San Francisco, California Personal Injury Blog

O'Reilly Collins notes with regret that there has been yet another helicopter accident near the Grand Canyon involving Sundance Helicopters. The crash of an AS 350 on December 7, 2011 is eerily similar to an accident on August 3, 2005 at Descent Canyon in which our clients Masami Kato and Makiko Hatano died. The AS350 in that case was also owned and operated by Sundance Helicopters.

It is a common misconception that all spinal cord injuries result in paralysis. This is not necessarily true, and doctors look at several factors when weighing the severity of the spinal cord injury suffered. Some of these factors include the location of the spinal injury - anywhere from the base of the skull to the tip of the tail bone - and the level of trauma that is suffered. Using these factors, spinal cord injuries are categorized as either complete or incomplete.

Both complete and incomplete spinal cord injuries often result in loss of sensation and movement. If an individual suffers a complete injury to the spinal cord, the result is typically paralysis to the portion of the body that is below the injured area. This type of injury can cause the loss of voluntary motion, but it can also affect breathing, bowel and bladder control, the ability to regulate body temperature and blood pressure.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has finally taken the much-heralded step of ordering air carriers to schedule regular inspections of the horizontal stabilizer control system on any Boeing 757 aircraft at their disposal. The FAA's action was finally put into place following the 2000 crash of a McDonnel Douglas jet used by Alaska Airlines whose screw-style stabilizer system was nearly identical to that seen on the Boeing 757. Two years after that aviation accident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) ordered a so-called "systemic engineering review" by all aircraft manufacturers to ensure that plans were in place to inspect and maintain planes with the same type of stabilization system in order to prevent similar crashes.

While the Boeing company has since instituted a voluntary, nonbinding safety recommendation that carriers inspect and lubricate the moving parts of their tail control systems, the FAA's action goes one step further, making inspections mandatory and violators subject to FAA and NTSB penalties.

According to recent USA Today report, 15 percent of California's drivers are uninsured. On the national scale, nearly 14 percent of motorists are driving with no auto insurance coverage: that is one in seven drivers.

Nearly every state requires drivers to carry insurance, and penalties can be stiff for drivers caught without appropriate coverage. However, researches have noticed a correlation between the unemployment rate and the uninsured motorist rate. According to David Corum, the vice president of the Insurance Research Council, the rates "have tracked fairly closely."

Whether a driver is unable to afford insurance due to job loss or is unable to pay high premiums due to a poor driving record, the law still requires them to maintain coverage. Unfortunately, the cost of tracking and pursuing uninsured motorists is prohibitive to many law enforcement agencies that are often facing budget constraints, too. This means uninsured drivers often get away with driving without coverage until they are involved in an accident.

Against the protests of the car-rental industry, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has introduced the Raechel and Jacqueline Houck Safe Rental Car Act of 2011. His proposed legislation follows California Assemblyman Bill Monning's (D-Carmel) similar bill.

The bills would require companies that rent recalled vehicles to ensure that the vehicles are repaired before consumers drive them.

A Fiery California Crash

The PT Cruiser was recalled in 2004 because of a flaw that could result in leaking steering wheel fluid - a flaw that could put drivers in serious danger. A Santa Cruz Enterprise Rent-A-Car, however, rented one PT Cruiser to four customers after that recall. The fourth customers were Raechel and Jacqueline Houck.

Four days after the sisters drove the car off the rental company's lot, they died in a fiery crash caused by the defect the rental company had not had repaired.

After years in court, the sisters' parents won their lawsuit against the car-rental company. Enterprise was ordered to pay $15 million.

For car owners, safety on the road literally begins where the rubber meets the road: tires.

Properly inflated tires with a good amount of tread are able to grip the road through most any weather condition, from dry roads to roads drenched with rain, providing a safe ride. So, when tire tread wears down, tires are to be replaced. Tire maintenance is the key to a safe ride.

Due to differences between front-wheel and rear-wheel drive vehicles, tire balance, vehicle alignment, tire pressure, and other variables, a vehicle's four tires may wear differently. Because of this, tires should be rotated approximately every other oil change - about 5,000 to 7,500 miles - to help ensure that tires wear uniformly.

Most drivers, however, fail to rotate their tires this frequently, which usually leads to unequal wear between the front tires and the rear tires. Because most vehicles are front-wheel drive, the front two tires will wear-down more quickly than the rear tires. On a front-wheel drive vehicle the front tires are relied upon to provide the acceleration and, often, braking.

A couple and their five young children were killed in July 2011 when their small plane lost its right engine and crashed near an airport in western Alabama while attempting an emergency landing.

The eight-seat Cessna 421C aircraft had departed from the Creve Coeur Airport near St. Louis en route to the Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport in the Florida panhandle. The crash occurred roughly two miles from the Demopolis, Alabama, airport after the plane malfunctioned. All seven people died in the plane crash, leaving behind the family's eldest daughter, who was not on board.

According to federal records, the 1978-built Cessna was registered to Advanced Integrated Technology Solutions, LLC in Niceville, Florida. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the accident, now listed as the deadliest U.S. plane crash this year.

In 2009, over 4,000 people died and approximately 59,000 people were injured in pedestrian accidents according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA.) Pedestrian safety has remained a public safety priority since cars and people have had to share America's highways and byways. Despite technological innovations and awareness programs, pedestrians continue to be victims in roadway crashes. For residents of California, the numbers are real, as there are regular reports-such as the tragic case of elderly Robert Warner, who was struck while crossing the street.

While Florida has consistently been ranked as the most dangerous state for pedestrians, California-another one of the nation's most populated states-is ranked 16th. From 2000 to 2009, nearly 7,000 pedestrians were killed on California's roads. Over 2,000 of those fatal accidents occurred in Los Angeles County alone.