbness can set in when the person is sleeping at night, and the person may wake up with stiffness in his wrist and hand.  There may be tingling even during the daytime.  Over a period of time, grip strength can reduce, and the worker may find it difficult to hold an object, and perform manual activities.

If you have suffered repetitive stress injuries in the workplace, consult with an experienced Cloverleaf work injury lawyer at our farm.

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Britax Child Safety is recalling more than 14,000 infant car seats because of a possible risk of harness failure that could expose a child to the injury hazards in an accident.  About 14,220 infant car seats are included in the recall which has been announced by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

According to the company, the recall is linked to a potential defect in the harness adjuster, which can cause the harness to fail to restrain the child.  This could cause the harness to become detached from the seat, rendering the straps unable to restrain the child.  The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says that there are no reports of any injuries related to this defect.

The models that are included in this recall include the  E9L692J,  E9L692K, E9L692L, and E9L692M.

The car seats were manufactured between September 2010 and April 2011.  The company is asking consumers to stop using the car seats immediately, and contact the company for a remedy kit.  The remedy kit will ensure that the harness is attached securely.

Automobile accidents are the number one cause of death for children below the age of 5 in the United States.  As a parent and a Pasadena personal injury lawyer, I would advise Pasadena parents who own Britax car seats to check if their seats are included in the recall.  If your car seat has been recalled by Britax, contact the company at 888- 427-4290 to learn how you can procure a remedy kit.  You can also visit the company online at www.britaxUSA.com for more information about the recall.

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At least 2 workers are reported to have been seriously injured in an electrical accident at a biomass power plant in East Texas.  The accident occurred at the facility operated by Minnesota-based Fagen Inc.  The facility is located in Sacul, about 155 miles northeast of Houston.

According to representatives of the Nacogdoches County Sheriff’s Department, the accident involved an electrical explosion.  No further details are available.  The 2 workers sustained serious injuries, and remain in a critical condition.  They are likely to be soon transferred to the burn unit at the Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.

There are no further details about the injuries that these workers have suffered.  However, as a Jacinto City workplace injury lawyer, I often find that electrical explosions occur when workers are working in a high-current electrical field.  The typical injuries that result from electric explosions include spinal cord injuries, and fractures.  Often, there is damage to internal organs, and tissue injuries. Often, electrical explosions leave a person with few external signs of injury, but there may be severe internal damage.

Additionally, a worker who has been involved in an accident like this is likely to suffer from long-term psychological trauma or symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.  Most of these injuries are the result of inadequate training, lack of supervision of workers, and shoddy setup of circuits.

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It might seem like something out of a futuristic crime thriller, but auto safety experts are warning that hackers could infiltrate gadgetry in automobiles, and use these to infiltrate safety gadgets.

Many cars now come with voice -activated GPS systems that drivers can use to ask for directions, and voice-activated communications systems to listen to phone calls and have messages read out.  The same cars also have a number of electronic safety technology designed to prevent accidents.  However, experts are now warning that hackers could manipulate safety technology in automobiles via entertainment gadgets.

According to the President of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, there’s definitely a risk that something like this could happen.  While automakers have been filling their cars with a lot of high-tech gadgets, they are leaving a lot of holes open for hackers to infiltrate.  Automobiles have different entertainment and safety technologies, but manufacturers have not really bothered to make the technologies fool proof or hack-proof.

Last week at a conference in Washington, experts said that they did not envision a scenario where a hacker could infiltrate an automobile’s safety technologies, and crash the car.  However, the scientists have found several vulnerabilities in systems that link cars and communication devices.  In one experiment, the researchers were able to infiltrate the car’s music system, and use it to access safety technologies.

As a Deer Park personal injury lawyer, I am even more concerned about these risks because I believe the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration lacks the expertise necessary to deal effectively with any problems involving electronics in cars.

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Pedestrians and bicyclists in the state of Texas may be at a much higher risk for accidents than elsewhere in the country.  A new report compares all 50 states and 51 of the biggest cities in the US, and ranks them on the basis of bicycling and walking levels.  The researchers focused not just on the frequency of bicycling and walking in the cities and states, but also the safety of pedestrians and bicyclists, gauged by the number of accidents and fatalities involving bicyclists and pedestrians.

Texas was ranked at the bottom of the list of states for bicycle and pedestrian-friendly conditions.  The state ranked at number 45.  Only Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama ranked below Texas.  When it came to bicycle and pedestrian safety conditions, Austin, Houston, El Paso, San Antonio and Dallas made it to the bottom of the list.  Fort Worth was ranked last.

The report by the Alliance for Biking and Walking also compared pedestrian and bicycle fatalities in states.  Here too, Texas found itself close to the bottom of the list.  Among the cities that ranked high for pedestrian/bicycle fatalities, Fort Worth was at the bottom at Number 51.  Other cities that had high pedestrian and bicycle fatality rates in Texas included Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Arlington and El Paso, all of which ranked below number 25 on the list.

Galena Park car accident lawyers have found that pedestrian and bicycle safety initiatives rank low on the priority list for Texas transportation safety agencies.  As this report indicates, that needs to change.

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An accident involving a Texas school bus and a tractor-trailer left at least 32 people injured seriously enough for them to be taken to the hospital.  Out of the injured, 29 of were children.

The accident occurred just outside Temple, about 60 miles northeast of Austin.  According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, the tractor-trailer allegedly ran a stop sign and crashed into a school bus.   Weather conditions were foggy at the time, although troopers not know whether this was a factor in the crash.

Twenty nine children on the school bus were injured, and out of these, 3 had rushed to the hospital.  One of them is reported to be in a critical condition.  A 9-year-old boy was ejected out of the escape hatch and sustained serious injuries.  The other 26 children were discharged.  The bus driver was also seriously injured, and his condition is reported to be critical.   Investigations into the accident are still going on.

If you have been involved in a commercial truck accident in the Galveston area, you must know that you have rights to compensation, including the right to compensation for medical bills, lost wages, future loss income and other damages.  Speak with a qualified Galveston truck accident attorney at Vujasinovic and Beckcom to learn your rights.  Contact a lawyer at our firm for a free initial consultation.

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Motorists on many roadways in Texas will now be able to drive at much higher speeds than before, after the Texas Transportation Commission approved new speed limits for at least 1,500 miles of roadways.  The new limits will be set at 75 mph.

Roadways across 60 Texas counties will be affected by the speed limit changes.  The Texas Department of Transportation has been reviewing the existing speed limits across the state.  The aim is to increase the speed limit to 75 mph on those roadways on which studies have proved that the speed limit can be safely increased.

The changes will impact Lubbock, Hunt, El Paso, Gillespie, Crane, Webb, Wichita, Walker, Navarro and several other Counties.  According to the Texas Department of Transportation, the economic prosperity of the state depends on greater efficiency in the movement of people and goods, which is why the agency has moved ahead with the new speed limits.

How safe the new speed limits will prove to be can only be gauged a few months after the rules go into effect.  The Texas Department of Transportation is asking drivers to continue traveling at the current posted speed limits, until the new speed limit signs are installed.

Speed is the biggest killer on American roads, accounting for more numbers of accident deaths every year than any other factor, including drunk driving.  Approximately 30% of all traffic accident fatalities in the country annually are linked to motorists driving at excessive speeds.

If you have been injured in a car accident in the Houston area, speak with an experienced Houston car accident attorney at Vujasinovic and Beckcom.

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Federal consumer safety investigators have seized more than 25,000 defective children’s toys at the Port of Houston, more than any other consumer product imported into this country.  Those toys included a number of hazards, ranging from choking and strangulation hazards to lead poisoning risks.

The approximately 25,000 toys that were seized were part of 117,000 foreign products that were seized at the Port of Houston between 2010 and 2011.  These recalled products included lighters, mattresses, and electronic devices.

The Port of Houston is one of the busiest ports in the country, and not surprisingly, 19 federal investigators have been assigned to the Port to seize defective shipments.

The toys that were seized included toy guns, helicopters, cars, trucks and dolls.  The hazards that were associated with the shipments included lead poisoning hazards.  Some of the toys were found to contain far too high lead concentration levels.

Exposure to high concentrations of lead has been linked to neurological difficulties, learning disabilities, and brain damage.  Additionally, many toys were seized because they had high phthalate levels.  These are toxic chemicals that have been linked to genital abnormalities and reproductive disorders in male children.  Inspectors also seized many shipments of toys, because these contained small and detachable parts that could pose a potential choking hazard to a child.

If you have been injured by the use of a defective product in the Houston area, you may have rights to compensation for your losses.  Consult with an experienced Houston product liability lawyer at Vujasinovic and Beckcom for a free evaluation of your case.

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Scientists at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine are scheduled to begin testing an exciting new spinal cord injury treatment on dogs.  If the tests are successful, as Galveston car accident lawyers hope they will be, then tests on human beings will be the next step.

The dogs included in the study will be those with short legs and long torso like daschunds, which have been found to be at a slightly higher risk of spinal cord injury. The first phase of testing has already been completed on mice at the University Of California in San Francisco.  Those tests have been found to be successful.  Mice that had suffered paralysis in their hind limbs began to show signs of movement, and were able to take some steps on their own just three days after being administered the drug.  It’s now the turn of the Texas researchers to conduct the same testing on dogs.

The drug will not cure spinal cord damage.  What it will do however is restrict the amount of cell damage that takes place after a person suffers a spinal cord injury.  A protein called matrix metalloproteinase-9 is released in the blood in large numbers when a person suffers a spinal injury, and this protein has a destructive effect on cells in the spinal area.  What the drug does is inhibit the functioning of this protein, thereby protecting important cells and pathways that would otherwise be damaged by the protein.

If you have suffered a spinal cord injury in a car accident or workplace accident or any other accident in the Galveston region, contact a Galveston personal injury lawyer at Vujasinovic and Beckcom for an evaluation of your case.

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