The post The Most Common Motorcycle Accident In Pennsylvania appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>You can’t control these drivers, but understanding the types of mistakes they tend to make can help you avoid the accidents. As such, you need to know about the most common motorcycle accident in Pennsylvania and across the country.
This type of infamous accident is known as a left turn accident. This does not return refer to a time when the motorcyclist is turning left, but when a vehicle in front of that bike is making the left turn.
The issue is that drivers will often cut motorcycles off. They will turn when there is not space for them to complete the turn before the motorcycle arrives. The motorcyclist can’t swerve to the right, because the vehicle is driving in that direction as it crosses in front of them. He or she can’t swerve to the left because that would be into oncoming traffic. As a result, this is a nearly unavoidable crash.
This often happens simply because drivers don’t see the motorcycles or they inaccurately judge how far away the bikes are. Some drivers get so used to looking for cars and trucks that they’re not looking for motorcycles at all. Others do look, but the motorcycles are hidden behind other vehicles. Still others believe they have space to turn because the small size of a motorcycle makes it look like it is further away than it really is.
For all these reasons and more, left turn accidents are going to continue to happen. If you suffer serious injuries or lose a loved one in such a crash, you need to know how to seek financial compensation.
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]]>The post You’re Only As Safe As The Workers Around You appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>As such, you may be dedicated to working safely. For instance, you know that construction’s fatal four start with falls. This is the main reason that people pass away. You may resolve to always use a fall protection system if you’re working on an elevated platform, and you may choose to always use the proper ladders or scaffold systems when you need to do jobs at heights. Your goal is to stay safe by eliminating the main risk that you face.
This is a good goal, but you need to remember that you’re only as safe as the people working around you. They can make negligent mistakes that lead to your injuries. If this occurs, all of your safety precautions may not be enough to prevent a catastrophic event.
For example, the second of the fatal four, which leads to about 10% of all deadly accidents, is when someone is struck by another object. This often happens when the object falls from above and strikes a worker who is below.
Perhaps someone working on a roof had to use an air nailer, for instance, and they set it down to readjust the shingles. But the air nailer slid off of the roof and fell to the ground below, where you were loading more shingles onto the lift to have them brought up to the roof. You can take all the precautions in the world, but you’re never going to expect that a power tool is going to slide over the edge of the roof, and you may not see it coming until it strikes you. The other worker’s negligence in not securing that tool led to your injury.
This is just one example, but you can imagine how many mistakes other workers can make that put you in harm’s way. If you do get injured, then it’s time to look into all of the legal options at your disposal.
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]]>The post Breaking Down 3 Specific Forms Of Driver Distraction appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention break down distractions into three specific categories. It’s less about a certain action and more about how any action can put you into one of these categories, raising the risks of a car accident.
As a driver, you should always have both hands on the steering wheel at all times. The only exception is if you are doing something else that’s fundamental to driving the car, like shifting. A manual distraction makes this impossible because you are using your hands to perform a different task. In the case of texting and driving, for instance, simply holding the phone with one hand is a manual distraction, even for a driver who is looking at the road.
Speaking of looking at the road, the second category is visual distractions. These cause a driver to look at something else and not the traffic around them. In the case of texting, looking down at the phone screen is the most common visual distraction. But there are many other types, and you could even argue that reading a billboard is a visual distraction for a driver.
These are mental distractions. The mental component of driving is a little harder to quantify, but it’s clear that drivers need to be focused on what they’re doing. When they’re thinking about something else, it can increase the odds of a car accident, even for a driver who is still holding the steering wheel and looking at the road. A cognitive distraction could be thinking about what to write in a text message, for instance, or thinking about an argument that happened at home or at work.
Drivers are going to make all of these types of mistakes and succumb to these distractions this year. If one of them hits you and you are suffering from severe injuries, you need to know how to seek compensation.
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]]>The post How Dangerous Are Construction Zones? appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>It’s possible for workers to be put into harm’s way by drivers who are not cautious. Drivers who don’t slow down to reasonable speeds or fail to move over may cause serious, potentially fatal, crashes with pedestrians and other drivers.
At the same time, the work itself could put people in danger. Work zones could have debris that impacts the roadway or have work going on that influences the flow of traffic. Depending on the work zone, falling objects, vehicles and other hazards could all negatively impact drivers.
In the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it was found that around 773 people lose their lives annually in work zones. To help prevent that from happening, both drivers and workers have to work together to stay safe.
To be safer in construction zones, it’s important for drivers to stay alert. They should check their surroundings and be sure not to speed. Drivers can also put on their hazard lights if they notice a hazard in the roadway ahead of them.
Construction workers should always focus on wearing the appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE). They should also be aware of the traffic around them. Even though drivers should be slowing down, they may not. For this reason, anyone working in a work zone must pay close attention to what’s happening around them and avoid stepping or driving into the roadway when other drivers are approaching. They should always monitor the height of cranes and objects above the roadway, too, to prevent serious crashes with taller vehicles.
Taking safety precautions is key to helping drivers and workers get to their destinations safely. If you are hurt in a work zone accident, make sure you look into your legal options moving forward.
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]]>The post Is Mold The Result Of A Construction Defect? appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>Mold itself is not necessarily a construction defect, but it can be a sign that something went wrong during the construction of a property.
It isn’t always easy to tell, but there are a few things you can do to start understanding where it’s coming from. To begin with, you should mix up some bleach and water, spray the mold and then wipe it away. If it comes back, especially if it comes back quickly, then you know that you didn’t get rid of the problem and that it may be deeper than surface-level issues.
To adequately remove mold, you need to determine why the mold is growing in the first place. Leaky pipes or trouble on the roof of the house may be allowing mold to develop due to an accumulation of moisture.
Mold isn’t necessarily on the surface only. Sometimes, it will be much deeper, and you may find it behind the walls of the home, in the attic or in other spaces. Mold may be a sign of a construction defect if the water or moisture that is leading to mold is caused by a problem with construction instead of being caused by the homeowner in some way.
For instance, a low plumbing leak inside the walls of the home may be a construction defect. Similarly, if there is an area of roofing that wasn’t waterproofed correctly, water may seep in and cause mold to form.
It’s possible that you may have a claim against the contractor who worked on your home. It’s worth reaching out to them to ask if they would be willing to rectify the problem and take care of the mold that has formed as well. If they don’t want to resolve the problem, then you may want to look into other legal options to have the issue eliminated.
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]]>The post How Much Does A Traumatic Brain Injury Cost After A Crash? appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>TBIs can occur after rough shaking, blunt-force trauma to the head or penetrating injuries that damage or pierce the skull during a crash. They range from mild to so severe that people die or remain in a comatose state for the rest of their lives.
When a person is hurt by another driver, whether they are a pedestrian or a motorcyclist, they can potentially file an insurance claim against the driver and also a personal injury lawsuit if they have significant medical costs. How much does the average traumatic brain injury cost?
Given that brain injuries differ substantially and considering that people have different life expediencies and earning potentials that a brain injury could affect, the financial impact for each family will be different.
A brain injury affects your finances in two ways. It could limit income opportunities, as roughly 60% of people with TBI are unemployed two years after diagnosis. Beyond that, a TBI will likely mean ongoing medical costs. One person’s lifetime care needs could be anywhere from $85,000 to $3 million.
In addition to medical costs, the victim and their family will need to consider a lifetime of earning potential and possibly even the lost wages of a family member who stays home to provide care for someone with a TBI.
Hopefully, you will never have to worry about how much of brain injury could affect your family’s finances. However, if you do find yourself in a situation where you or a loved one is in need of medical care and may not be able to continue working because of a crash-related brain injury, you will need to stand up for yourself.
Insurance companies or lawyers representing someone who caused the crash may try to offer you far less than the impact will be for your family. Determining the likely financial costs your family will have is often a first step in handling a compensation claim after a crash.
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]]>The post Hot Pockets Recalled, May Contain Glass appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>Reviewing the details of the recall per the FDA, it applies to the frozen pepperoni variety produced from Nov. 13 through Nov. 16, 2020. If you believe that you may have purchased a contaminated not-ready-to-eat pepperoni Hot Pockets product, you should first check the date of production. If it was indeed produced between November 13 and 16, then you should look at the so-called “establishment number” next to the FDA mark of inspection. The recalled products’ establishment number is EST. 7721A.
If you or a loved one has been exposed to one of these contaminated products and suffered an injury, you may qualify for compensation for any damages that you incurred. This may include hospital stays, pain and suffering, personal income losses due to an inability to work and others.
The FDA has so far received only one complaint of a “minor oral injury” due to the ingestion of hard plastic and glass contamination of Hot Pockets products. However, as the FDA moves through the initial stages of this recall and the public becomes aware of the problem, there may be more personal injuries.
While the FDA and other regulatory bodies usually do a thorough job of inspecting food products for safety, the sheer volume of materials that an agency with a limited budget like the FDA must inspect makes for hard work and, unfortunately, human error at times. Always inspect food carefully before you eat. Stay up to date with food recall information from the FDA and other groups that monitor food quality.
Finally, know your legal rights in terms of compensation for any negligence on the part of manufacturers. A products liability attorney may help you understand your rights.
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]]>The post Medical Exams Often Miss TMJ Injuries appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>A TMJ injury refers to damage done to the temporomandibular joints that attach the jaw to your skull. The joints are located on either side of your head and can be especially painful and troublesome when injured. When you have TMJ injuries, simply talking can become a truly painful experienced. Chewing food might be out of the question while the pain persists, and the condition often is not diagnosed right away. If you do not know you have a TMJ injury, you cannot make claims for damages arising from it, but you still will feel all of the ill effects until full recovery occurs.
When you suffer extensive injuries during a car accident, the more obvious injuries easily can distract your doctor from an existing TMJ injury. Only after the related afflictions improve and heal further does the TMJ injury become more apparent. Common signs of a TMJ injury include soreness when moving the jaw, popping or other strange noises coming from your jaw, and occasional dizziness. Other common signs include partial hearing loss, pain in the shoulders and neck, and swelling along the side of the face where the jaw joints are located.
A TMJ injury could trigger liability claims against the offending driver, but you need to build the best possible case to press your claims and win a fair settlement. An experienced Pennsylvania personal injury attorney may help you build your case and hold the responsible parties liable for the injuries and pain caused. A successful claim may enable you to obtain the needed medical care and have the best chance at a full recovery.
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]]>The post Construction Defects Can Ruin Dream Homes appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>A design deficiency happens when the designer or the architect of the home builds it in such a way that it ultimately becomes uninhabitable or has serious defects that take away from the enjoyment of a home. For instance, a design efficiency in a basement would be one where the basement gets continuously flooded because of where it was built or the foundation that it was built on top of.
A construction deficiency generally refers to issues like poor workmanship that create an uninhabitable or dangerous situation in a build. This could mean electrical or mechanical issues, a pest infestation due to the types of materials that were used or foundations that suddenly start to crack after work has been completed. When homeowners enter into a contract with a construction company, they assume that the company has done all of the due diligence and research necessary to ensure that the home will be in sound and perfect condition when finished.
There are many different types of issues that could make homeowners end up with construction defects. When homeowners find that they are experiencing this type of issue, they may benefit from working with a law firm that has experience in construction law. The law firm may be able to help clients through the complex and sensitive issues common in real estate and construction cases.
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]]>The post Research Shows Link Between Caffeine Intake And Truck Accidents appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>With the nation confronted by a health challenge, certain drivers have been excluded from following the rules for hours-of-service. This has resulted in drivers ingesting coffee and other caffeinated beverages to help them remain awake and alert. Research suggests that this could raise accident risk. The study analyzed more than 3,000 truckers in the U.S. from eight states. It found that if a driver had at least five cups of coffee per day, their health declined, their sleep was worse, they consumed more alcohol, they were smokers, and their diets were poorer.
Drivers using more caffeine does not necessarily mean that it is a direct cause for more accidents. Still, it could contribute to lifestyle choices that raise the chance of negative side effects and collisions. This study does not imply that drivers should shun caffeine entirely. It is believed to have short-term benefits. It is the overuse of caffeine that can be problematic. Nearly 28% of drivers who took part were categorized as “high-caffeine” users and had an accident in the prior three years. For those in the study who had lower amounts of caffeine, it was 21.6%.
At least five cups placed a coffee drinker in the “high” category and one cup placed them in a “low” category. Drivers were trusted to self-report the data. Also, the amount of caffeine from one drink to another can vary. People in passenger vehicles who are involved in a truck accident can face severe injuries and lose their lives. Often, a truck accident is associated with trucker negligence, distracted driving, DUI or drowsiness. As this study shows, too much caffeine and excessive time on the road could be a factor. Having legal assistance after truck accidents may be necessary to pursue compensation for medical costs, lost income, funeral expenses and more.
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]]>The post What Can Lead To A Construction Defect? appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>While some defects might be readily apparent, some might only appear over time. A common comparison is faulty material leading to a burst pipe versus a slowly shifting foundation. When facing a construction defect, it is crucial to uncover the impetus of the problem in order to correctly identify the liable parties.
From the construction company to the contractor to the property owner, all involved want to see the project completed successfully. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for deficiencies to lead to defects.
While some defects might be readily apparent, some might only appear over time. A common comparison is faulty material leading to a burst pipe versus a slowly shifting foundation. When facing a construction defect, it is crucial to uncover the impetus of the problem in order to correctly identify the liable parties.
Generally, flaws can be grouped into four categories.
These damages can lead to costly repairs and financial challenges. It is crucial to act quickly to learn your options and ensure you are legally protected from further harm.
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]]>The post Can I Sue My Home Inspector For Undetected Defects? appeared first on Personal Injury Attorney Carnegie PA | Gesk Moritz.
]]>One of the essential steps any homebuyer takes is finding a reliable home inspector to assess the quality of the property and look for any major or minor defects that might exist, especially those that may not be disclosed by sellers.
Too many times, new owners discover troublesome issues weeks or months after closing that they should have known about before the sale took place. If a home inspector failed to do their job correctly, a homeowner can consider the following options:
The first instinct for many people who find problems with their new home is to sue the inspector. However, you should also consider whether the seller bears some or most of the responsibility. If they knew about a problem and didn’t disclose it before the sale, you may be able to sue them. An experienced real estate attorney in Pennsylvania and West Virginia can answer your questions and help you recover compensation.
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