Abels & Annes, P.C. Personal Injury Blog

Spring break is a wonderful time for students – a week long reprieve from classes to rest up or have some fun. While spring break should be a joyful time, the months of March and April see an uptick in accident rates. In 2015, the Arizona Department of Transportation reported 10,521 accidents occurred in March putting the month fourth highest for crashes. While many students may leave town for break, just as many stick around to soak in the Arizona sunshine. As students are not in class it is likely campuses will be filled with more pedestrians. Drivers should use extra caution around campus and be alert for students during times when the area is not typically busy.

Every February the state of Arizona receives an influx of athletic talent. Fifteen major league baseball teams, which form the Cactus League, call Arizona home during the late winter months for spring training. The teams are based all around the state including Scottsdale, Phoenix, Mesa, Surprise, and Glendale. While spring training may appear to most to be a simple practice exercise, it is very big deal for baseball fans. Throughout February and March fans can attend spring training games and observe practices. This gives fans an opportunity to get up close and personal with their favorite players, sneak a peek at what the new season holds, and escape the winter weather that plagues most of the country. In 2016, the Cactus League teams sold 1.8 million tickets. The fact that the 2016 World Series Champions, the Chicago Cubs, hold their spring training in Arizona will likely increase these numbers for 2017. While this flood of tourism is very exciting for the state, increasing revenue and helping the economy, it can also contribute to an higher rate of motor vehicle accidents.

Phoenix, Arizona, is home thirty school districts, which includes 325 public schools and over 200 charter and private schools. This means every morning and every afternoon countless children make their way to and from school. Thus, it is important for all residents to be aware of transportation dangers to ensure everyone on the road stays safe.

The Valley of the Sun is known around the country for its beautiful landscape. The mountain backdrop, thirty miles of paved bike paths, and hundreds of miles of mountain bike trails make the Phoenix area one of the country’s prime destinations for bicyclists. In fact, Arizona State University, located in Tempe, is ranked as one of the country’s top twenty bicycle friendly universities. ASU reports that 15,000 students use bicycles as transportation to and from campus everyday. The University is also home to one of the largest cycling clubs that provides a forum for all types bicycle riders and hosts various cycling races for students. The club participates in cycling competitions around the nation. Tempe itself is known as one of the most bike friendly cities in America, receiving a Gold-Level Bicycle-Friendly Community award in 2015. Tempe is home to 175 miles of bikeways and has worked hard over recent years to provide safe bike lanes throughout urban areas to promote bicycling as a form of transportation in the city.

Alcohol creates a myriad response in the bodies of those who drink. From slowed response rates to a tiredness that can onset quickly, these effects may have a dramatic effect among drivers who have been drinking. For these reasons and others, driving while intoxicated is illegal in every state in the nation and doing so can lead to significant consequences. Drunk driving car accidents cause billions of dollars in damages annually and Arizona suffers from these instances every week. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, alcohol impairment is a factor in approximately 31 percent of all traffic-related fatalities. In 2014 alone, 9,967 people lost their lives in traffic collisions that involved alcohol impairment which is an average of more than 27 lives lost daily that year.

School Bus Zones in Arizona from David Abels

If you drive in Arizona, you are charged with the knowledge of all applicable traffic laws and rules in the areas in which you drive. If you are like a typical driver in Maricopa County, odds are that you drive through a school zone on a regular basis. The rules of a school zone tend to vary from the rules applicable to the surrounding areas and if you fail to heed the school zone rules, you may face a traffic ticket, criminal charge, or even be responsible for causing an accident that harms a child. School zones in the Phoenix area tend to be marked with a 15 mile per hour speed limit during morning and afternoon school hours. Drivers are required to slow their speeds, if necessary, before entering a marked school zone and must keep their speeds at or below the posted speed limit until after they exit the school zone. School zone speed limits tend to only be active during school days and therefore do not apply during marked hours on the weekends or over school breaks. Crosswalks in school zones should be approached with extreme caution as drivers are required to stop if any pedestrian is present in the area. This means that even if an adult is entering a crosswalk on the other side of the street, a driver must stop before entering the crosswalk and may not proceed until the crosswalk is clear.

With the holidays quickly approaching and more families out shopping, It also puts them at risk of being involved in a serious pedestrian accident. Fortunately, there are certain steps that you can take to make sure that your child’s legal rights are protected if he or she is hurt in a wreck, some of the most important of which are listed below. Call 911 The first thing you should do if you child is involved in an accident is call 911 so that police and emergency medical personnel are summoned to the scene. Doing so will ensure that your child receives medical treatment and that the driver is cited if he or she has broken any safety laws. If a traffic violation caused the crash, it may automatically entitle your child to compensation. Document Information about the Crash If you are able to do so, you should document as much information about the crash as possible. Examples of the facts of which you should make note include the driver’s name, the license plate numbers of the vehicles involved, any commercial markings you see on the vehicle, and contact information from anyone who happened to see the crash. Have Your Child Examined by a Physician If you child does not need emergency medical treatment or hospitalization, you may mistakenly assume that he or she does not need to be seen by a physician. In reality, serious injuries can often go unnoticed, and waiting to have them diagnosed can affect your ability to recover compensation. For this reason, it is important that all accident victims undergo a thorough medical evaluation as soon as they can after involvement in an incident. Contact an Attorney Obtaining compensation after a pedestrian accident can be a complicated and different process. For this reason, it is critical […]

The ASPCA reports that approximately 37-47 percent of all American households have a dog and that between 70 and 80 million dogs are owned across the country. Dogs have been an integral part of human society for thousands of years and their popularity is only increasing, both in the nation and in the Phoenix area, so these numbers by the ASPCA will likely increase in coming years. Dogs provide companionship, entertainment, and security for many of the homes in the Valley of the Sun but they also pose a significant threat if they attack an adult or child. When it comes to adopting or purchasing a dog, few potential owners consider the effect that the ownership may place on the safety of their friends and family who will visit them. Yet safety should be considered because on average, approximately 1,000 people seek emergency medical treatment every day due to injuries sustained by a dog bite or attack.

Hundreds of thousands of drivers get in their cars and take to the roads in Maricopa County every day. Few of them wonder whether their safety will be adversely affected by roads that are poorly designed or badly maintained, but unfortunately, car accidents happen every year due to these exact conditions. Pot holes, debris, poorly done construction work, and design flaws are some of the many ways that a road, highway, or street can be blamed for a collision. In some cases, the road’s poor condition contributes to a crash while in others, the road causes the crash entirely. A recent incident in Mesa on U.S. 60 is bringing renewed attention to the safety of roads and highways in Maricopa County as several motorists found themselves suffering from damages due to faulty conditions. Over the weekend, the Arizona Department of Transportation closed the HOV and two to three leftmost lanes of eastbound traffic due to issues with the road surface. The Arizona Department of Public Safety reported that tension joints from the road were sticking up through the road’s surface, contacting passing vehicles and causing them damage. Some collisions were reported and were blamed on the tension joint failures.