Distracted driving, defined as operating a motor vehicle with one’s attention split between the road and a mobile electronic communication device, is responsible for a significant number of accidents and fatalities on Maryland roads. The Maryland State Highway Administration identified 24,769 automobile accidents in 2008 that involved distracted driving. Those…
The City of Baltimore approved settlements in three civil claims filed against the city, totaling $340,000. The city’s Board of Estimates, a five-member board that includes the mayor, the president of the City Council, and the city comptroller, approved the settlements by a unanimous vote. The three claims all involved…
The parents of two students who died in a July 2010 boat accident settled their wrongful death lawsuit a few days into its trial in a Philadelphia federal court. The lawsuit included eighteen survivors from the accident, which occurred on the Delaware River when a city-owned barge collided with a…
Sharon Love, the mother of Yeardley Love, has filed two lawsuits related to her daughter’s 2010 murder. Yeardley Love was a lacrosse player at the University of Virginia when her ex-boyfriend, George Huguely, killed her in May 2010. Huguely was convicted of second-degree murder in February 2012 and awaits sentencing.…
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), the federal agency that monitors most consumer goods sold or imported in the U.S., recently reported on a collaboration with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents to monitor shipments of goods arriving at international ports from abroad. The CPSC says that it either…
Graduated driver licensing laws (GDL) in Maryland contribute to one of the lowest rates of automobile accident fatalities involving teen drivers, according to a recent study. The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP), working with State Farm Insurance, reviewed data on nationwide traffic accidents involving teenagers between 2009 and 2010. The…
A study conducted by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the University of Maryland Medical Center has found that the number of pedestrians killed or injured in traffic accidents while wearing headphones tripled over a six-year period beginning in 2004. The researchers examined records of accident…
A federal jury in Baltimore returned a verdict in late January in favor of former Sheriff’s Deputy Rudy Torres, finding that he was not liable in the 2007 death of 20 year-old Jarrel Gray. While responding to a report of a fight, Torres used his electric stun gun on Gray…
A tragic 2004 car crash has led to calls for federal legislation and regulation of the rental car industry. Two sisters, Raechel and Jacqueline Houck, 24 and 20 years of age respectively, rented a PT Cruiser from an Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Capitola, California. The car was under recall at the…
Fourteen year-old Anais Fournier, of Hagerstown, was at the mall with friends on December 16, 2011. Her friends told the Record Herald that Fournier drank one 24-ounce energy drink that day, and that she drank another one less than twenty-four hours later. On December 17, she went into cardiac arrest.…