New Orleans Personal Injury Law Blog

When you go to a Louisiana hospital, you probably assume that the people who work there will provide quality care and appropriate treatment. Unfortunately, that does not always happen. Things can go wrong in hospitals, and when they do, innocent patients may suffer. This may be medical malpractice, and the repercussions can be quite serious.

If something went wrong with your treatment or while you were staying in the hospital for surgery, you may find yourself facing additional pain, extended suffering and other complications. Your situation may the result of negligent care or preventable medical errors, both of which could be grounds for a civil claim against the facility and/or care provider. An assessment of your case can help you see what legal options may be available to you.

Many Louisiana motor vehicle accidents happen when a driver runs a red light. One of the most basic aspects of safe driving is understanding that red means stop. Still, many drivers will go through the red signal for a variety of reasons. A strategy that many cities use to discourage the practice is by installing red-light cameras.

However, these have been a source of dispute for their fairness and safety. The AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety says than nearly 93 percent of those who were seen running a red light that had just changed stated that it was an unacceptable act. Still, 42.7 percent said they had gone through a red light in the previous month.

Drunk driving crashes claim the lives of some 30 people every day in Louisiana and across the U.S. Lawmakers, looking to technology to curb this trend, have introduced a bill in Congress that would, if passed, lead to the development of an alcohol detection system. This system would then be installed on all new vehicles by 2024.

The bill is known as the Reduce Impaired Driving for Everyone Act of 2019. Under the RIDE Act, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration would collaborate with various automakers to develop a system similar to the ignition interlock device. The bill would provide funding for research and development and establish a pilot program so that the new tech is tested. Whether developers will work off of existing tech or not is unclear.

Smartphones, in-vehicle technologies and other devices are causing more distracted driving accidents in Louisiana and across the U.S. In fact, the National Safety Council reports that distracted driving crashes kill at least nine Americans and injure another 100 each day. In addition, a 2016 study found that almost 50% of U.S. drivers admit to texting, using a GPS app or browsing social media while behind the wheel.

In an effort to address these issues, U.S. automakers have already pledged to make forward collision avoidance and automatic emergency braking systems standard on all new vehicles by 2022. Meanwhile, car engineers are also working on new artificial intelligence, or AI, systems to cut down on distracted driving. These systems will focus on identifying a driver's visual, manual and cognitive distractions and mitigating them before they cause a crash.