Maryland Accident Law Blog

Maryland lawmakers are planning on making read text messages while driving illegal. The current texting while driving ban, which went into effect last year, only bans drivers from sending text messages. There also may be enough support to ban the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, especially as the newer phones include applications that allow drivers to e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and browse the Internet. Currently, school bus drivers and drivers with provisional licenses and learner’s instructional permits are not allowed to talk on any kind of cell phone while operating a motor vehicle. Lawmakers, however, want to do more to decrease the number of Maryland car accidents.

According to the Harvard Center of Risk Analysis, about 636,000 auto crashes a year involved someone using a cell phone. 2,600 fatalities and 330,000 injuries have resulted from these distracted driving accidents. The National Safety Council says that the number of car crashes caused by cell phone (talking and texting) use—1.6 million auto collisions—is even higher. Meantime, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the Highway Loss Data Institute have reported that the number of car crashes in states with handheld cell phone bans doesn’t seem to have gone down.

The Maryland General Assembly has struggled with how much restriction to place on cell phone driving activities. However, there is no longer any doubt that texting while driving increases a motorist’s Maryland motor vehicle accident risk dramatically. While the act of texting is harmless in and of itself, it is the fact that motorists become distracted, taking their eyes and mind off the road and their hands off the steering wheel, that makes texting while driving such a dangerous driving activity. People have even compared its degree of dangerousness to the perils presented by driving while drunk.

Just this week, a jury convicted a man of killing a pedestrian while he was engaged in distracted driving. Prosecutors claim that he was texting.

In most cases, the distracted driver never intends to hurt anyone. Yet unfortunately, Maryland personal injuries and wrongful deaths do happen.

Lawmakers want to tighten ban on texting while driving, The Baltimore Sun, February 19, 2010

Costa Mesa driver found guilty of killing nanny in 2008 road accident, Daily Pilot, January 27, 2010

Related Web Resources:
Cell Phone Driving Laws, Governors Highway Safety Association

FocusDriven

Maryland’s highest court is going to review the constitutionality of the state’s personal injury noneconomic damages cap. This court hasn’t done this since 1995. Currently, the cap for a plaintiff’s pain and suffering is $725,000.

The Maryland wrongful death case that brings the noneconomic damages cap issue to the state’s highest court is the one involving the parents of 5-year-old Connor Freed. The young boy drowned in 2006 in a country club swimming pool in Anne Arundel County in 2006.

A jury awarded his parents, Debra Neagle Webber and Thomas Freed, over $2 million for his drowning death. Because of the Maryland personal injury cap, which was $665,000 when their son died, their wrongful death award would go down to $1.3 million.

The judge presiding over the Anne Arundel County wrongful death case wouldn’t let the jury consider whether the boy experienced “conscious pain and suffering” before his death. The Court of Special Appeals, however, reversed the decision.

While the Court of Appeals hasn’t reviewed the noneconomic damages gap for some time now, the court recently rejected a claim that the cap does not apply to cases filed under Maryland’s Consumer Protection Act. In November, it will look at the cap for medical malpractice compensation in the wake of a Montgomery County judge’s decision that it only applies to cases filed through the arbitration process.

The latter case involves the $5.8 million Montgomery County medical malpractice verdict awarded over Richard H. Semsker’s wrongful death. If Semsker’s melanoma had been treated when it was just a small mole on his back, the cancer might not have gone to his brain. Instead, doctors failed to treat the growth for years.

If the Court of Appeals were to reject the argument that Maryland’s medical malpractice cap only applies to cases that went through voluntary arbitration, then the Montgomery County wrongful death verdict awarded to Semsker's family would go down by more than $2 million.

Court of Appeals takes cap battle, The Daily Record, October 5, 2009

Medical jeopardy, Baltimore Sun, October 18, 2009

Related Web Resources:
Judge: Malpractice Caps Don't Apply to Jury Trials, Renalandurologynews.com, July 20, 2009

Medical Malpractice, Justia

According to the Maryland Motor Vehicle Administration, the state’s new driver’s license test requires new drivers to show off their driving skills on-road and off-road. This new test is reportedly tougher than the current version, and parents are especially are thrilled that their sons and daughters will have to prove they have the ability to pull off both kinds of road conditions before they can be fully licensed.

First-time drivers, experienced motorists who are licensed to drive abroad, and drivers who have to lost their license and have to take the test over again will all be required to take this new test. Drivers with licenses in other US States and Canada won’t have to take the driving test.

The new test, which is part of an on-road pilot project in Waldorf and Frederick, is expected to move to Baltimore and the Washington Metropolitan areas in the fall before being adopted throughout the state in 2010.

The MVA also says it will revise the written portion of the driver’s licenses test. The Maryland Highway Safety Foundation has been calling for changes to be made to the current test, which Foundation co-chairman David Nevis says puts too much emphasis on parallel parking and doesn’t pay enough attention to high-speed merging. MVA administrator John Kuo says the new test will emphasize defensive driving and test a driver’s actual driving skills.

It is important that all Maryland drivers understand the rules of the road so that they know how to drive safely. Negligent, careless, or reckless driving, driver ignorance, and other driving mistakes can lead to deadly Maryland car accidents and can be grounds for personal injury or wrongful death claims against the liable motorist.

Just recently, an 82-year-old Carroll County woman died in Sykesville when her car was in a collision with another vehicle. According to Police, Maggie Ringley Saylor ran a red light on route 26. She was later pronounced dead at a local hospital.

Continue reading "New Maryland Motorists Will Have To Pass Tougher Test to Prove They Are Ready to Drive On State Roads" »

The Maryland Senate has passed a bill that would allow speed cameras in school zones and construction zones. The approval of the legislation, by a 27-20 vote, came one day after the Senate had vetoed the bill authorizing the statewide use of speed cameras to apprehend violators. The House is expected to vote on the measure next week.

A number of Maryland senators had opposed the bill over concerns that the cameras were an invasion of privacy and were being used by local governments to generate revenue. In Montgomery County, where 54 speed cameras are in use, some 500,000 citations have been issued, resulting in over $16 million in fines after costs. However, supporters of the speed cameras are quick to note that they have helped reduced the number of Maryland motor vehicle crashes because they compel people to obey the legal speed limits.

Also, an examination of several locations where speed cameras have been in operation shows that the speeds that motorists operated their vehicles at dropped by 22% after cameras were installed. For example, in Chevy Chase, there are speed cameras installed in a heavily traveled area of Connecticut Avenue. Since the devices were put in place, the number of speeding motorists dropped by 73%, as did the number of auto accidents (from 67 during the last year when there were no cameras to 44). Other Maryland municipalities where speed cameras are already in use include Takoma Park, Gaithersburg, and Rockville.

The Maryland Senate bill calls for making driving 12 miles above the speed limit grounds for a speeding ticket.

In February, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety presented a number of research findings about speeding before the Maryland Senate Committee on Judicial Proceedings on Senate Bill 277. Among the findings:

• In 2007, speeding contributed to over 13,000 motor vehicle deaths.
• 24% of the deadly accidents that happened that year occurred on roads where the speed limit was 35 mph or lower.
• 88% of speeding-related deaths occur on interstate highways.
• Speeding can refer to going faster than the posted speed limit, driving faster than the weather conditions allow, or racing.

Maryland Senate Amends Speed Camera Bill to Include School Zones, WJLA.com, April 1, 2009

Senate Revives Bill to Allow Use of Technology Beyond Montgomery, Washington Post, April 3, 2009

Research on Automated Speed Enforcement, Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, February 24, 2009 (PDF)

Related Web Resources:
Maryland Senate Bill 277

Analysis of Speed Camera Bill (PDF)

Continue reading "Maryland Senate Passes Speed Camera Bill" »

This week, the Maryland Senate approved by a 43 to 4 vote a bill banning drivers from text messaging whenever they are operating their motor vehicles. If the bill becomes law, it would make reading, composing, sending, or receiving text messages a misdemeanor crime punishable by a $500 fine. Maryland would also join a growing list of states and jurisdictions, including Virginia and Washington DC, that are banning text messaging—whether on a cell phone, PDA, or IPod Touch or another device—while operating a motor vehicle.

Sending short messages via cell phone or other electronic devices is a bad habit that has grown more popular in recent years—especially among younger, more inexperienced drivers. According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, one of its studies last year found that about 50% of young drivers, ages 18 – 24, text message while driving. The study found that among drivers ages 45 and older, less than 5% engaged in text messaging while operating a motor vehicle.

Text messaging is a type of distracted driving, and like all other forms of distracted driving, including talking on a handheld cellular phone, applying making, or reading the newspaper, can lead to deadly auto accidents. ABC News says that a 2006 study showed that 65% of near-motor vehicle collisions and 80% of auto crashes occur because of distracted driving.

For example, one Maryland child lost her right forearm in a catastrophic bus accident that occurred while the bus driver was texting on his cell phone. 30 people were injured in this Maryland motor vehicle accident. In another traffic accident, a 26-year-old woman died last year in a truck accident when she was struck by a tractor-trailer while the truck driver had been texting.

These kinds of catastrophic motor vehicle collisions could have been avoided if the drivers had not been engaged in distracted driving.

Md. Is Latest State to Target Text Messaging by Drivers, Washington Post, March 18, 2009

Texting While Driving Could Spell Trouble, ABC News, May 8, 2007

Driving and Dialing Bus Drivers May Case Accidents, ABC News, Feb 7, 2007

Related Web Resources:
Examination of Maryland Senate Bill 98 (PDF)

Cell Phone Driving Laws, Governors Highway Safety Association

Continue reading "Maryland Senate Votes for Text Messaging While Driving Ban" »

In Maryland, there is a new bill that proposes the automatic six-month driver’s license suspension of any underage driver who is convicted of the illegal possession of alcohol. It would also then take the offender six more months than usual to get his or her license back. According to Maryland State Highway Administrator Neil Pederson, there are studies that indicate that “use and lose” laws compel young drivers to change their behavior so they don’t risk losing their driving privileges.

Another bill addresses the issue of Probation Before Judgment, which lets someone avoid a conviction and accompanying penalty points if he or she fulfills the terms of probation or the required treatment. The proposal would let people arrested and charged with drunk driving to be eligible for probation before a court judgment every 10 years rather than the current every 5 years.

A third bill calls for making it mandatory for Maryland police to ask any driver involved in a catastrophic or fatal auto crash to take a drunk driving test. This information would not be admissible in court but it would allow researchers to determine the role alcohol or drugs play in deadly motor vehicle accidents. Motorists, however, would not be punished for refusing to take the test. Currently, law enforcement officers are supposed to conduct drunk driving tests following serious auto accidents only when they believe a motorist was driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

According to Washington Regional Alcohol Program President Kurt Erickson, about 220 people a year died in drunk driving accidents between 2004 and 2007.

Drunk driving is a leading cause of motor vehicle deaths in the United States. The more state and federal governments can do to discourage people from getting behind the wheel and driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs the better.

In the event that you or someone you love was injured by a Maryland drunk driver, you may be entitled to receive personal injury compensation for your injuries, pain and suffering, and other losses.

Safety Activists Hopeful About Drunken Driving Bills, Washington Post, February 12, 2009

Maryland Drunk Driving Fines and Penalties

Related Web Resources:
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration

Maryland General Assembly

Continue reading "New Maryland Drunk Driving Bills Focus on Underage Drivers and Repeat Offenders" »