Category: Featured

Automobile accidents, Featured, General

Auto Insurance Coverages Could Change

Is the required auto coverage on Florida roads enough to cover health care costs in the event of an accident? Many are finding that these limits are not enough to cover the medical expenses. It is required to carry personal injury protection of at least $10,000 in medical benefits. Lawmakers are currently discussing changing up the insurance coverage drivers are required to carry. If you or someone you know has been injured in an auto accident, call the Fort Lauderdale Injury Attorneys to discuss your options.

Fort Lauderdale Auto Accident Attorney
Florida’s Motor Vehicle No-Fault Law, which is also known Personal Injury Protection or PIP, requires all drivers to carry $10,000 in medical, disability and funeral protection. When a driver only carries the minimum coverage, $10, 000 is nearly enough to cover medical expenses for everyone in the car. Who ends up having to carry the burden of these excess medical expenses? Legislation is currently discussing cancelling out PIP benefits and raising the bodily injury coverage to $25,000 a person and $50,000 per incident. This would require a driver to purchase this coverage before being able to register a vehicle. With any new change, there are always those that are in opposition to the new change. Physician groups as well as insurance companies are those who are in opposition, saying dumping PIP moves Florida to a system of litigation.

Florida Auto Insurance Changes
“We can bring meaningful value into a system that places fault appropriately on the person who caused the accident,” Senator Grall said.With Florida’s PIP law, there has been a tsunami of bad faith claims. The Florida PIP law has been revised several times since 2000 to try to reduce insurance fraud. But those reforms have also restricted coverage. PIP was created in 1971 as a way to reduce traffic lawsuits.

Of course, by requiring a higher minimum coverage, the minimum premium would be higher as well. Those is opposition of this new law wonders how this would affect low income families. Senator Grall’s bill made it out of its first committee, but it still faces an uphill battle. Similar legislation is also filed by Senator Jeff Brandes, Senator Tom Lee and Representative Bill Hager.

Automobile accidents, Featured, Motorcyle Accidents, Personal Injury

Car drivers cause most crashes with motorcycles, study finds

Cars and motorcycles are often involved in collisions. Drivers blame the bikers and bikers blame the drivers. According to a recent Florida Department of Transportation study, the drivers of cars are more often in the wrong. Drivers of cars and trucks often do not see motorcycles are and fail to yield the right of way.

Chanyoung Lee, a researcher at the University of South Florida, studied accident reports in Florida for ten years found that 60 percent of the time motorists in other vehicles are at fault when they collide with motorcycles. “There’s a bias by people driving,” Lee said. “They don’t expect to see motorcycles.”

But according to Lee, the drivers of automobiles are not solely to blame. Bikers are responsible as well. Motorcycles, according to Lee, are involved in a higher number of single-vehicle crashes than cars. That is, bikers crash on their own without other vehicles involved. Many of those single-vehicle motorcycle crashes occur when bikers are navigating curves too fast.

Serious crashes occur when other vehicles making a left turn, pull in front of motorcycles that are going straight. The problem is people in cars and trucks fail to see motorcycles. That’s partly because they have smaller profiles. Likewise, the bikers need to be as focused as possible when traveling through intersections. “If you’re aware of it, you see it,” Lee said.

The FDOT has been advocating for several years: Look Twice for Motorcycles. Likewise bikers should also be looking twice and be more visible to cars.

With over 50 years of collective service to the South Florida community, the Hollywood, Florida, personal injury lawyers at The Law Firm have helped thousands of clients to obtain money compensation for their personal injury and wrongful death claims

All of the firm’s partners have received the prestigious “AV” rating from Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, which is a recognition by their peers in the legal community that their practice meets the highest professional and ethical standards.

Bicycle Accidents, DUI, Featured, Personal Injury

Mixing bicycling and beer?

This past March an event was organized by The Beer Snob Bicycle Pub Crawl where participants bike from one bar to another and try different beer at each stop. A review of thewebsite for the event reveals a map with a bike ride of approximately 10 miles with 5 stops at local bars extending from Miami Beach to Downtown. Each bar was renowned for its wide selection of beers. The event was scheduled for evening hours. Participants were reminded to drink “responsibly.”

According to one participant, this event has been hosted several times and does not encourage too much drinking — “The point of the ride isn’t to get drunk but to be social and be athletic. . . You don’t drink three beers at the first stop. You have a beer, ride, have a beer, ride. So it’s more about having a good beer, having good conversation and riding your bike.”

Certainly riding your bike and having a few beers with some friends can make for an enjoyable evening. The obvious question arises — do these two activities mix? Four stops along the cycle route with just one beer at each location can be enough to get some people intoxicated beyond the legal limit for driving a car. While Cycling Under the Influence (“CUI”) is not a crime in the State of Florida, the questionable safety rationale for this event appears to be that a cyclist under the influence is less dangerous to others than a driver of a car under the influence. Well maybe . . . . but the level of coordination to ride a bike is greater than operating a car and riders could well be a danger to themselves, bicycle helmet notwithstanding.

Who knows what accidents, if any, have occurred at prior events. An accident involving a single bicyclist generally is not reported to authorities. Nevertheless, the organizers of this event need to think about the effects of CUI and consider drinking the beer after the bike ride with designated drivers available.

With over 50 years of collective service to the South Florida community, the Hollywood, Florida, personal injury lawyers at The Law Firm have helped thousands of clients to obtain money compensation for their personal injury and wrongful death claims.

All of the firm’s partners have received the prestigious “AV” rating from Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, which is a recognition by their peers in the legal community that their practice meets the highest professional and ethical standards.