Maryland Injury and Disability Law : Washington DC Metro Injury & Disability Lawyer & Attorney : Greenberg & Bederman : Accidents, Falls, Medical Malpractice : Maryland, DC, Virginia

This means that if you ride a Metro bus to and from work every day, you have a two out of seven chance of being involved in an “incident.” Those odds are terrible for any sort of transportation, much less a public bus service. To be fair, most of these “incidents” are either fender benders or situations where the bus hits a curb or other object that isn’t a person or a car. About 3% of these accidents end up causing injuries, while the rest mainly cause inconvenience and damages to properties both public and private. But one thing that concerns us is that Metro itself says that their drivers could have prevented about 41% of these accidents. Is this a statement on a lack of training for bus drivers? Or is it perhaps a reflection on the relative inexperience of so many of Metro’s bus operators? About 28% of Metro’s bus drivers have been on the job for less than five years.

We aren’t laboring under the delusion that Metro should have a completely spotless record when it comes to car accidents or car crashes in the D.C. area. But 6.8 crashes a day seems like the sort of number you would get for transit in Guadalajara or rural China.

The main point of public transit is to allow those who don’t own their own cars to get from one point or another, but another point is for this to occur in as safe a manner as possible. You shouldn’t be putting your safety at risk when you get on the bus or the subway, yet it seems that is what everybody who rides the bus in D.C, Maryland or northern Virginia is doing.

If you consider that the infrastructure of our subway system is also in particularly dire straits, then we are having a hard time recommending the use of our transit system at all. Let’s consider the following scenario: Say you have to commute from Arlington, Virginia to Bethesda, Maryland every day. Every morning you take the 7A bus from North Fairlington to the Pentagon. That puts you at risk of what Metro calls “an incident.” If you manage to get to the Pentagon, then you would take the escalator that might be working or might not be working down to the platform, where you would wait for the Yellow Line train. The Yellow Line train will move along at a high rate of speed on a track where the sensors are in dire need of replacement and the tracks are prone to catch on fire. You will take the Yellow Line to Gallery Place, and then transfer to the Red Line, again using escalators that might be running or might not be, and are also prone to the occasional brake failure and collapse. You would follow the Red Line all the way to Bethesda, where you would exit the station via the longest escalator in the western hemisphere, which is presumably held to the same standards of maintenance and care as the rest of the escalators in the Metro subway system.

Now that you have that information, doesn’t the daily commute seem a lot less mundane? The problem is that the daily commute is supposed to be mundane. It isn’t supposed to be a scenario where you are white-knuckling it from one end to the other. It should be up to everyone who utilizes our public transportation system to remind the people who operate and maintain it of that fact. Please contact WMATA and urge them to tighten up the standards for the bus drivers, repair the escalators and upgrade the sensors on the tracks.

If you or a loved one has been hurt in a transit accident on the Metro, Metro buses or any other bus system in Northern Virginia, Maryland or D.C, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation today.

Doing a simple Google search with the words “Halloween” and “accident” will give you some examples of what happens every year. You will see stories of teenagers or adults getting into car accidents because they got drunk at a party or you will see stories about careless drivers hitting children while they are out trick-or-treating. This is a serious concern. The child pedestrian death rate doubles on Halloween night.

There is one obvious solution to the first problem, which can be summed up in four words: Don’t drink and drive. That’s a piece of advice that should be heeded all year ‘round, and not just on Halloween. The second problem is not as simple to solve, but here are a few general tips to help you avoid adding to the list of victims of pedestrian accidents on Halloween.

The first thing that you should do is be aware of what Halloween is. It’s the one night of the year where small children are allowed out of the house when it’s dark. On any other night of the year you could be forgiven for not expecting to see kids running around the neighborhood at night, but not on Halloween.

With that in mind, you should drive slowly and carefully around any neighborhoods, particularly suburban ones. There is a level of excitement that occurs naturally to children on Halloween, so they often do reckless things like darting across the street, or racing their friends to the next house. They might not be as aware of their surroundings as they normally would be, so you definitely have to be. Halloween costumes are not always brightly colored and easy to see. There was one boy in our neighborhood who dressed up like a ninja, which is a great costume during the day, but an extremely dangerous one at night, especially considering that most of these pedestrian accidents don’t occur at crosswalks. Suburban kids don’t particularly feel the need to go down to the end of the block to cross the street, so what you usually see on Halloween are kids running into the road wearing non-reflective, dark costumes. Or rather you don’t see them, and that’s the problem.

Staying alert and driving a few miles below the speed limit is an absolute necessity on Halloween. It would also be a good idea to avoid distractions. We constantly tell people to never text while driving, and to avoid fiddling with your iPod or iPhone while driving, and that goes double for Halloween. It might seem like you are only taking your eye off the road for an instant, but in that instant you could easily travel 20 yards.

On the other side of this is the responsibility of the parents. Parents should take a few moments to explain to their children how important it is to avoid running out into the street. They should also give their costumes the once-over to make sure that there is some manner of reflective tape somewhere, or at the very least they should have them carry flashlights or glowsticks. But the best preventive method is to accompany your kids as they make the rounds in the neighborhood.

Halloween can be the highlight of a kid’s year. But for an increasing number of them, it can turn out to be the worst. Do what you can to help avoid Halloween pedestrian accidents.

Greenberg and Bederman is an accident law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We have lawyers currently offering legal assistance to people in Washington, D.C, Maryland and Virginia who have been injured in car accidents. If you or a loved one has been hurt in an accident due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

Many of you have probably become accustomed to the quicker morning commute, particularly when you are getting out of your neighborhoods and moving towards the highways. We would urge you drive with a little more caution on your way to work.

This means continuing to obey the standard rules of the road, but it also means a few other things that you don’t necessarily have to deal with during the summer months.

School Bus Rules: While you don’t necessarily have to stop when a commuter bus pulls over to pick up or drop off passengers, you absolutely have to when you are behind a school bus. That’s the reason that big stop sign comes out of the side of the bus when it stops. You also have to stop even if your car is on the other side of the street. Failure to do so will earn you a hefty fine. But the point is that kids are crossing the street to get on or off the bus, and the last thing they need is hurried and impatient commuters driving around the bus at thirty miles an hour.

Crosswalks: A lot of school districts have crossing guards to direct the flow of traffic at intersections near schools, but not all of them do. For those of you who are unaware of this rule, pedestrians always have the right of way at crosswalks. With school now in session, there are bound to be more pedestrians using crosswalks, so please exercise caution.

Speed Limits: You should always obey the speed limit wherever you happen to be, but the speed limit drops dramatically when you get near schools. Bear in mind, kids don’t always exercise the most amount of common sense, so children darting into the street without looking are not unheard of in front of schools. Make sure you drive slowly and carefully when you are in the vicinity of schools.

Common Sense: Washington, D.C. is a very busy town, with lots of people doing very important work. Many of us are juggling multiple projects, and many of us are in a rush to get to work, or to the next meeting. But no matter where you need to be, or what you need to get done, or who you need to talk to, none of that will matter if you get into an accident or hit a pedestrian. Being alert, turning off your cell phone, following the speed limit and never texting while driving should be the rules you follow the entire year around, but during the school year they take on a special sort of urgency. Out of every 100,000 traffic injuries, around 40 of them are school age pedestrians between the ages of 5 to 15. That might sound like a small percentage, but try telling that to the parents of one of those 40 kids who got hit by a car on the way to school. You should always drive carefully, but you should redouble your efforts at this time of year.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm in the Washington, D.C. area. We are offering legal assistance to pedestrians who have been hit by cars in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. If you or a loved one has been hit by a car in the Washington, D.C. area, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

Here’s the law about crosswalks in Virginia:

§ 46.2-924. Drivers to stop for pedestrians; installation of certain signs; penalty.

A. The driver of any vehicle on a highway shall yield the right-of-way to any pedestrian crossing such highway:

1. At any clearly marked crosswalk, whether at mid-block or at the end of any block;

2. At any regular pedestrian crossing included in the prolongation of the lateral boundary lines of the adjacent sidewalk at the end of a block;

3. At any intersection when the driver is approaching on a highway or street where the legal maximum speed does not exceed 35 miles per hour.

Here’s the law about crosswalks in Maryland:

§ 21-502. Pedestrians' right-of-way in crosswalks.

(2) The driver of a vehicle shall come to a stop when a pedestrian crossing the roadway in a crosswalk is: 

(i) On the half of the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling; or 

(ii) Approaching from an adjacent lane on the other half of the roadway. 

It’s a pretty simple premise. If you are driving down the road and you see a pedestrian or bicyclist in the crosswalk, you stop and let him continue. You don’t floor it in the hopes that you can make it past him before he gets to your lane. You don’t swerve into the oncoming lane to get past him. You stop and let him continue.

On July 25^th, there was a three car accident on the George Washington Parkway. A driver stopped at an intersection to allow a bicyclist to cross at the intersection, which is exactly what a driver is supposed to do. The bicyclist was about to cross when he saw a pickup truck approach without changing its rate of speed. The pickup truck then slammed into the back of the car of the driver who was obeying the law. Two people were injured, and fortunately the bicyclist was not one of them.

There are a great many crosswalks on the GW Parkway that don’t have any signals on them. A lot of people assume that they can just breeze past them without giving any consideration towards joggers, pedestrians or bicyclists. This misconception is not being helped by what the National Park Police have been doing lately.

A man named Andrew Beaujon, who is a reporter at TBD, was crossing the GW Parkway on August 2^nd. A driver slowed down to let him cross, and for his troubles this driver was pulled over by a NPP officer and reprimanded. The officer’s argument was that the driver might have caused an accident similar to the one that happened on July 25^th. This is probably the first time in our memories that we have ever heard of someone being reprimanded for obeying the law.

Is there something we have missed? Did pedestrians and bicyclists become second class citizens all of a sudden? Is preventing car accidents more important than preventing pedestrian and bicycle accidents? We were under the impression that all three are something that should be prevented.

One particular way that this could be handled would be to place either stoplights, stop signs, or at the very least a flashing orange light at the multiple unmarked pedestrian crossings on the GW Parkway. Surely something can be done to facilitate this, but in the meantime, National Park Police should not reprimand drivers for obeying the law, and drivers should continue to stop for crossing pedestrians and bicyclists.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington D.C. area personal injury law firm. Located in Silver Spring, Maryland, we are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured in car accidents, bicycle accidents and pedestrian accidents. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

It also would have gutted WMATA’s ability to make the changes and upgrades that the National Transportation Safety Board has been recommending for years, particularly so after the Red Line crash in 2009 that killed nine people and injured seventy six. It would have been fairly galling to have one element of the federal government recommend much needed improvements and then remove our ability to pay for them.

The DC Metro system needs new subway cars, and it absolutely needs to revamp the sensors that were the primary mechanical cause of the fatal train crash. It also needs to revamp the culture. The NTSB report also mentioned that there were multiple human factors involved in the crash, all of them stemming from an unfortunate institution-wide notion that passing the buck is how things get accomplished.

These are only two of Metro’s immediate needs. There are certainly other things that WMATA could put some of that $300 million towards. The first would be the escalators, and the second would be security.

There has been one high profile escalator failure at a Metro station in the past year. By “high profile,” we mean failures that result in people getting hurt. This failure happened at L’Enfant Plaza, on the same day as an enormous rally at the National Mall. Miraculously, only four people were hurt, which seems amazing when you watch the video. There was also an incident at Foggy Bottom where the last four steps on one of the escalators suddenly dropped through the bottom of the stair case, leaving a big hole that a woman fell in to. Again, fortunately, she was able to get pulled out before she got hurt. And just last month, there was another failure at DuPont Circle, where the escalator suddenly stopped, which caused people to fall. In case you didn’t know, the escalators at DuPont Circle’s north entrance are 188 feet long. While it is fortunate that nobody was seriously hurt, it would seem to be only a matter of time before there is a serious injury.

The obvious malfunctions are bad, but there are also the problems with keeping these escalators running in general. At any given time, multiple escalators aren’t working, which causes people to have to walk up and down the stairs. Would you like to walk up 188 feet, particularly during the summer months? And, how does this affect the disabled? The escalators don’t work for multiple reasons, chief among them being that WMATA does not have an adequately trained maintenance staff. This is another area where some of that $300 million could be used.

With regards to security, there have been multiple instances of violent crime taking place on our subway system. We aren’t talking about on occasional mugging. We mean multiple instances of random and severe beatings of innocent passengers. The police presence on the trains and in the stations has been severely lacking, and there have been extremely disturbing accounts of Metro personnel not even lifting a finger to help people who are being attacked right before their eyes.

We believe that operating costs will take up a fairly substantial amount of this money, but surely somebody over at Metro is aware of the multiple safety problems that exist on our subway system. These aren’t the sort of problems that you can simply ignore, because at this rate, it’s simply a matter of time before we have another serious crash, or an escalator breakdown that results in a death, or a crime that escalates into a murder. The safety of our public transportation system should be a priority.

Greenberg and Bederman is apersonal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We are currently offering legal assistance to those who have been injured on our public transit system due to no fault of their own. This includes escalator malfunctions, injuries due to sudden starts and stops, and instances of neglect by the WMATA Police. If you or a loved one in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. has been injured on the Metro, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free legal consultation.

Since we have been practicing injury law in D.C, Maryland and Virginia, we have had more than a few cases where somebody got hurt due to somebody losing their cool behind the wheel. The media takes the more dramatic examples of these cases and calls them “road rage,” but actually, a lot of these cases stem from something minor. A driver is behind another car that isn’t going fast enough. Someone doesn’t go immediately after the light turns green. A driver thinks, “Oh, you cut me off? Well, let’s see if you like it when I cut you off!”

It is very easy to think of your car as not being connected to the real world, especially nowadays. What with cruise control, immaculate suspension, anti-lock brakes, windows that filter out practically all outside noise, GPS devices, iPods, television screens and satellite radio, it is quite easy to forget that you are travelling at a high rate of speed in a vehicle that can weigh anywhere from 2500 pound to a half ton. If everything about your car is easy and convenient, it isn’t that much of a stretch for you to imagine that the world outside of your car should be that way too. But the real world is very rarely easy and convenient.

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, aggressive driving leads to deaths in all 50 states every year. Of the 6,800,000 crashes that occur every year, a “substantial number” are believed to be caused by aggressive and angry driving. So if you happen to be in a situation on the road where your patience is being tested, try to imagine what your life would be like if you decide to make up for lost time and get somebody hurt, or worse. Or if you decided that you have had about enough of that person driving slowly in front of you and did something to cause an accident? Believe us; we have represented enough car accident injury victims to tell you that aggressive driving is not worth it.

Greenberg and Bederman is a car accident injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We have offered legal assistance to those in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. who have been hurt in car crashes due to no fault of their own. If you or a loved one has been injured due to the aggressive or negligent actions of another driver, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

Falls: Christmas lights are a proud tradition in America, and some people take great pride in having the biggest and flashiest displays in their neighborhoods. Usually this means a lot of climbing ladders and hanging around on the roof, which can certainly lead to falls. In fact, a three year report from the CDC claimed that “…The majority of falls were from ladders (e.g., while hanging holiday lights), followed by roofs (e.g., while mounting an artificial Christmas tree on the roof).” There were also plenty of indoor falls, as the report mentions that many falls come from “…furniture (e.g., while standing on a table decorating a Christmas tree, standing on a chair hanging holiday decorations, or standing on a step stool when hanging a tree topper), stairs, and porches. Other falls were caused by tripping over or slipping on holiday-related objects (e.g., tree skirts or ornaments).” The most severe injuries seem to come from falls off of ladders, which were responsible for 51% of all fractures. So the obvious lesson to take from that is to be as careful as you possibly can while hanging or taking down your Christmas lights.

Drinking and Driving: The Holiday season brings with it holiday parties, which inevitably brings irresponsible behavior. A report from the U.S. Department of Transportation claimed that between 2001 and 2005, an average of 45 people died from drunken driving related causes during the holiday season.  And according to MADD, alcohol is involved in 52% of collisions on Christmas Eve and 57% of collisions on New Years. The tough part about this information is that while you may not drink and drive, others might have no compunction about doing so. So saying “be careful” can only get us so far.

Others: This is a batch of statistics from England, and although you might think that these don’t apply, you should keep in mind that these are not “British accidents.” All of those that are listed are just as capable of happening to us here in the States.

·          3 Brits die each year testing if a 9v battery works on their tongue.

·          31 Brits have died since 1996 by watering their Christmas tree while the Christmas lights were plugged in.

·          142 Brits were injured in 1999 by not removing all the pins from new shirts 58 Brits are injured each year by using sharp knives instead of screwdrivers.

·         19 Brits have died in the last 3 years believing that Christmas decorations were chocolate.

·          British Hospitals reported 4 broken arms last year after cracker pulling accidents.

·         101 people since 1999 have had broken parts of plastic toys pulled out of the soles of their feet.

·          18 Brits had serious burns in 2000 trying on a new jumper with a lit
cigarette in their mouth.

·         A massive 543 Brits were admitted to hospital in the last two years after opening bottles of beer with their teeth.

So yes, Christmas is “the most wonderful time of the year,” but it’s also more dangerous than other times. People are in a celebratory mood, they are euphoric, they are busy eating and cooking and decorating and drinking. So by all means, enjoy the Holiday season, but please do so responsibly, and exercise precaution when necessary.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. area personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland. We offer legal assistance to those who have been injured in car accidents, pedestrian or bicycle accidents, and those who have been injured due to medical malpractice. If you or a loved one has been injured due to no fault of your own, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

In a nutshell, that’s the difference between a run-of-the-mill accident and an accident caused by negligence. We think it’s an important distinction. While an accident can be an “act of God,” negligence accidents are “acts of man.”

On October 30, the escalator at the L’Enfant Plaza metro station suffered a system failure. According to the Washington Post, the escalator started speeding uncontrollably, which essentially flung all the riders to the ground at the bottom. The entire Metro system was extremely crowded due to the Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert rally that was taking place on the mall. Just under a million people were riding the trains that day. If anything positive can be taken out of this, it can be that it was a lucky thing that only four people were hurt. Can you imagine what could have happened if the main escalator at Bethesda metro station suddenly sped up? Or the escalator at DuPont Circle? On the most crowded day Metro has had since the Inauguration?

The escalators in the DC Metro systems are notorious for being broken. It is a rare day where a regular commuter can get to work without having to climb up one broken escalator or another. But there is a difference between an escalator not working and an escalator actively malfunctioning while passengers are on it. And what should be mentioned here is that the escalator malfunction at L’Enfant Plaza wasn’t a random occurrence, nor was it unexpected.

A report performed by an independent firm weeks ago concluded that the escalators are dangerous, unstable and in need of repair or replacement. Among some of the more relevant passages:

• Major amounts of oil and lubricant on step treads and risers. Symptomatic of major leak at drive motor / reducer coupling.
• Significant accumulation of metal shavings around hand rail newel areas from worn newel wheels.
• Brake pads worn beyond usable life expectancy and out of adjustment allowing unit to freewheel to stop.
• Numerous switches in safety circuits were dirty, out of adjustment, and ineffective.
• Skirt panels were adjusted too tightly to the steps, creating metal shavings along the step roller tracks in the interior of the unit.
• Hoist ropes severely rouged [corroded] and worn beyond acceptable life expectancy.
• Sheet plastic being used to protect equipment from water intrusion. This is a critical life safety issue.

Metro authorities had this draft in their hands on September 30^th, which was a full month before the accident happened. So they can’t make the standard defense against negligence, which is “We simply didn’t know.” They can’t make the claim that the escalator malfunction was a surprise to them when an independent report commissioned by them on the state of their escalators specifically warned that an incident like the October 30^th disaster was likely to happen. The argument could be made that WMATA was negligent in maintaining its escalators, and that they knew about the danger that these escalators posed to riders for a full month before the incident took place.

To understand a little about negligence law, please read our understanding negligence page.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located in Silver Spring, Maryland, and we are currently offering legal assistance to injury victims all over the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore areas. If you have been injured due to reasons that were not your fault, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

"The most disappointing . . . is when we issue recommendations and those issues do not get corrected. For us, that is a big concern about Metro," she said. Nine NTSB recommendations issued to Metro in July and September, in the aftermath of the accident, remain open, according to NTSB records.

We aren’t exactly sure why Metro is dragging its feet about making these corrections. It might be money. It might be politics. It might be a combination of the two. State politicians in Annapolis and Richmond might have a problem with paying state funds for a transit system that their immediate constituents never use. We can certainly imagine that a state delegate from Lynchburg, Virginia or Havre de Grace, Maryland would fail to see the urgency.

Whatever the reason, WMATA has continued on as if that horrible train accident never happened. We can absolutely assure them that it did. In fact, we have a few injured clients who can verify that on that day in June, there was a catastrophic system failure that resulted in 9 deaths and 76 injuries.

The second serious safety hazard doesn’t involve the trains, but instead involves escalators that allow passengers to safely get in and out of the stations. Specifically speaking, they don’t work, and the scope and size of both the number of breakdowns and the escalators themselves makes this state of affairs an accident waiting to happen.

The Washington, D.C. subway system has 570 escalators. This is more than any other subway system in the world. Due to the fact that this area was built on what was essentially marshland, our subway system has to go very deep underground. The escalator at Wheaton, for instance, goes down 230 feet. Believe it or not, this is actually the longest escalator in the Western Hemisphere. The escalators at Bethesda, DuPont Circle and Woodley Park are also incredibly long. And while the escalators at Rosslyn and Clarendon don’t necessarily set records, they still are long enough to eat up over a full minute to get from the street to the station.

The way we see it, there are two potential dangers with broken escalators. The first would be the hazards involved with these escalators suddenly stopping. The stop wouldn’t even have to be a particularly jarring one for disaster to strike. One person falling down an escalator of that size and length would be catastrophic, not just for the person falling but also for anyone who happens to be on the escalator below the person falling. People can get badly hurt by falling off of a five inch curb on the side of the road, so the idea of someone falling down a crowded 230 foot escalator is so grim that it’s terrifying to think about.

The second danger is not going down, but going up. Metro might not have noticed, but not everyone who rides the subway is spry and athletic. Many of the passengers are elderly and infirm. Making them climb up 230 feet, particularly in heat that reaches upwards of 90 degrees, is something that could adversely affect their health. And if the elevators are broken (as they often are,) many passengers have no choice but to trudge up that enormous incline.

As of this writing, the escalator report for the entire WMATA system lists 62 escalators as being out of service, as well as 8 separate elevators. This reflects very poorly on WMATA. It is inconvenient, stressful, disrespectful of passengers and extremely dangerous. Among the many faults of the DC Metro system, this one is particularly galling.

Greenberg and Bederman is aninjury law firm based in Washington, D.C. We are currently offering legal help to anyone who has been injured due to negligence or poor management by the WMATA. This includes anyone who was injured while riding the subway, or anyone who was injured due to an escalator-related accident. If you or a loved one was injured on the Washington, D.C. subway system in Maryland, Washington, D.C. or Virginia, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident legal consultation.

So as a result of this act of irresponsibility, two completely innocent people were badly injured. They went through painful and expensive medical treatment, they were unable to go to work and earn a living for themselves, and they had to go through a prolonged and painful recuperation process. And all they did to deserve this ordeal was to simply get in their car.

If you take the numbers available for drunk driving related accidents in Virginia as a whole, you actually get somewhat of an encouraging scenario. The earliest numbers available at the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles are from 1984, when the Old Dominion had a staggering 19,371 alcohol related vehicle accidents. This was 15.7% of all vehicle crashes. In other words, if you got into a car wreck in Virginia in 1984, there was just under a 16% chance that the other driver had been drinking.

Things have improved drastically over the following 26 years. In 2009, the total number of alcohol related crashes was 9,366, which is almost exactly 10,000 less alcohol related crashes in Virginia. We can take that to mean that raising awareness of the dangers of drunken driving and increasing the penalties for drunken driving have made a difference in Virginia. But sadly, the awareness in Virginia didn’t make enough a difference to stop Lisa Marie Schettler from getting behind the wheel of a car after nine drinks and a blood alcohol content of .44.

The definition of negligence is when one person or party does not live up to the reasonable expectations of keeping someone else from getting hurt. For instance, if you are in possession of a loaded gun, you would not fire it in public for no apparent reason. Similarly, if you have been drinking a large volume of alcohol, you would not get behind the wheel of a car. You can’t make the argument that you didn’t know that drinking and driving was illegal. You can’t make the argument that you didn’t plan on hurting anybody. A person who drinks and drives is a perfect example of someone engaging in negligent behavior.

As injury attorneys based in the Washington, D.C. area, Virginia is right in our back yard. In our twenty five years as an injury law firm, we have represented countless Virginians who were injured due to the negligence of another driver. So even though Virginia Beach is a few hours away from our offices in Silver Spring, the story of Ms. Schettler and Mr. and Mrs. Gay caught our attention.

We have dedicated a significant portion of our practice to helping car accident victims in Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C. get fair compensation when they get injured due to no fault of their own, and that includes people who have been injured due to drunk drivers. We help our clients get past the artificially low settlement offers and delaying tactics that insurance companies use to avoid paying injury victims what they deserve. If you or a loved one has been injured in a car accident in Virginia, Maryland or Washington, D.C. and you feel that you need legal counsel, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free accident injury consultation.

To learn more about auto accidents and auto injury, please read our auto accident page, or our injury page, or watch our accident videos on Youtube.

As personal injury attorneys who serve the injured in the Washington, D.C. area, we can tell you from experience that accidents rarely “just happen.” In fact, we have found that most accidents are caused. And when people get severely hurt as the result of these caused accidents, the last thing anyone should be able to do is write them off as “just one of those things.”

Yet this is exactly the scenario that injury victims often face when they attempt to seek fair compensation for their injuries. They often have to deal with insurance companies who have no interest in treating injury victims fairly, but are instead concerned with paying out as little as possible. Car insurance companies often offer injury victims settlements that are far less than what would be needed to cover the medical costs and any lingering effects, and most of the time they don’t offer anything for pain and suffering. Medical malpractice insurance companies are notorious for not wanting to settle, but rather take the issue to court. And, quite often when they do settle, it is a paltry settlement offer.  Pharmaceutical companies have no qualms about not offering any compensation for injuries at all unless they are forced to by a court.

An injury victim who tries to deal directly with the insurance company is risking not having their individual situation monitored and protected by an injury lawyer. The insurance company has lawyers to protect their interests, so should an injury victim. Facing an insurance company on your own means you have to know all the legal angles, understand a myriad of laws that if you don’t understand could harm your injury case, leaving you potentially being treated un-fairly. Despite all of the advertising about being a good neighbor, the truth of the matter is that insurance companies are not in the business of sending out checks for the maximum value. They make money holding down costs and adding new members.

The law firm of Greenberg and Bederman has been protecting the rights of injury victims in the Washington, D.C. area since 1985, and all of our injury attorneys are dedicated to helping our clients get fair and realistic compensation for their injuries. We make it a point to address all of our clients injury needs when we deal with the insurance companies.

Our attorneys are currently offering legal counsel for the following areas:

Car Accidents:Our attorneys have decades of combined legal experience in helping victims of all types of car accidents, including accidents caused by drunk drivers, accidents due to reckless driving, rollover accidents, pedestrians who have been hit by cars, collisions, and accidents due to automotive malfunctions, and passengers in a car accident. 

Medical Malpractice:John Sellinger is known and respected throughout the country as a medical malpractice attorney who puts his clients’ interests first. In his thirty five years of legal experience, this former President of the Maryland Trial Lawyers Association has helped hundreds of victims of medical malpractice, including victims of wrong diagnosis, surgical errors, wrongful death, delay of treatment and birth trauma.

Pharmaceutical Liability: For all the good things that modern pharmaceuticals have done for humanity, it cannot be denied that there is a dark side to the pharmaceutical industry. There have been several instances over the past few years where heavily marketed and prescribed pills have resulted in serious injuries among patients who used them in good faith. The most recent example is Yaz, which is a line of birth control pills that has caused strokes, heart attacks and gall bladder disease among women who use it. Our attorneys are currently representing women who were injured and hospitalized due to the use of these birth control pills.

Social Security Disability Denial: It is not uncommon to be denied for Social Security Disability Benefits.  If you are disabled by either disease or injury, and your disability is expected to last at least a year, you may be entitled to Social Security Disability Disability or SSI. To learn more about Social Security Disability law, please read our Social Security Disability FAQ page.

Greenberg and Bederman is a personal injury law firm located one half block from the downtown metro in Silver Spring, Maryland, one mile from the Washington, DC line. We are perfectly situated to help injury victims all over the Washington/Baltimore metropolitan area. If you or a loved one has been injured in an accident, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.

The vehicle that the astronauts were travelling in had to essentially break in half, and then one of the two sections had to do a 180 degree turn, and then gently thrust back towards the other section, where they re-attached. Bear in mind that this had to be done while they were travelling through the vacuum of space at thousands of miles an hour. Another stunning feat was the reattachment of the lunar module, which essentially launched itself from the surface of the moon (with two astronauts inside) and attached itself to the orbit module which was zooming along at thousands of feet above the surface. If you want a real life equivalent of how difficult that is, try hitting a bird flying overhead with a rock. If you also consider that these amazing things were done in the late sixties, which was practically the Stone Age in terms of computer technology, that gives you an idea as to how smart the NASA people are.

Any endeavor into outer space has to involve all manner of computers. All of the systems on any spacecraft are run by them, including steering, thrust, life support and navigation. Without the advent of computers, it would be impossible for us to imagine getting into space at all. If you consider that your average space craft is run by electronic systems that are often controlled from thousands (sometimes hundreds of thousands) of miles away, you would have to assume that NASA knows what it is doing when it comes to computers.

This is why we consider it a good thing that Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has brought in scientists from NASA to investigate the recent alleged unintended acceleration incidents that have occurred in so many Toyota vehicles. The NASA scientists are specialists in computer controlled electronic systems, electromagnetic interference, software integrity and hardware. In other words, they are the folks who you can expect to get to the bottom of what has been going wrong.

It might seem a little drastic, bringing in space shuttle mechanics to examine the inner workings of a Toyota Tercel, but one of the reasons that they have to be drastic is that Toyota itself isn’t talking. They are fiercely protective of their design and data, and are equally tight lipped when it comes to allowing crash data to be studied. Part of this might be because they are genuinely concerned about somebody making off with proprietary software or design, but we suspect it also has something to do with Toyota not wanting to directly provide any evidence of culpability on their parts. In other words, they want to make it as difficult as possible for any victims of random accelerations, brake failures or steering problems to be fairly compensated for their injuries and damaged property.

Toyota has shown a willingness to put profits over driver safety before. In what was probably one of the darkest moments in government consumer protection history, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration allowed Toyota to “negotiate” a 2007 recall that was limited to defective floor mats rather than move forward with a more extensive recall that could have possibly saved quite a few lives. Internal documents from Toyota referred to this as a “win.”  

We aren’t sure what the outcome will be of this NASA investigation, but what we are sure of is that too many people have been injured or even killed due to defective Toyotas for this to be considered a random, freak occurrence. Based on the evidence that has been gathered and the incidents that have been reported, we believe that Toyota not only put out a defective product, but also were aware of these defects and the dangers that they posed to the general public.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. based injury law firm that is currently offering legal assistance to those who have been hurt due to Toyota malfunctions. We can help anyone in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington, D.C.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a Toyota accident, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

 Believe it or not, most cars also have similar versions of the “black box.” They go by the name “Event Data Recorders,” and while they are not nearly as all encompassing as the recorders that you find on planes, they are still valuable tools for determining what causes automobile accidents.

The vast majority of car manufacturers make the data in their EDR’s as accessible as possible. Allowing the police, insurance companies and even the press to see the results of the data after an accident can prove to be a good thing. You could determine any number of variables with the information from these recorders. You could determine how fast the car was going before it crashed, or if the brakes were applied suddenly. You could determine where the car got hit or if it hit something first. And, most importantly, you could determine whether or not everything in the car involved in the accident was working as it should have.

EDR’s have occupied a certain prominence in the news lately, mainly because it appears that Toyota is not and has not been entirely forthcoming with the data that appears in their EDR’s. And considering that Toyotas have been undergoing critical and dangerous malfunctions, that data could be considered very important.

The past few months have seen practically every model that Toyota manufactures being recalled due to serious malfunctions. Accelerator pedals have stuck to the floor or have been pinned under defective floor mats, brakes have been periodically unresponsive, and even the steering in some models has been faulty. According to the NHTSA, 52 people have died over the years due to malfunctions of these types. These were problems that could have been brought to the public’s attention and possibly rectified well before 52 people died and countless others had been injured, but since Toyota has a policy of not letting anyone see the information that is contained in these EDR’s, everyone simply made the assumption that the occasional stuck accelerator problem was a freak occurrence rather than a systemic problem.

Toyota does not share the information on their EDR’s on the grounds that they are using proprietary software and sensors and monitoring devices. This would be a perfectly valid line of argument if there were a huge black market for EDR software. But your average car accident victim (as well as the companies that insure them) is more interested in the data than any of the proprietary software in the EDR. The fact that Toyota doesn’t let anyone see any of that data is suspicious to say the least.

According to a recent article by the Associated Press, the EDR’s in Toyota are so inaccessible that there is only one laptop in the entire continental United States that is able to access Toyota EDR’s. And on the few occasions when Toyota has been forced to provide data from an EDR after a wreck, they have either quickly come to a financial settlement in order to avoid showing it, or they have provided incomplete data.

If you combine this behavior with the fact that Toyota executives recently negotiated a less serious recall with the NHTSA in 2007 in order to save money, it’s very easy to come to the conclusion that Toyota has been well aware of these deficiencies in their cars for quite some time. And, despite being aware of these deficiencies, they did nothing to repair their Toyota recall problems until highly publicized accidents left them with no choice but to initiate the recalls. 

If that is indeed the case, then Toyota could be found guilty of negligence. If Toyota knew that there were problems with their cars, it was their responsibility to initiate a recall as soon as possible. Hiding the data and covering up what was really wrong was the most irresponsible thing that they could have done.

Greenberg and Bederman is a Washington, D.C. personal injury law firm that is currently offering legal assistance to people who have been injured due to Toyotas that malfunctioned. Toyota Recall cases like these often fall under the heading of both car accidents and product liability, and our attorneys have decades of experience in both areas. Our main office is in Silver Spring but we serve accident victims in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and the Baltimore, Maryland region. We can help injury victims in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

If you or a loved one has been injured in a toyota recall accident, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has issued the following advice for Toyota drivers who experience unintended acceleration:

• Brake firmly and steadily – do not pump the brake pedal.
• Shift the transmission into Neutral (for vehicles with automatic transmissions and the sport option, familiarize yourself with where Neutral is – the diagram may be misleading).
• Steer to a safe location.
• Shut the engine off (for vehicles with keyless ignition, familiarize yourself with how to turn the vehicle off when it is moving – this may be a different action than turning the vehicle off when it is stationary).
• Call your dealer or repair shop to pick up the vehicle. Do not drive it.

These suggestions are all well and good, but they seem like the sort of tips that will leave your brain the instant your car speeds up when you don’t want it to, or won’t stop when you want it to stop. We can’t help but think that it would have been better if Toyota had not had such a catastrophic failure in their engineering department, and that way drivers all over America wouldn’t have to remember any “just in case” tips at all.

The Washington, D.C. area and the entire Mid-Atlantic region just went through a massive snow storm, and as a result we can expect our roads to be difficult to drive on for the foreseeable future. This is hardly the optimal time for your brakes to not work or for your car to suddenly accelerate. What we would recommend is to check the Toyota website on a regular basis to see if your car is on the recall list, and if it is, make sure that you bring it in for the necessary repairs without delay. While a knob that falls off the radio or a power window switch that doesn’t work is something that you might be able to put off, anything involving brakes or acceleration should be handled immediately.

This Toyoya recall is a dangerous situation for drivers and pedestrians all over the country, and it is also a rather unique one. This might be one of the few instances where an accident can happen between two cars or a car and a pedestrian, yet it is possible that nobody involved is actually at fault. A driver can hardly take full responsibility for an accident if his car did malfunctioned in a dangerous way. In situations involving automotive malfunctions that stem from design flaws, the only entity really at fault is the company that made the flawed system to begin with.

On the surface, these cases might appear to be cut and dried, but if the accident involves multiple cars or people, you can be sure that any litigation will be very complex. In order to secure fair compensation for your injuries and lost or damaged property, it is crucial that you obtain attorneys who have a great deal of experience in both car accident cases and product liability cases.

Greenberg and Bederman have been helping injury victims in the Washington. D.C. area since 1985, and our practice has been built on getting decent and fair compensation for our clients. We have attorneys with decades of winning experience in both product liability and car accident cases, and can certainly help you with your Toyota accident claim.

If you or a loved one has been injured due to faulty brakes or sudden rapid acceleration in a Toyota, contact Greenberg and Bederman for a free legal consultation today.

Thanks to the recall, it is possible to bring your Toyota or Lexus in for repairs, but what is impossible at this point is getting a straight answer out of Toyota or anyone else for that matter. Some people are speculating that there is a problem in the electronics that are used in the acceleration process, while others are claiming that the problem is strictly mechanical. Toyota has also claimed that these problems become exacerbated in cold or wet weather.

Whatever the reasons for the malfunction, the end result is that people are being put in serious danger, regardless of whether they own a Toyota or not. Automobiles do not operate in a vacuum. They share the road with other cars, and drive through neighborhoods where pedestrians walk. With this in mind, it seems somewhat miraculous that there have only been 19 deaths so far.

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood halted the production of all models that fell under the recall, and wisely advised that owners of those models that were already on the road should be brought in for repairs immediately. The models that are affected by the recall are as follows:

Certain 2009-2010 RAV4’s
Certain 2009-2010 Corolla
2009-2010 Matrix
2005-2010 Avalon
Certain 2007-2010 Camry
Certain 2010 Highlander
2007-2010 Tundra
2008-2010 Sequoia

We want to reiterate that these are not harmless, run of the mill recalls. Toyota has placed thousands of people at risk ofinjury or worse due to faulty acceleration. It could have been a design flaw or it could have been a flaw on the assembly line, but at the end of the day thousands of people all over the world have been driving cars that spontaneously accelerate. They also crash into other cars and hit people.

The car recall attorneys at Greenberg and Bederman have been helping injury victims in the Washington, D.C. area for over 25 years. We have attorneys who have years of experience in product liability cases and negligence, and that includes automotive recalls. If you or a loved one has been injured because of a malfunction in a Toyota, contact Greenberg & Bederman for a free consultation.