When insurance fraud was on the rise in the 1970’s, insurance companies, law enforcement and state governments got together and did things like launched joint task forces to investigate fraud and formed insurance exchanges to help manage the problem. Their first reactions were not to; in effect, legally defraud the consumer.

Fast forward to the 21^st century and the Florida legislators have approached similar fraud a different way: punish consumers. I suggest that the below conversation never took place, but you can certainly imagine it could, given informed consumers who were active in supervising the people we send to Tallahassee “on our behalf”

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Florida Legislators: Wow, we have a really big problem with all this fraud going on in the Personal Injury Protection insurance (PIP). We need to do something.

Consumers: How do you know there is a big problem?

Florida Legislators: Extensive studies have been conducted by really, really smart people and they told us.

Consumers: Who are these people developing and providing the statistics.

Florida Legislators: The best experts in the land and we know this because they all had badges that had “insurance company paid fraud expert” on them.

Consumers: Okay, so what should we do about it? Shouldn’t we involve law enforcement?

Florida Legislators: Now, don’t you bother your little head about it, we will take care of you; don’t worry.

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Florida Legislators to Consumers: Okay, so we have a really, really great solution to the fraud problem. Let’s see if we can explain it in terms you might understand, because it’s real complicated:

First, we pass a law that allows consumers to keep $10,000 in PIP coverage and allows insurance companies to charge for $10,000 in PIP coverage. But, we are really only going to force insurance companies to provide $2,500 in PIP coverage; unless consumers can comply with some tricky statutes and contract provisions – you know, to prove they are not committing fraud.

Consumers: Well, but, how is that fair? We pay for $10,000, but only get $2,500…

Florida Legislators: Now don’t you worry, we have you covered. If you go to an emergency room within 14 days of your accident and an emergency/trauma doctor diagnoses you with an “emergency medical condition”, you are golden! You get the full amount of coverage you paid for; but, well, you can not go to massage therapists, chiropractors, acupuncturists or maybe some other treatments.

Consumers: What about injuries that do not develop until after 14 days? Everyone has some bumps and bruises from an auto accident, but you would not go to an emergency room for that. What about a bad back injury, for example a herniated disc that does not really begin showing symptoms for a few weeks.

Florida Legislators: Never happens. All the best studies given to us clearly show that 14 days is the magic number. Any injuries you claim to have developed after 14 days are just fraud – pure and simple.

Consumers: But, if the injuries are actually proved to be real and from the accident, we get the full coverage, right?

Florida Legislators: Hmmm, probably not, because you are faking. So, you can sue the insurance company and 3 or 4 years later you may win because some “activist judge” decides he thinks you should get $10,000 in coverage simply because you paid for that amount.

Consumers: How is this law in our best interest?

Florida Legislators: Our insurance company backers, er, friends, er “expert advisors” have told us that insurance companies are going to leave Florida if we do not do something about all this fraud in PIP insurance.

Consumers: Well, rather than punish us, why doesn’t the insurance industry and law enforcement get together and fight the fraud?

Florida Legislators: But, they said they would leave and stuff; and they mentioned political contributions; and then they told us this was the way to go.

Consumers: Do you think you acted in our best interests when you cut the deal with insurance companies and passed this law?

Florida Legislators: See, we knew you would get all emotional about it. This is business and it’s in your best interests. Our friends told us so. Besides, you need to look at it in the “bigger picture”. Plus, Governor Scott signed the law, so it must be about creating jobs and lofty things like that.

Did you get up this morning have breakfast and a few glasses of wine or cocktails before getting in your car to drive to work?

If you found yourself texting while you were making that trip to work, answering emails or maybe even talking on your cell phone, you might just as well have had the cocktails. Your level of performance impairment behind the wheel when you are texting is as bad, maybe worse, than driving a car drunk!

Hundreds of thousands of people are injured and killed every year as a result of distracted (impaired) driving. Sadly the loss of lives is preventable if we simply stop operating a ton of steel at 70 miles per hour while we are not really paying attention.

Believe me and the many researchers who have studied it: you are not a multi-tasker, a super-tasker, or anything but a single tasker. Your brain simply does not process in a way that accommodates doing more than one thing at a time.

There is help for everyone who feels the need to get a response to those people texting us, even when we are driving. It’s an app called “Free Safe Text” and there are some advantages to it over some of the other apps out there.

First, Free Safe Text does generate an immediate response to those texting you and it can be customized to your specific situation: “I can not respond to your text because I am driving at 70 mph.”, “I am in the movies. Will respond to your text soon.”

There is another benefit. The more you use Free Safe Text, the more you build up reward points that can be used toward money rewards or merchandise.

So, give everyone who loves you a holiday present this year and don’t drive distracted – try Free Safe Text!

We in Florida must stop being distracted from passing valuable and comprehensive laws regulating distracted driving.

We know that distracted driving is the equivalent, in terms of accident risk, to drunken driving.

We know that the brain can perform only a single function at a time and that asking a driver’s brain to operate a 5000 pound piece of metal at 70 mph, when trying to answer the latest received text is asking more from our brains than they can safely deliver.

We know that driving requires focus and concentration and that Sending or receiving a text takes a driver’s eyes from the road for an average of 4.6 seconds, the equivalent – at 55 mph – of driving the length of an entire football field, blind.

There are 300 million wireless subscribers in America and, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, some number of us caused over 3000 deaths last year as the result of distracted driving.

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I read this recent USA Today article in total disbelief. The article talks about the shortage of truck drivers, and the industry’s attempts at shifting the problem onto that yucky little issue called “safety.”

Apparently, when the federal government actually began posting safety ratings, the industry started to think it might be wise to consider, dare I say it, a safe driving history as a requirement to get a job as a truck driver. Rosalyn Wilson, a senior business analyst of a consulting firm called Delcan, says that truck drivers must be at least 21. This, of course, leads many 18-year-old high school graduates who might consider trucking to instead pursue plumbing or other trades. Oh no, say it’s not true! Perhaps it’s a good thing that an 18 year old might not be considered “ripe” enough to take a loaded 70,000lb rig across the country without a few more years of driving experience under his or her belt.

I have also seen this mentality in the pharmaceutical industry. Hiring cheap, untrained labor does not work in every industry. Ms. Wilson also says that many unemployed construction and factory workers can’t afford the $4,000 to $6,000 cost of a six-week driver-training course. When I first started working at Allstate, they hired me and then paid for my training. The novel concept of investing in an employee apparently is lost on an industry who is now also upset that the Federal Government is limiting the number of hours truck drivers can drive in any given period of time.

It’s both sad and amusing how this article does not mention the 500,000 trucking accidents that occur every year in the United States. Of these 500,000 trucking accidents, approximately 5,000 result in fatalities. In fact, one out of every eight traffic fatalities involves a trucking collision. Oh, and by the way, trucking revenues totaled $610 billion last year and revenues are estimated to nearly double by 2015. It is amazing how we can put a man on the moon, and yet the trucking industry is resigned to believing that they are simply unable to make our trucking system safe.

I am not a huge fan of regulation, but in this case, I know it’s needed. I have seen firsthand the death and destruction caused by poorly maintained trucks driven by drivers with horrible driving records, or worse yet, impaired in order to stay awake longer to make their “goals.” Once again, fast and cheap might be great for the occasional burger or my weekend frisbee and disposable cooler, but one size (or speed) does not fit all. I don’t want my heart surgery fast and cheap. I don’t want a nuclear submarine to be built fast and cheap. And truthfully, I don’t want the trucks on our nation’s highways to be fast, cheap, and unsafe.

Hopefully the next time this type of self-serving diatribe is rolled out by the trucking industry and their cronies, we will see journalistic efforts that at least attempt to portray the other side of the story. Of course, writing about the human toll is never as easy as writing from the glib perspective of a large industry with its eyes’ on profit.

Are you really a “super-tasker”? Are you willing to risk your safety and the safety of others on the arrogant belief that you are?

Dr. David Strayer (University of Utah) and his associates have conducted very indepth research and testing in the area of distracted driving. Of necessity, a large portion of that research has focused on the human brain’s ability to multi-task and what affect that has on overall quality of cognitive and motor functioning.

Having read some of Dr. Strayer’s research, let me make it easier for you: for almost every single person on the planet, multi-tasking is a myth and the human brain is incapable of achieving it.

Dr. Strayer has looked at the possible existence of “super-taskers” who possess the super human ability to process more than one task at a time. Some of Dr, Strayer’s findings in the search of the mythical:

“Supertaskers have a strikingly remarkable ability to successfully perform two attention-demanding tasks that over 97% of the population cannot perform without incurring substantial costs in performance.”

“Indeed, our studies over the last decade have found that a great many people have the belief that the laws of attention do not apply to them (e.g., they have seen other drivers who are impaired while multitasking, but they themselves are the exception to the rule). In fact, some readers may also be wondering whether they too are supertaskers; however, we suggest that the odds of this are against them.”

So, only a potential 3% of the population may fall into the category of a “supertasker”; while we mere humans comprise 97% of the rest of the population.

In 2010, the National Safety Council estimated that 28% of all accidents, including fatalities, on US highways are the result of drivers using cell phones. Further, it has been estimated that as many as 10% of all drivers during any daylight hour are involved in a cell phone conversation. If there are 125 million drivers on the roads daily, 12.5 million cell phone conversations occur. For each of those 12 million drivers there are a multitude of possible tasks they are trying to deal with in addition to driving, holding a cell phone, listening, talking and processing information in the conversation.

No computer is capable of keeping up with all the logical and objective tasks to which we demand our brains to pay attention. Add to all of these possible distractions, manual processing and brain processing that one thing with which no computer ever has manage – emotional distraction:

• You left the house after a fight with your wife (sub husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, etc…)
• You left the house after a fight with your kid.
• You left the house only to find the garage door opener did not work.
• You left the house only to remember you left your wallet.
• You are stuck in traffic that looks like it goes on forever.
• Someone just cut you off. Someone is tailgating you at 70 mph.
• You just lost a loved one to death.
• You are going through a divorce. You have financial problems.

Any one or combination of these any many other emotional distractions add to your inability to process information while tooling down the freeway at high speeds or negotiating bumper to bumper traffic.

So, give yourself a break and do not fall into the “I am a super tasker” trap. Be happy with being a regular human, with limited ability to process information.

Buckle up, turn the phone off, leave the coffee at home, and focus on propelling that 3000 pound car down the road in a safe and concentrated manner.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30SpScVCfAI&feature=related[/youtube]

If you have any doubts about the value of not texting or talking on a cell phone. If you can not conceive of the damage you might cause, watch this video illustrating the very personal costs. Beware; it is not for the faint of heart.

What do we think about when we hear the phrase “distracted driving”?

Texting, talking on a cell phone, e-mailing…all while driving?

This morning, while traveling Florida’s turnpike, I happened to look over to see a man in a SUV; with a cup of coffee on the dash, a newspaper draped over the dash and a razor in his right hand – all while traveling along at 70 mph. The disturbing part was that the man was in the driver’s seat of the SUV.

Distracted driving includes a whole bushel basket of things that drivers have been doing for a very long time, but only since we have been able to talk on the phone and text while driving have we been giving any considerable thought to the very real dangers they present.

Distracted driving may have begun before, but certainly it came into full being when the first radio was placed in the first car. For the first time, drivers had something in their vehicle that represented entertainment and a distraction from their driving. Or, was the first distraction a cigarette or a cigar; a passenger; or simply the first speedometer? All of these things represented “innocent distractions” from driving that no one really thought a great deal about until we introduced whole offices and entertainment centers into our automobiles.

Today, we have distractions from many, many sources, including (sadly not limited to):

The National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that over 453,000 people were injured or killed on our nation’s roadways in 2009. This number included some amount of potentially avoidable deaths (5,474 in total); if we simply reduced or eliminated the use of cell phones in vehicles.

Distractions are no longer limited to the standard two types: visual and cognitive, when driving a car or other vehicle. A third type of distraction added to the dangerous mix is the manual demands of both driving the automobile or truck and completing distracted tasks. Similarly, distractions are evaluated based upon three critical reasoning categories:

Internal distraction — a situation requiring a response because his/her attention is directed to some event, object, person, or activity inside the vehicle. Relevant examples include tuning the radio, adjusting the heat/cooling system, engaging in a conversation with a passenger, using a cell phone, retrieving fallen objects, reading books/magazines/maps/invoices, etc.

External distraction – crashes in which the driver fails to recognize a situation requiring a response because his/her attention is directed to some event, object, person, or activity outside the vehicle. Relevant examples include searching for a street address, construction activity, looking at a building or scenery, looking at a sign, looking at a previous crash site, etc. Distractions are distinguished from inattention in that distractions induce the driver to focus attention on the distraction.

Inattention distraction — when the driver fails to recognize a situation that demands a response because his/her attention has wandered from the driving task for some non-compelling reason. In this circumstance, the driver is typically focusing on internal thoughts (i.e., daydreaming, problem-solving, worrying about family problem, etc.) and not focusing attention on the driving task.

What may also be added to these categories are the very unique mechanical “distractions” created by using certain devices in a certain way. For example, holding a cell phone to your ear requires you to change your field of vision, either slightly or substantially, it requires you to move your arm and hold it to your ear, and it requires you to limit your ability to move due to positioning. All of these things may seem minor, but collectively, you have demanded that your brain process 5 or more additional thought processes in addition to those already being demanded from driving. Studies have demonstrated (Angell, et al, 2006; Harbluk, Noy, et al, 2007) that seemingly minor tasks, such as holding and talking on a cell phone, impact driving attention significantly:

• Limiting visual scanning
• Limiting field of vision
• Neglecting peripheral vision demands
• Negative impact on processing roadway information

It seems pretty clear that the demands of operating a two ton vehicle all by themselves require as much mechanical freedom and mental processing as our brains are capable of delivering safely. Each task you add to your “built-in driving distractions simply adds to your error potential and increases the likelihood of an accident.

New data suggests that SUV’s (short for “sport utility vehicle”) have become safer for other drivers to have them on the road.

The study was conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a research arm of the insurance industry.  The study found that in 2000-2001, there were 44 deaths per million registered vehicles for occupants of cars or minivans weighing 3,000 to 3,499 pounds that were hit by SUVs of similar weight.  This number has now decreased by nearly 64% to 16 deaths per million registered vehicles.

[dailymotion]http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xldc3d_effort-to-make-suvs-less-deadly-paying-off_auto[/dailymotion]

SUVs became popular in the US about 20 years ago.   With their popularity, we began to see the dangers that some of these vehicles posed to other drivers and passengers, especially in rollover accidents and when colliding with smaller vehicles. Their popularity created a push by regulators, safety advocates, and consumers to improve their safety to prevent rollovers and to make them safer when they collided with other vehicles.

Why the push to improve safety?

At the time, many SUVs and pickups rode much higher off the ground than smaller cars.  Consequently, in a collision, the SUVs’ and trucks’ stiff frames collided with lower, weaker, parts of car frames.  This created a huge disparity in the ability of car occupants to survive the crash.

Joseph M. Nolan, who was a co-author of the study, found the death rates for occupants of cars are now virtually the same whether the vehicle is hit by another car, or an SUV of similar weight. He said, “it used to be, pound for pound, trucks and SUVs were more deadly than cars.”  But that appears no longer the case.

Trucks in comparison

These vehicles still could use improvement in collisions; however, the risk was narrowed significantly in 2008 -2009 compared with 2000-2001, the study found.  Nonetheless, car occupants who collide with a pick-up truck, rather than a car, are still more likely to die in a collision.

The Good News

The US Department of Transportation has said that overall, highway fatalities have declined to the lowest rate since 1949.

Make sure your vehicle is operating safely by changing your tires regularly, checking important safety recalls on the vehicle you own, and always remember to wear your seatbelt!

According to a recent study, drivers taking certain types of prescription drugs are more likely to be involved in a traffic accident.

The study, which was published in the online medical journal PLoS Medicine, was conducted in France where medical experts classify all prescription medications into one of four levels based on their risk of driving impairment.  Drugs classified as level 0 have little to no risk of driving impairment, while drugs classified as level 1, 2, or 3 have increasing risk of impairment.  Level 3 drugs carry major risk of impairment.

The study looked at all vehicle crashes between July 2005 and May 2008 that resulted in someone being injured and compared prescription drug use by those who were responsible for the accident to those who were not responsible.  The researchers found that that the risk of causing an accident resulting in injury increased by 1.24 to 1.40% for drivers who used at least one level 2 or level 3 medication.  The researchers also found that the risk of being responsible for an accident increased as the number of level 2 or 3 medications prescribed to a driver likewise increased.

Level 2 medications strongly associated with increased risk of driver culpability in injurious accidents:

• alcoholic-dependence drugs
• anti-dementia drugs
• antidepressants (most commonly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs such as PROZAC or PAXIL)
• antipsychotics (certain ones)
• anti-seizure drugs
• anxiolytics (tranquilizers, predominantly benzodiazepines)
• opioid-dependence drugs

Level 3 medications strongly associated with increased risk of driver culpability in injurious accidents:

• antipsychotics (certain ones)
• anxiolytics (certain ones)
• hypnotics/sedatives
• opioids (certain ones)

Medications can impair driving ability in different ways.  Some medications make you drowsy or impair judgment or reaction time.  In addition, some diabetes drugs can cause hypoglycemia, which may lead to seizures or loss of consciousness.

The United States does not classify drugs according to the their risk of impairment, so Americans need to make sure they are not driving while using a prescription drug that may put them at a higher risk of causing an accident.  If you are taking prescription medications, make sure to ask your doctor if the drug could affect your ability to operate a motor vehicle.  You can also ask your pharmacist for a medication guide or view one on the FDA’s website.   The U. S. Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was also authored a comprehensive study on the effects of prescription drug use in elderly drivers which can be accessed at NHTSA

How many people actually are wireless in 2011?

We know that in 2010, 292,800,000 people had wireless subscriptions.

We know that wireless-only households went from 2,138,400 in 2005 to 71,736,000 in 2010. An increase of over 30 times 2005.

We also know that the time people spent on wireless phones in 2005 amounted to 1,026,000,000 minutes (over 17,100,000 hours) and in 2010, increased to 2,026,000,000 minutes (over 33,700,000 hours).

In addition to talking to people, our phones have now gotten “smart” and we are able to email, text and post on the web. In fact text messaging has gone from 12,200,000 in the year 2000 to 135,200,000,000 in 2009. That accounts for over 370,410,958 text messages per day.

Let’s face it, we have become and are daily increasing our ability to be mobile; to communicate from anywhere and at anytime. But, that also suggests the question: Should we be communicating without regard for where we are and what we are doing?

I can tell you from my own recent experience that talking on a cell phone while driving a tractor is a really bad idea. Your ability to maneuver the tractor around obstacles and ditches is greatly reduced while focusing your attention on holding a cell phone and talking on it.

So what happens at 30 mph, 50 mph, or 70 mph while you are trying to drive a car and manipulate your smart phone?

Let’s break down the things you are doing just to operate a car down a road:

Visual: you are looking from one point to another in your field of vision. This includes managing a visual field that encompasses: front center, right and left; rear center, right and left; side view mirror to the right and side view mirror to the left; dash gauges including speedometer, temperature gauge, oil pressure gauge, and gas gauge.

Audible: you hear traffic road noise; you hear horns and must discern those warning you and those of an ambient nature; you hear the sound of your own vehicle and try to determine whether the noise is usual or unusual; you may hear the sirens of emergency vehicles and then must rely on additional visual responsibilities; and you are probably playing the radio or other listening device.

Physical: you are using your right foot to move between the accelerator and the brake; both hands are engaged with the steering wheel (when not changing radio stations); your eyes move from one point to another (see visual); your left hand must handle the turn signals; and your right hand may be shifting gears.

Mental: Your brain is engaged in all of the visual, auditory and physical activities; moving your eyes, taking in sounds, and moving limbs. In addition, it is processing all the input from your eyes and ears; trying to determine whether it is “business as usual” or whether that semi is going to suddenly change lanes into you.

Bottom line is your brain is functioning at its peak capacity while trying to drive a car, truck, boat or, well, a tractor.

But “I can multitask” you say? Really?

Multitasking is a myth. Human brains do not multitask, but rather they select. Your brain is engaging in a constant process of picking and choosing what it needs to focus its attention on at any given second:

• Selection – the brain tries to choose what information it will process
• Process – the actual handing out of information and instructions to the body
• Encode – the brain creates memory. You cannot process information and take ANY action without the brain storing the information in at least short term memory
• Store – the brain store the information
• Retrieve – the brain must access the information stored in memory
• Execute – the brain instructs some part of the body to act on the information and then guides the necessary neurological responses to cause the action

While the brain is going through these steps for each piece of information it is receiving and for each action it is taking, it can be placed into a state of overload. Think of your brain trying to process multiple pieces of unrelated information as a computer would. What you often see when your computer van not process is the hourglass appearing on your screen and not going away. Nothing will work and you are forced to reboot. Your brain does not reboot, it simply selects what it is going to pay attention to and in what order it will process the information before it takes action. If the process is interrupted, the execution will be flawed or compromised in one way or another.

A perfect example for the tragic outcome of trying to multitask while doing something as important as driving can be found at the National Safety Council website:

In January 2004, at 4:00 p.m., in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a 20-year-old woman ran a red light while talking on a cell phone. The driver’s vehicle slammed into another vehicle crossing with the green light directly in front of her. The vehicle she hit was not the first car through the intersection, it was the third or fourth. The police investigation deter­mined the driver never touched her brakes and was traveling 48 mph when she hit the other vehicle. The crash cost the life of a 12-year-old boy. Witnesses told investigators that the driver was not looking down, not dialing the phone, or texting. She was observed looking straight out the windshield talking on her cell phone as she sped past four cars and a school bus stopped in the other south bound lane of traffic. Researchers have called this crash a classic case of inattention blindness caused by the cognitive distraction of a cell phone conversation. The driver responsible for the above crash was on the phone with her church where she volunteered with children the age of the young boy who lost his life as the result of her phone call. She pled guilty to negligent homicide and the lives of two families were terribly and permanently altered. Countless numbers of similar crashes continue every day.

So, when driving a 3000 pound piece of metal hurling along a roadway, don’t ask more from your brain than it can reasonably deliver:

• Stay off the phone
• Don’t put on makeup or shave
• Don’t read the newspaper
• Don’t eat your breakfast, lunch or dinner
• Don’t talk on the phone
• Don’t text or email

Finally, never forget that, in 2008, 1,400,000 vehicle crashes happened as a result of cell phone use and as many as 1,000,000 crashes happened as a result of texting and driving; that is 2,400,000 unnecessarily hurt and injured people.

On December 3, 2007, 59-year-old Niven Anderson was on his way to West Palm Beach to connect with some of his business customers and had stopped his car at a traffic light in Belle Glade, Florida. Without any warning, the flatbed trailer of a passing commercial vehicle swerved from its lane and smashed its left rear tire into Mr. Anderson’s car. The truck driver did not stop. Fortunately, a local law enforcement officer was at the intersection when the collision occurred, and the truck driver was stopped and apprehended some distance down the highway. In spite of the obvious physical evidence, and eyewitness accounts of the accident, the truck driver denied having anything to do with the accident.

In March 2007, just nine months prior to this accident, Mr. Anderson had suffered severe injuries when, as a pedestrian, he was struck by a passing motorist. He spent 24 days in a hospital undergoing treatment for a badly broken right leg and a cervical fracture. Through outstanding medical treatment and his own hard work, Mr. Anderson was able to slowly put his life back together. Unfortunately, the injuries caused by this accident made Mr. Anderson’s neck and spine more susceptible to further injury should he be involved in another accident. Following the accident caused by the inattentive truck driver in Belle Glade, Mr. Anderson was set back to square one in his physical condition. Because of the damage done by the second accident, he eventually had to endure a four-level cervical fusion of his spine.

The trucking company, Gypsum Express Limited, not only refused to accept responsibility for the injuries caused by their negligent truck driver, and but even refused to acknowledge that the crash had happened. Niven Anderson and his wife, Betty, were forced to file suit in Palm Beach County and sought representation by SDSBS attorneys Jack Hill and Brian Denney. Following two years of pretrial litigation, they were able to present their case to a jury. The attorneys spent eight days fighting the truck company’s many attempts to explain why it was not responsible for Mr. Anderson’s injuries. The trucking company argued that its driver did not hit Mr. Anderson’s car, and that, even if the truck had hit the car, Mr. Anderson’s problems were the result of a combination of degenerative changes and the March 2007 injuries. The trucking company even blamed the driver of a vehicle behind Mr. Anderson’s car, who, in the face of the sudden and unexpected emergency caused by the truck slamming into the Anderson car, had rear-ended the Anderson vehicle. Ultimately, the jury rejected each of the trucking company’s excuses. The jury found the company 100% responsible for Niven Anderson’s injuries and awarded the Andersons over $720,000.

“Through their verdict, it is apparent that the jury was able to see through all of the trucking company’s laundry list of excuses, right to the heart of the case,” said Mr. Hill. Because the defendants had failed to accept the Andersons’ offer to settle the case for $425,000, attorneys Hill and Denney will now seek to recover attorney fees as well.