Los Angeles California Personal Injury Law Blog

New teen drivers are introduced to the streets of Los Angeles every day. Those responsible for them (parents or guardians) also need to understand that their inexperience can also make them a threat to others on the road. On top of that inexperience, teens have also shown themselves to be more prone to engaging in unsafe driving practices (indeed, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that they are more likely to speed, follow other cars to closely, and drive while intoxicated than other groups of drivers). 

These factors clearly highlight the need for parents and guardians to closely monitor their teens driving activity. A failure to do so could potentially open them up to liability issues. The legal principle of negligent entrustment allows car accident victims to hold the people that entrusted vehicles to unsafe drivers responsible for the accidents that those drivers may cause. This is due to the assumption that vehicle owners should understand the driving skills (and shortcomings) of those that they loan their vehicles to. 

Not many in Los Angeles associate serious injuries with fender-benders. Indeed, most might assume that you should walk away from such an accident without any ill-effects, and that if you do choose to take legal action, you simply are trying to be vindictive. What many do not know that is that even something as seemingly simple as a rear-end collision can cause serious injuries. The most common of these is whiplash. 

Whiplash occurs when your head and neck are thrown violently forward and backward. As you are slowing down in your vehicle, your head and neck are being slowly pressed against your set, generating backward momentum. When you are hit from behind, the energy of the collision then throws you forward, reversin your upper body's momentum. Eventually, the momentum will then be stopped (either by you being restrained by your seat belt or hitting the steering wheel). When this happens, your head and neck maintain their forward momentum from a moment, and then are whipped back violently as the rest of your body stops moving forward. This can cause neck pain, numbness, headaches and dizziness. If left untreated it can develop into neck and back problems, blurred vision, sleep disturbances and depression. 

A sprain is an injury to the fibers of your ligaments, soft tissues in your joints that connect your bones to one another. If you experience joint pain following a California car accident, it is important to receive a medical evaluation of your injury. A doctor can rule out a bone fracture or more serious injury and give you specific treatment instructions.

According to the Mayo Clinic, it is especially important to see a doctor for serious symptoms at the joint, such as numbness, instability, signs of infection, chronic pain or reinjury to the site of a former sprain. A severe injury to a ligament may require surgery to correct. However, most sprains resolve with a course of nonsurgical, conservative treatment. Your doctor will tell you exactly what to do, but treatment methods for a sprain usually include the following.

There is no question that road rage can lead to deadly car accidents in California and across the country. Whether in the peak hours of traffic or during nighttime hours, it is not unusual to see motorists engaging in dangerous driving behaviors while navigating the busy roads. Drivers often get frustrated when they are late to an important meeting, work or an appointment and they are stuck behind other drivers in traffic. However, engaging in dangerous driving behaviors when involved in these situations can be deadly. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 9,234 drivers who were involved in fatal car accidents in 2017 were speeding. This is only one of the dangerous driving behaviors shown by aggressive drivers.

The Insurance Information Institute lists several aggressive driving behaviors, including the following: