Current Retesting Procedures for Older Drivers May Not Prevent Accidents

A study released last month indicated to Los Angeles car accident lawyers that in California and around the country, there's substantial public support for mandatory retesting of elderly drivers above the age of 65. However, current retesting methods that exist in some states may do an inadequate job of actually gauging an older motorist’s ability to drive safely.

According to a study by Canadian researchers, medical tests that are used to determine an older driver’s levels of fitness, have got it all wrong. According to the researchers, there's only so much that you can learn about an individual's ability to drive in a doctor's office. In a doctor’s clinical environment, there's none of the chaos and confusion that an older motorist can expect to find on a normal California freeway. Besides, a doctor’s office doesn't provide the right kind of setting to determine whether elderly motorists can make sudden emergency decisions and speedy responses to accident risks as they have to in the real world. For instance, in a doctor’s office, it can be hard to determine whether the driver is able to drive safely, and still focus on the pedestrian stepping off a curb.

One of the biggest challenges facing elderly motorists is that they may be able to see things clearly, but may have trouble processing the signals that are transmitted to the brain. For instance, an elderly motorist may take up to 250 ms to recognize something that would take a younger motorist just about 150 ms to see. This delay in recognizing what could be a potentially serious accident risk could prove deadly on the street.

However, according to the researchers, it is possible to retrain certain areas of an elderly motorist’s brain, to make up for the missed activity in other areas of the brain. For instance, using practical techniques, older drivers can also be taught to multitask, using different areas of the brain while they are driving.

Patient Safety at Risk from Ignored Monitor Alarms

This is one problem that everybody from Arizona medical malpractice attorneys to doctors, hospitals and monitor manufacturers seem to agree is a serious one. However, there are no serious solutions to deal with the high numbers of patient injuries and deaths that occur every year from patient alarms that were neglected. According to estimates, between 2005 and 2010, approximately 200 people died as a result of ignored patient alarms.

A nurse on an average working day in an American hospital will have to deal with several monitor alarms. Many of these alarms are linked to the nurses’ cell phones and pagers, to make sure that they don't miss a single alarm. Ironically, the large number of alarms beeping continually desensitizes nurses to their sound, causing them to ignore the alarms, with possibly catastrophic consequences.

Everybody agrees that these incidents are preventable. The question is how to prevent them. Monitor manufacturers are working on sophisticated new technologies that can reduce the numbers of false alarms. There are efforts on to develop alarms that can more accurately gauge whether a person is in critical condition, before sounding an alert. Hospitals and doctors however, are not in favor of dependence on technology to determine whether a patient needs urgent help. Arizona hospital malpractice lawyers would agree. There seems to be only so much that medical technology can do to reduce what is known in the healthcare sector as “alarm fatigue.”

However, what hospitals can do to prevent such alarm fatigue is to employ more numbers of nurses. Many incidences where nurses ignore alarms can be traced to the fact that they're overstressed and have too many patients in their care at any given moment. If the numbers of patients assigned to a nurse can be reduced, there is a lower likelihood that a nurse will miss an alarm, due to desensitization.

Differences in Elderly Drivers’ Vision Possibly Contributes to Accidents

Los Angeles car accident attorneys have always known that diminished eyesight and vision in older drivers increases the risk of an accident. However, new research indicates that it's not just diminished eyesight, but also heightened awareness of background movement that could possibly increase the risk of an accident for elderly motorists. The results of the study have been published in the January issue of The Journal of Neuroscience.

The study conducted by researchers at the University of Rochester, found that elderly drivers have an enhanced ability to perceive motion in the background, as compared to younger drivers. Younger drivers can concentrate better on objects that are in the foreground, because of increased activity in a section of the brain, called the medial temporal visual area. These drivers are therefore better able to see bicyclists, pedestrians and other objects in the foreground. In comparison, older drivers may have impaired function of the medial temporal visual area, and as a result, may not be able to concentrate as hard on objects moving in the foreground. Elderly drivers, in contrast, may be better able to focus on objects that are in the background.

The research provides fresh insight into the visual problems affecting older drivers, and how these drivers can be trained to drive safely. The researchers used a technique called Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation. They attached magnetic coils to the back of the person's head, and stimulated the medial temporal visual area of the brain with electrical signals for a period of 15 minutes to impair this portion of the brain. When the medial temporal visual area was in this state of impairment, the researchers tested how well the subjects identified movement of objects.

According to the findings, when the medial temporal visual area was less active, the persons were able to easily identify the movement of objects in the background.

The research seems to indicate some very basic neurological reasons why elderly drivers find it so difficult to spot certain objects on the road. It seems to indicate that elderly drivers are much better at detecting large-scale movement in the background, than small objects in the foreground, like bicyclists or pedestrians. Pedestrians and bicyclists can be easy to miss because of their narrow frames. This poses a serious challenge to elderly drivers, because of their impaired median temporal visual area.

Urban Roads Linked to More Accidents and Fatalities

A new report out by USA Today doesn't have any surprises for Los Angeles car accident lawyers. According to the report, states with more urban roads are safer than those with a greater proportion of rural roads. The report analyzes states based on the total fatalities in 2009, as well as the accident death rate for every 100,000 population. California had 3,081 accidents in 2009, with a death rate of 8.3 for every 100,000 population.

California is not the most dangerous state in the country, but it is not the safest part of the country either. That honor goes to Washington DC and Massachusetts. Washington DC had 492 deaths in accidents in 2009, with a 7.4 death rate per 100,000 population. Massachusetts had 334 deaths in 2009, and a 5.1 death rate per 100,000 population. The conclusion to draw from the analysis is this - states that have more urban roads have lower speed limits, better designed roads, and easier access to emergency trauma care facilities. These states will have lower accident death rates compared to states that have more rural roads.

Rural roads suffer from a number of disadvantages. These tend to be poorly designed with two lanes, increasing the risk of an accident. Further, rural highways are less likely to come with dividers. A person involved in an accident on a rural street may not have easy access to trauma care facilities during the Golden Hour, or the first hour after the injury occurs. A person’s chances of surviving critical injuries increases if he is given emergency trauma care within the first hour. In rural areas, survivors wait more than an hour to reach the nearest trauma care center, and hence, the higher fatality rates. Besides, rural areas see more numbers of drunk driving accidents, and fewer sobriety checkpoints. There are also fewer crackdowns and lower seat belt use checks on rural roads.

California Couple Killed in Police Chase Accident

Two people have been killed in a Los Angles auto accident caused by a drunk driver who was fleeing law enforcement personnel over the weekend. The accident occurred on Friday night in Hyde Park, when police officers noticed a vehicle being driven recklessly. They initiated a chase, which ended just a few minutes later when the alleged drunk driver crashed into another car.

In the other car was a couple in their 50’s who on their way home. The husband died at the scene, while the wife was rushed to the injuries with severe injuries, and died later. Meanwhile, the drunk driver has been booked for two counts of murder.

Investigators are still examining the crash scene. Los Angeles car accident lawyers expect questions to be raised about whether the risks of a drunk driving accident where increased because of the chase.

Over the past few years, there has been much concern about high-speed police chases and the risks to innocent bystanders. According to estimates, more than 300 innocent bystanders are killed or seriously injured every year in police chase-related accidents.

Every police department in California has rules governing the initiation of a high-speed chase. Police officers are required to weigh the benefits of initiating a chase versus the risks of an accident. Obviously, this can be a difficult decision because it is impossible to accurately predict the outcome of a chase. Any investigation of this accident will include the circumstances of the case, and whether a chase was necessary. It will also examine the traffic conditions in which this case was initiated. For instance, a high-speed chase involving a drunk motorist on a busy street is clearly dangerous.

California drunk driving injury lawyers do not want police departments to feel like their hands are tied when it comes to making the decision to chase a suspect. But the safety of innocent motorists, bystanders and pedestrians must also factor heavily in the decision to start a chase.

Judge Orders Adopted Woman to Be Deported to Mexico

A 58-year-old woman, who was adopted by American parents, has been ordered to be deported to Mexico. The woman, Tara Ammona Cohen, has been in detention in Tacoma, Washington since July 2009. The deportation order from the judge relates to a drug conviction she has on her record.

Cohen was adopted from a Mexican orphanage when she was only 5 months old. She was raised and has lived as an American. She married a US citizen and has American children. Unfortunately, her parents never had her naturalized after her adoption. She began to look at the process of gaining US citizenship. However, by that time, she had already been convicted of a crime. She was arrested in 2008 on charges of drug trafficking and theft. She pleaded guilty to theft and trafficking, and served three months of a one-year-and-a-day sentence. When she was released from prison, she was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.

Because her citizenship process was not complete, and she did not have legal residency status, she was marked for deportation after her criminal conviction. Cohen has appealed. The federal Bureau of Immigration Appeals will consider her appeal.

Her immigration lawyers insist that she will be persecuted in Mexico. According to her lawyers, the fact that she does not speak the language, or have a method of earning a living in Mexico, would make life as an immigrant in Mexico simply unbearable. She also claims she would likely be subjected to abuse and violence. Further, she suffers from bipolar disorder, and has also been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She believes that her disorders make her a candidate for persecution in Mexico. Besides, she has no friends or relatives in Mexico, having lived in the US all of her life.

Issues relating to deportation are some of the most complex that end up before a California immigration lawyer, and immigration laws can be harsh. Conviction of a crime before naturalization is just one way a potential citizen can face deportation.

Burning of George Jakubec Escondido Home Goes As Planned

It took barely an hour to complete a “controlled burn” of the Escondido rental property that has been linked to an explosives-and-bomb scandal. The house had been rented by George Jakubec, who is currently under arrest on a number of charges. According to San Diego criminal defense attorney Michael Berg, who is representing George Jakubec, there was no need to rush ahead with the burning of the property, considering that Jakubec, his wife and their daughter had lived there for four years without any major explosion.

Before the controlled burn, bomb squad members went back into the house to collect personal documents, including Jakubec’s passport as well as his wife's immigration documents. However, according to Berg, when he requested that the bomb squad members also retrieve some papers that were very relevant to the case, his request was denied. These papers would have provided evidence in the case. Jakubec’s criminal defense lawyer is now preparing to file a motion because of the destroyed evidence.

Jakubec was arrested on November 18th. He was jailed on a $5.1 million bond. He was initially charged by local prosecutors, but state charges were dismissed after a federal grand jury indictment against him. He faces eight charges, including those related to bank robbery, attempted bank holdup, possessing explosive devices, brandishing a firearm during a robbery and illegal manufacture of explosives. He has entered a not guilty plea to each of the charges.