Showing posts sorted by date for query distracted. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by date for query distracted. Sort by relevance Show all posts
Friday, December 10, 2021
Is the Workers' Compensation System Prepared for Omicron (Updated 12/10/21)
As this holiday season approaches, employers, insurance companies, and employees will be facing what may be the biggest COVID challenges of the year. The highly infectious disease variant Omicron detected initially in South Africa is spreading worldwide, including reported cases in the US.
Saturday, May 11, 2019
Noise Induced Health Threats
Excessive noise that has dominated the workplace throughout time is now associated as causing a plethora of serious health conditions. A recent article in the New York Magazine by David Owen focusses on occupational induced noise pollution and the ailments it affects.
Wednesday, February 8, 2017
Made by a robot...driven by a computer
The workers' compensation scheme is being challenged to potential extinction by the workplace in which it was created decades ago. Stressed by economic challenges that have been fueled by globalization and technology, workers' compensation benefit programs are now being dismantled by historic reforms that attack the core philosophical principles of its very existence.
The evolving dynamic of the world's automobile industry provides a focus on the new economy where goods are made by robots and operated by a computer.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
It is not "How," It is "When"
Judge David Langham wrote a very enlightening blog post today about how advancing technology is impacting the world and more particularly the workers' compensation arena. As usual, he is right on target with the issue that is going to have the most influence over our changing world.
The Judge mentioned the advent of driverless technology. Ironically, it is national Distracted Driving Awareness Month. If you are driving about the State of New York with a phone in your hand you'll most likely get a ticket for sure this week. The driverless car is already under development with a target for production by major corporations such as Apple by the year 2020. In California Google already has test vehicles on the road.
The Judge mentioned the advent of driverless technology. Ironically, it is national Distracted Driving Awareness Month. If you are driving about the State of New York with a phone in your hand you'll most likely get a ticket for sure this week. The driverless car is already under development with a target for production by major corporations such as Apple by the year 2020. In California Google already has test vehicles on the road.
Friday, December 19, 2014
Designed in Cupertino: Apple under fire again for working conditions at Chinese factories
 Holding US companies accountable for unsafe working conditions abroad is a major challenge. Does cheap labor equate to poor working conditions? Is China more interested in providing an abundance of jobs than a safe workplace as and more immigrants flock to the cities every year for work?Ares cheap and unsafe labor conditions really a political tool as a defense to revolution? Today's post is shared from theguardian.com/ Workers in Chinese factories making Apple products continue to be poorly treated, with exhausted employees falling asleep on their 12-hour shifts, the BBC has said after an undercover investigation. Reporters who took jobs at the Pegatron factories found workers regularly exceeded 60 hours a week – contravening the company’s guidance – and that standards on ID cards, dormitories, work meetings and juvenile workers were also breached. The broadcaster said promises made by Apple to protect workers in the wake of a spate of suicides at supplier Foxconn in 2010 were “routinely broken”. Apple said that it disagreed with the BBC’s conclusions. The BBC filmed a health and safety exam at a Pegatron factory in which workers chanted out answers in unison, meaning there was little chance of failing. The footage also appeared to show workers had no choice to opt out of doing night shifts or working while standing. One reporter had to work 18 days in a row despite repeated requests for a day off, the BBC reported. In response to the programme, Apple told the BBC: “We are aware of no other company doing as much as Apple to ensure fair and safe working conditions. “We work with suppliers to address shortfalls, and we see continuous and significant improvement, but we know our work is never done.” The company said it was common for workers to sleep during breaks but it would investigate whether they were falling asleep while working. It said it... |
Read more about Apple and safety and health
Dec 13, 2013
Death of Apple factory workers highlight safety, underage issues ... Pegatron and Apple said their investigations indicated that the deaths weren't linked to work conditions. In response to Shi's death, Apple last month sent ...
Jun 13, 2013
Transportation accidents account for a high proportion of work-related fatalities, and Apple's announcement with week of increasing the access of iCar-Technology into the automobile is raising serious concerns among safety ...
Jan 18, 2013
In a turn of fate, the company who anufatures football safety gear has itself been sited for serious safety vilations at its own manufacturing facilities. The apple certainly doesn't fall far from the tree. The U.S. Department of ...
Jan 18, 2012
The recently released annual Apple Supplier Report discusses production safety and health issues of Apple's global international suppliers. Admitting many problems including health and safety violations, including an ...
Friday, December 12, 2014
The long history of GM’s ignition switch cover up
| Today's post is shared from motleyrice.com/ GM’s ignition switch defect has now been linked to 38 deaths to date. The ignition switch problem was so obvious that customers, journalists and even GM employees were reporting the problem a decade before GM finally admitted the issue and recalled the cars. Way back in 2005, one frightened customer wrote to both GM and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), stating that “This is a safety/recall issue if ever there was one . . . The problem is the ignition turn switch is poorly installed. Even with the slightest touch, the car will shut off while in motion. I don’t have to list for you the safety problems that may happen, besides an accident or death, a car turning off while doing a high speed must cause engine and other problems in the long haul . . . I firmly believe that this ignition switch needs to be recalled, reexamined and corrected.” Yet, GM did nothing. That same year, New York Times journalist Jeff Sabatini commented on an odd issue with his Chevrolet Cobalt. His wife was driving on the freeway when she accidentally bumped her knee on the steering column and the car “just went dead.” On looking into the issue, he found another writer with the same problem. Journalist Gary Heller of Pennsylvania’s The Daily Item had also experienced “unplanned engine shutdowns [that] happened four times during a hard-driving test week” in his Cobalt. The... |
Friday, November 21, 2014
Distracted Drivers and Rising Workers’ Comp Claims
 Such accidents are among the leading causes of high-severity Workers’ Compensation injuries. According to the National Safety Council, the average work-related motor vehicle injury claim costs an average of $69,206. That’s double the cost of other work-related injuries. The lack of training in safe driving techniques is a primary factor of work-related driving accidents. But you can’t have this discussion without putting particular focus on distracted drivers. A distracted driver is one who is engaged in any activity that diverts his or her attention from the primary task of driving. All distractions put drivers, passengers, and bystanders at risk. Common activities that cause driver distractions are, in no particular order:
Who are these distracted drivers?It’s been proven that the visual, manual, and cognitive attention required for text messaging makes it the most dangerous driving distraction. How likely is it that you or your employees could be included in the following statistics and facts below?
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Sunday, October 26, 2014
Meet the startups trying to stop pedestrian deaths
| Distracted walking is a new safety concern. Today's post is shared from theverge.com As phones get more powerful and screens get bigger, it gets harder and harder to pull our attention away from them, even when it puts us at risk. One place where that unavoidably happens is in the intersections of city streets, where pedestrians, bikers, and drivers meet — sometimes violently. To try to tackle this problem, AT&T partnered with the NYU Rudin Center for Transportation, the NYC Department of Transportation, educational co-op General Assembly, and software competition site ChallengePost to create Connected Intersections, a four-month developer challenge with the goal of inspiring technologies that can make city streets safer for distracted humans buried in their phones and the people around them. "Traffic lights can only do so much." "Pedestrians and cars are kind of at an impasse right now, and it’s getting to a point where real action needs to be taken," Sarah Kaufman of the Rudin Center said at one of the challenge’s developer open houses back in July. "Every two hours a New Yorker is hurt or badly injured, and every 30 hours one is killed in a car crash. So it’s at a point where we have a big opportunity to start using smart technologies to put the power in the people’s hands. Why not put safety in people’s hands? Traffic lights can only do so much." Connected Intersections ended up collecting 45 ideas from teams in 13 different countries and 26 different states. Eight teams were awarded... |
Friday, October 10, 2014
Truck firm, driver sued over crash that killed 4 softball players
| Two lawsuits have been filed in Tarrant County against Quickway Transportation and its driver, Russell Wayne Staley of Saginaw, following a Sept. 26 crash that killed four college softball teammates. The parents of Brooke Deckard filed their suit in district court Monday. Deckard, 20, of Blue Ridge; Jaiden Pelton, 19, of Telephone; Meagan Richardson, 19, of Wylie; and Katelynn Woodlee, 18, of Dodd City were killed in the wreck. Staley’s northbound truck crossed the grass median of Interstate 35 about 47 miles into Oklahoma and slammed into the southbound bus that was returning the team to North Central Texas College in Gainesville after a game. Another lawsuit was filed Friday on behalf of Rachel Hitt, 19, of Scurry. She was one of two players, both from Kaufman County, who required several days of hospital treatment. Each suit seeks a jury trial and more than $1 million in damages. The suits accuse 53-year-old Staley of distracted driving and say that Quickway was negligent in letting him drive. Investigations into the crash are expected to take several weeks. The Oklahoma Highway Patrol is conducting a criminal investigation. The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting a safety investigation that could lead to possible road improvements at the site near Davis, Okla. Investigators have said the truck left the roadway at highway speed, 70 mph, and crossed about 950 feet of median without braking or swerving. However, some deceleration may have occurred, and no... |
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.
Friday, October 3, 2014
NTSB: Truck showed no signs of trying to avoid North Texas softball team's bus
| Investigators in the Oklahoma crash that killed four women’s softball players from North Central Texas College said Sunday that the truck showed no signs of braking or maneuvering out of the way before it slammed into the team’s bus. National Transportation Safety Board investigators said Sunday that the truck drove through the median for 820 feet on a shallow angle before colliding with the bus. It did not brake or appear to take any action to avoid the crash. They found no apparent problems with the truck’s brakes. The 18-wheeler veered across the Interstate 35 median near Davis and crashed into the team’s bus late Friday. The team’s head coach Van Hedrick was driving 15 players back from a scrimmage against Southern Nazarene University in Bethany, Okla., when they were hit by about 9 p.m. Friday, authorities said. Three women died at the scene, and one died at an area hospital. All were from Texas. The NTSB is assisting Oklahoma Highway Patrol in the investigation. They obtained search warrants for the truck and bus. The investigation will include toxicology reports of both drivers and could take months. Investigators will turn over the results to the local district attorney, who will decide whether to pursue criminal charges. The Highway Patrol identified those who died as Meagan Richardson, 19, of Wylie; Brooke Deckard, 20, of Blue Ridge in Collin County; Jaiden Pelton, 20, of Telephone in Fannin County; and Katelynn... |
Friday, September 26, 2014
Florida carrier shut down by FMCSA ignoring hours, maintenance rules
| Two former trucking company owners pleaded guilty Aug. 19 to violating shutdown orders issued by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration in a reincarnated carrier ... The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration has issued an imminent hazard out-of-service order to the Grand Ridge, Fla.-based Ken’s Trucking, a 33-truck fleet that hauls general freight and refrigerated food, the agency announced Sept. 18. An investigation into the company revealed “numerous widespread violations of safety regulations,” the agency said in its announcement. In the last 12 months, Ken’s Trucking has been involved in five recordable crashes, FMCSA says, and 29 of its drivers received 15 citations for speeding and 10 other traffic citations. Related FMCSA says it has suspended the authority of Espinal Trucking, based in Michigan City, for not cooperating with an investigation into its compliance history following ... FMCSA says the carrier did not properly oversee and maintain driver qualification files, including medical certification and driving violation records, and it allowed drivers who tested positive for drug use — and with suspended CDLs — to operate its vehicles. It also failed to ensure hours-of-service compliance of its drivers and did not properly maintain its... |
Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Trying to Hit the Brake on Texting While Driving
People know they shouldn’t text and drive. Overwhelmingly, they tell pollsters that doing so is unacceptable and dangerous, and yet they do it anyway. They can’t resist. So safety advocates and public officials have called for a technological solution that does an end run around free will and prevents people from texting in the first place. That’s where Scott Tibbitts comes in. A chemical engineer who built a company that made motors and docking stations for NASA, Mr. Tibbitts, 57, spent the last five years coming up with a novel way to block incoming and outgoing texts and to prevent phone calls from reaching a driver. He wasn’t some crazy inventor or relentless self-promoter acting on his own. To bolster his engineering solution, he struck a partnership with two heavyweights: American Family Insurance, which agreed to invest in the technology, and, even more important, with Sprint. It agreed to allow Mr. Tibbitts’s company, Katasi, to use its network to stop texts. It was a kind of holy grail, safety advocates gushed, a first for an American phone carrier.  The product was being completed in February for a summer start — “a huge deal,” as it was characterized by David Teater, senior director for transportation initiatives at the National Safety Council, which works to curb distracted driving. Sprint hailed it as a major step. It seemed to answer a call from people like Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West... |
Monday, September 8, 2014
Big Judgment Against Carrier Over Deadly 2011 Nevada Train Crash
Today's post was shared by Trucker Lawyers and comes from www.truckinginfo.com
A jury decided a civil case on Friday that pitted the nation’s passenger rail service against one trucking company, with the fleet having to pay more than $4.5 million in damages, according to Courthouse News Service.
Nevada-based John Davis Trucking was found to be at fault for the June 2011 crash about 70 miles east of Reno when one of its drivers slammed into an Amtrak train along U.S. 95 in a fiery crash. It led to the deaths of six people, including the trucker.
The owner of the train tracks, Union Pacific, was awarded more than $200,000
The trial began about a month ago in federal court in Reno, in which Amtrak was seeking $11 million against John Davis Trucking, which filed a counterclaim, saying the system that would have warned the trucker about the oncoming train was not working properly.
Much of the testimony revolved around the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board following the crash and the release of its report more than a year later. It found an inattentive truck driver and poorly maintained brakes, including antilock brakes that had been rendered inoperable, were likely responsible for the crash. NTSB also made numerous safety recommendations early this year, which drew some reaction from trucking industry groups.
Read more about this decision from Courthouse News Service.
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Thursday, September 4, 2014
The Risk of Melanoma in Airline Pilots and Cabin Crew
| Airline pilots and cabin crew are occupationally exposed to higher levels of cosmic and UV radiation than the general population, but their risk of developing melanoma is not yet established. Objective To assess the risk of melanoma in pilots and airline crew. Data Sources PubMed (1966 to October 30, 2013), Web of Science (1898 to January 27, 2014), and Scopus (1823 to January 27, 2014). Study Selection All studies were included that reported a standardized incidence ratio (SIR), standardized mortality ratio (SMR), or data on expected and observed cases of melanoma or death caused by melanoma that could be used to calculate an SIR or SMR in any flight-based occupation. Data Extraction and Synthesis Primary random-effect meta-analyses were used to summarize SIR and SMR for melanoma in any flight-based occupation. Heterogeneity was assessed using the χ2 test and I2 statistic. To assess the potential bias of small studies, we used funnel plots, the Begg rank correlation test, and the Egger weighted linear regression test. Main Outcomes and Measures Summary SIR and SMR of melanoma in pilots and cabin crew. Results Of the 3527 citations retrieved, 19 studies were included, with more than 266 431 participants. The overall summary SIR of participants in any flight-based occupation was 2.21 (95% CI, 1.76-2.77; P < .001; 14 records). The summary SIR for pilots was 2.22 (95% CI, 1.67-2.93; P... |
Saturday, August 2, 2014
Trucker charged with vehicular homicide after alleged cellphone use led to fatal crash in Carlstadt
Today's post is shared from northjersey.com
In what authorities say is one of the first cases of its kind, a tractor-trailer driver who caused a fatal accident in Carlstadt two months ago has been charged with vehicular homicide and lying to police about using a cellphone at the time, authorities said Friday.
Henry Flores, 55, was making phone calls and operating the touch screen on his smartphone when his 1996 Kenworth truck slammed into the back of a vehicle slowing down for traffic in the southbound lanes on the New Jersey Turnpike just before 5 p.m. on June 9, authorities said. They said the crash led to a chain collision involving several vehicles.
Motorist Jeffrey Humphrey, 43, of Harrison — a musician and an audio engineer who had two daughters — was killed in the crash, and several others were injured, authorities said.
State Police said that Flores was arrested Thursday at his residence in Union City. However, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said Flores has been living in Netcong.
A little less than three months before the accident, Flores was ticketed on March 22 for driving while using a cellphone in Union City, according to state Motor Vehicle Commission records. His record shows a total of 19 driving violations, five in New Jersey, including operating while suspended, speeding, careless driving, and unsafe operation of a motor vehicle.
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In what authorities say is one of the first cases of its kind, a tractor-trailer driver who caused a fatal accident in Carlstadt two months ago has been charged with vehicular homicide and lying to police about using a cellphone at the time, authorities said Friday.
Henry Flores, 55, was making phone calls and operating the touch screen on his smartphone when his 1996 Kenworth truck slammed into the back of a vehicle slowing down for traffic in the southbound lanes on the New Jersey Turnpike just before 5 p.m. on June 9, authorities said. They said the crash led to a chain collision involving several vehicles.
Motorist Jeffrey Humphrey, 43, of Harrison — a musician and an audio engineer who had two daughters — was killed in the crash, and several others were injured, authorities said.
State Police said that Flores was arrested Thursday at his residence in Union City. However, Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli said Flores has been living in Netcong.
A little less than three months before the accident, Flores was ticketed on March 22 for driving while using a cellphone in Union City, according to state Motor Vehicle Commission records. His record shows a total of 19 driving violations, five in New Jersey, including operating while suspended, speeding, careless driving, and unsafe operation of a motor vehicle.
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Friday, July 18, 2014
Documents Show General Motors Kept Silent on Fatal Crashes
| The car crash that killed Gene Erickson caught the attention of federal regulators. Why did the Saturn Ion he was traveling in, along a rural Texas road, suddenly swerve into a tree? Why did the air bags fail? General Motors told federal authorities that it could not provide answers. But only a month earlier, a G.M. engineer had concluded in an internal evaluation that the Ion had most likely lost power, disabling its air bags, according to a subsequent internal investigation commissioned by G.M. Now, G.M.'s response, as well as its replies to queries in other crashes obtained by The New York Times from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, casts doubt on how forthright the automaker was with regulators over a defective ignition switch that G.M. has linked to at least 13 deaths over the last decade. They provide details for the first time on the issue at the heart of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department: whether G.M., in its interaction with safety regulators, obscured a deadly defect that would also injure perhaps hundreds of people. The company repeatedly found a way not to answer the simple question from regulators of what led to a crash. In at least three cases of fatal crashes, including the accident that killed Mr. Erickson, G.M. said that it had not assessed the cause. In another fatal crash, G.M. said that attorney-client privilege may have prevented it from answering. And in other cases, the automaker was more blunt, writing, “G.M.... |
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Rail Workers Raise Doubts About Safety Culture As Oil Trains Roll On
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| BNSF Railway tank car 880362 in a train passing Glen Haven, Wisconsin. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
| Today's post is shared from earthfix.opb.org. The rail yard in Blaine, Washington, was on heightened security that day, he remembers, because of the 2010 Winter Olympics underway just across border in Vancouver, B.C. The black, cylindrical tank cars held hazardous materials like propane, butane and carbon monoxide. The plan was to move the train just more than two miles through three public crossings and onto the main track. Rookaird and the other two crew members were convinced the train first needed a test of its air brakes to guard against a derailment. But that kind of test can take hours. A BNSF trainmaster overheard Rookaird talking over the radio about the testing. He questioned if it was necessary. The crew was already behind schedule that day. Rookaird stood firm. “If you don’t have brakes the cars roll away from you,” Rookaird would later say. “You don’t have control of the train, you can crash into things.” The trainmaster replied by saying he didn’t intend to argue. They’d talk about it later. Then he phoned their boss. Minutes later, managers had a crew ready to replace Rookaird’s. Within a month, after Rookaird got federal investigators involved, he received a letter from BNSF informing him his employment had been terminated. That account — based... |
Monday, June 23, 2014
Trucking Lobby Blocking Safety Legislation
While serious transportation work-related accidents raise public attention for increased efforts to rein in unsafe transportation issues, the strong and effective trucking lobby has created a road block for reform. Today's post is shared from northjersey.com
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| Democrat Cory Booker is waging his first floor fight in the U.S. Senate, taking on colleagues in both parties who want to suspend regulations specifying how much rest truck drivers should get each week. The issue drew attention because of the high-profile crash involving comedian Tracy Morgan on the New Jersey Turnpike this month, but it is also so closely identified with Booker’s predecessor, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, that a safety-advocacy group named a “congressional courage” award after Lautenberg last week. Booker, who filled Lautenberg’s term after he died last year, was also assigned to Lautenberg’s spot on the subcommittee that regulates federal highways and the trucks and buses that use them. It’s natural, he said, for someone coming from such a congested state to make regulating large trucks a priority. “New Jersey sent me down to fight New Jersey’s fight, and this is a New Jersey fight,” Booker said. It’s a fight he may not win, however. The trucking industry spends an average of $5 million on contributions to members of Congress during every two-year campaign cycle — Booker himself got $2,000 — and $10 million more... |
Monday, April 14, 2014
Distracted Driving - Time To Revisit Compensability Issues
Acting Attorney General John Hoffman today announced the staggering toll driver inattention has taken on New Jersey’s roadways in the past 10 years, declaring that the State experienced a “distracted driving decade” and that an ongoing law enforcement initiative is working to help end the crisis.
From 2004 to 2013, driver inattention was a major contributing circumstance in 1.4 million crashes in New Jersey – that is about half of the total crashes in the state in that period. Distraction was the number one contributing circumstance in total crashes. And in one decade (2003-2012), more than 1,600 people have been killed in crashes where driver inattention was a major contributing factor.
“The numbers tell the sad truth: we are in the midst of a surge in driver inattention, and crash statistics bear out that we can characterize the last 10 years simply as ‘New Jersey’s Distracted Driving Decade,’” said Hoffman. “What is perhaps most troubling about these numbers is that the issue of distracted driving seems to be getting progressively worse. Our research indicates that while crashes and fatalities are trending downward as a whole, the number and proportion of distracted crashes are rising.”
At the beginning of the “Distracted Driving Decade” in 2004, driver inattention was cited as a major contributing circumstance in 42 percent of crashes. But that number has risen in those 10 years and last year it peaked at 53 percent. And the proportion of distracted crashes has surged 26 percent in that time span.
“In recent years smartphones and other devices have become more sophisticated and it’s clear to most of us that they’re being used more by drivers,” said Acting Director of the Division of Highway Traffic Safety Gary Poedubicky. “Though the overall picture of road safety is brightening, one cannot help but conclude that there is an increasing addiction to distraction for drivers. We need to put an end to the epidemic of driver inattention and close the book on the ‘Distracted Driving Decade.’”
In an effort to stop distracted driving, the Division of Highway Traffic Safety has for the first time made funds available to law enforcement agencies for a statewide crackdown on motorists who are using a handheld device while driving, which is illegal in New Jersey. Sixty police departments received $5,000 each for the campaign called U Drive. U Text. U Pay. and the funds will be used to pay for checkpoints and increased patrols. Many more enforcement agencies are also expected to participate unfunded in the initiative, which was funded and developed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).
About halfway through the three-week campaign, which runs from April 1 to 21, the funded departments have issued an estimated 3,000 summonses for cell phone and electronic device violations.
“People need to know that we are serious about stopping this deadly behavior,” said NHTSA Region 2 Administrator Thomas M. Louizou. “Using a handheld phone and texting has reached epidemic levels. When you text or talk on the phone while driving, you take your focus off the road. That puts everyone else’s lives in danger, and no one has the right to do that.”
The crackdowns are similar in scope to the Drive Sober, or Get Pulled Over and Click It or Ticket mobilizations, which have targeted impaired driving and seat belt usage, respectively. Louizou said the successes of those programs have proven that the combination of tough laws, targeted advertising, and high-visibility enforcement can change people’s risky traffic safety behaviors.
To see a list of agencies receiving funding for this initiative please visit:www.nj.gov/oag/hts/downloads/UDUTUP_2014_Grant_Recipients.pdf
This increased police presence on the roads will soon be paired with stepped up penalties for breaking the State’s primary cell phone law. Currently, motorists violating New Jersey’s primary cell phone law face a $100 fine plus court costs and fees. Because of a new law signed by Governor Chris Christie last year, penalties for that transgression will get stiffer. On July 1, those penalties will rise to a range of $200 to $400 for a first offense, $400 to $600 for a second, and up to $800 and three insurance points for subsequent violations. These changes follow the adoption in 2012 of the “Kulesh, Kubert and Bolis Law.” Under that law, proof that a defendant was operating a hand-held wireless telephone while driving a motor vehicle may give rise to the presumption that the defendant was engaged in reckless driving. Prosecutors are empowered to charge the offender with committing vehicular homicide or assault when an accident occurs from reckless driving.
Joining Acting Attorney General Hoffman’s call to end distracted driving was Gabriel Hurley. Hurley, 29, was severely injured in a 2009 crash that left him blind and with extensive damage to his face and skull. Hurley sustained his injuries when an oncoming car collided into an underpass while he was entering it. The impact caused the other car’s air-conditioning compressor to come flying into his windshield. Hurley, of Middlesex, said he believed the 17-year-old driver had been inattentive behind the wheel at the time of the crash.
After an extensive recovery period, which included more than a dozen facial reconstructive surgeries, he began a career as a safe driving advocate and has spoken to thousands of drivers, most of them in high school, about the consequences of reckless and inattentive driving.
“The course of my life was altered in that crash,” Hurley said. “I have lost my sense of sight and smell and suffered other physical and emotional damage. However, I believe what happened gave me a purpose to tell everyone that crashes like mine are preventable and we can stop them by simply focusing on the task at hand when we’re behind the wheel.”
Read more about distracted driving:
Apr 10, 2014
Stay Alert and Avoid Distracted Driving – Work zones present extra challenges and obstacles. Motorists need to pay attention to the road and their surroundings. – Schedule your trip with plenty of extra time. Expect delays and ...
Apr 18, 2011
OSHA has announced an aggressive program to combat "The Number 1 Killer of Workers," Distracted Driving. The announcement was made today by Dr. David Michaels, Assistant Secretary of Labor of the Occupational ...
May 29, 2013
Transportation accidents rank on the top of the list for worker fatalities. Now the federal government is attempting to reduce that number by restricting distractions while driving.driving. Voluntary guidelines reduce ...
Jun 13, 2013
Transportation (DOT) have made major efforts over the last few years to target distracted driving as a major safety issue to avoid serious accidents and ultimately save lives and reduce insurance costs. The DOT reports ...
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