If your son or daughter is ready to get behind the wheel you may have already completed the necessary driver’s education course, driven the hours with your child and taken the test. Now it is time to pick the right car.
According to a new report released on teenage driving, picking the right vehicle for a new driver is an important decision. Teenagers killed in crashes are more likely to be behind the wheel of smaller vehicles that do not offer adequate crash protection or older vehicles that lack important safety features such as electronic stability control and side air bags. When picking out cars for new drivers, parents are urged to follow a few guidelines:
Parents want to protect their children as they begin to navigate the roads independently, so it is important to equip them for the journey. Taking time to pick out the right vehicle may help them avoid being injured in an auto accident. If you have personal injury questions or you were injured in a car accident, contact the Des Moines, Iowa Law Offices of John T. Hemminger for assistance today.
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Getting a driver’s license is an exciting milestone for a teenager, but driving can be particularly dangerous for inexperienced drivers. In 2009, 3000 teens between the ages of 15-19 were killed in the U.S. in motor vehicle accidents and, a year earlier, a staggering 350,000 young adults reported to emergency rooms after sustaining injuries in cars.
There are many factors contributing to teen motor vehicle accidents such as driver inexperience, driving with other teen passengers, night time driving, not wearing seatbelts, and distracted driving. To make driving safer for teens, improvements to driver’s education and licensing policies go a long way in preventing needless injury and death from auto accidents. One example is graduated driver licensing (GDL) systems that many states have adopted including Iowa. GDL aims to reduce risk factors and research has proven their effectiveness in preventing fatal accidents from occurring. GDL’s grant driving privileges in stages, so that drivers can gain experience under low risk conditions. As teens move through the stages, they are given more privileges such as driving at night or having passengers in the car. With a comprehensive graduated driving license in place, states can cut the rate of teen auto accident death and injury significantly. Teenagers trying to obtain a driver’s license in the state of Iowa are subject to a graduated licensing requirement. Teens can acquire their learners permit as young as 14, but must meet several requirements such as passing a written exam, attending drivers education and acquiring the needed hours of driving with a designated licensed driver without incident, before moving on to an intermediate license. Once they reach the intermediate level at the minimum age of 16, independent driving privileges are given, but teens must comply with specific rules such as limiting passengers and driving during permitted hours, while continuing to acquire valuable supervised instruction for a certain period before applying for a full license, no earlier than age 17. The Iowa GDL program holds up well to The Center of Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, recommendations, which include:
Getting a driver’s license is considered a rite of passage as teen’s transition from childhood to becoming adults. Keeping them safe it is important to provide them with driver’s education and sensible licensing policies to help prevent car accidents from occurring. If you or a family member has been injured in an Iowa car accident, contact the Des Moines personal injury Law Offices of John T. Hemminger for immediate assistance at 515-283-2116. Source: www.cdc.gov, “Policy Impact: Teen Driver Safety” accessed September 25, 2017. With over 450 nursing homes in located within the state of Iowa, finding just the right one for your family member’s needs could be a challenging endeavor. Ideally your search for long-term care should take place before it is ever needed. Unfortunately, many of us do not start the process of researching and visiting nursing homes for our family member or loved one until a medical event takes place or a worsening of conditions such as Dementia or Alzheimer’s disease make it too difficult to care for a family member at home. Whatever your situation may be, you want to make sure that you find a good nursing home for your loved one so you can be sure they are well-cared for.
Slow Down Slow down is the most important advise you will receive. Although you may feel rushed to select a nursing home, experts say, slow down and take your time when you are looking for a reliable nursing home. This is one of the most important decisions you will ever make for someone else so do not feel pressured into making a hasty choice on which nursing home is best suited to your loved one’s needs and well-being. Ask friends, clergy, the primary care physician, the geriatric physician, the hospital’s discharge office or the social work office for referrals and recommendations. If your family member is hospitalized, you have a right to tell the hospital that your family member is not ready for discharge and you/they need more time to able to secure reliable long-term care that meets their needs. Key Factors When Choosing a Nursing Home
(Note: just because a nursing home facility is medicare and medicaid certified does not mean that it has a Government endorsement of good quality nursing home care, nor does it mean the facility has not had serious nursing home violations in the past).
Iowa Nursing Home Ratings. Compare Iowa’s more than 400 nursing homes that are receiving Medicare and Medicaid payments and their rating on a 1-to-5 star basis for the past two years. Click here to read the Iowa Nursing Home Resident Rights. If you have concerns about a particular nursing home or one of its employees, contact Iowa nursing home resident rights attorney John T. Hemminger at 515-283-2116. Officials are working to update Iowa’s dependent abuse law to include violations to nursing home residents’ privacy following incidences of employees posting compromising pictures of residents to social media sites.
Currently, Iowa’s dependent abuse law, updated in 2008 and before the current social media revolution, does not protect nursing home residents from long term care employees snapping and sending pictures online as long as the photos are not sexual in nature, which would include showing certain parts of the body. Unfortunately, the law, as currently written, is falling woefully short on protecting the elderly from sexual exploitation and abuse in the digital age. Recently, an Iowa certified nursing assistant escaped charges despite posting degrading and humiliating pictures of a dementia-addled resident to SnapChat simply because her photos did not meet the definition of sexual exploitation. As a result, the employee remains eligible to work in any nursing home in the state. Back in 2012, ProPublica, documented 47 cases of inappropriate social media posts by nursing home workers. With the explosion of social media since 2012, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Until the law is updated to address incidences of nursing home employees using social media or electronic devices to the detriment of the residents in their care, nursing homes can only hope that training and diligence will fill the gap. For many families who have a loved one being cared for in a nursing home, this may be an unsettling prospect. To protect your family member from abuse or neglect in a nursing home, it is important to be alert to the signs of problems and stay in regular communication with your family member and nursing home staff. If you suspect abuse or neglect, it is advisable to visit with an attorney that has experience with nursing home neglect and elder abuse cases. Contact an Experienced Iowa Elder Abuse Attorney If your loved has suffered elder abuse or sexual exploitation by long-term care employees, contact Hemminger Law Firm. We provide personalized, focused, dedicated legal service to those seeking justice for elder and nursing home abuse. To schedule a free initial consultation, call us today at 515-283-2116 Construction workers often face the most dangerous working conditions compared to other industries. Despite regulations, job safety programs, and inspections at the job site, serious construction site accidents resulting in injury happen all too frequently.
Falls from scaffolds and other elevations, being struck by moving or falling machinery or equipment, electrocution, and injuries caused by unsafe or defective equipment are all hazards construction workers may have to contend with while performing their jobs. Not only is the risk for accidents high, construction workers may experience health problems as a direct result of exposure to asbestos, dust and chemicals and they may have their ability to earn a living impacted by injuries resulting from lifting and other repetitive stress injuries. Contact an Iowa Construction Worker Accidents Lawyer If you are injured on the job, it is important to seek the help of an experienced construction worker accidents lawyer to ensure that you get all the workers compensation benefits you need. In some circumstances, you may pursue a third party liability claim as well. Contact the Des Moines, Iowa workers’ compensation Law Offices of John T. Hemminger at 515-283-2116 for immediate assistance if you or a family member is suffering from a workplace injury. Driver Fatigue is a key factor in many crashes involving large trucks. According to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), 1 in 8 highway crashes involve large trucks and 13% of those truck accidents are caused by truck driver fatigue. In 2013, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration released new regulations that limit drivers to:
However, the 2013 regulations neglected to address how long interstate truck drivers could drive to get to work to begin their shift. Many of us are used to commuting to and from work and a 1 or 2 hour commute is common in dense urban areas. We never consider that the driver of a large multi-ton truck speeding down the highway may have driven 6 hours or more before they even started their shift. This driving of ‘off duty hours to work on duty hours’ played out tragically in the 2014 crash that killed comedian James McNair and seriously injured comedian Tracy Morgan in New Jersey. Driver fatigue and excessive speed were cited as the cause of the accident and, according to the accident report, “the truck driver made an 800-mile overnight drive from his home in Georgia to his workplace in Delaware” to start his shift without sleeping a wink. Since the incident, the NTSB has made recommendations to support stronger Fatigue Management Programs for interstate truck drivers which takes into account a driver’s commute to and from their duty place. Overall, truck drivers are subject to stringent hours of service regulations to stem the problem of driver fatigue, however, sometimes those rules are ignored by truckers or their companies who may be more concerned with making timely deliveries putting all motorists at risk. Contact An Experienced Iowa Truck Driver Fatigue Accident Lawyer If you or a family member has been injured in a motor vehicle accident involving a commercial truck, it is important to contact an experienced truck driver fatigue accident lawyer to determine exactly what lead up to the incident and if all trucking regulations were followed. Contact the Iowa truck accident lawyers of John T. Hemmminger Law Firm at 515-283-2116 for immediate assistance. Iowa workplace injuries are all too common. Many construction workers, agricultural workers and those working in manufacturing occupations get injured while performing their jobs.
If you have been injured at work you may be entitled to workers’ compensation medical benefits. If eligible, all reasonable and necessary medical care and associated travel to treat your injury must be paid for by the employer. If you miss work to seek treatment, you may also receive payment for lost wages. Disability benefits are payable for temporary total disability (TTD), temporary partial disability (TPD), healing periods (HP), permanent partial disability (PPD), scheduled member, body as a whole, and permanent total disability (PTD). Your total weekly workers’ compensation benefit may not be greater than 80 percent of your spendable earnings, or gross weekly earning minus payroll taxes. Your average gross weekly earnings, number of income tax exemptions and marital status, determine your weekly disability benefit amount not to exceed set limits. If you have been injured at work, medical costs and missed work can add up quickly. The Iowa workers’ compensation benefits for work injuries law offices of John T. Hemminger represents Iowans who have sustained workplace injuries ranging from head or neck, shoulders, back or hips and bilateral injuries to repetitive stress injuries and pre-existing injuries that were exacerbated in the workplace. We will pursue your workers’ compensation benefits and third-party claims to get the benefits you need today. If you have been injured in an accident caused by another’s negligence, that individual and their insurance company is likely liable for your damages. You may be entitled to compensation for your medical care, lost wages, pain and physical suffering, disability and disfigurement. You may also have a claim for loss of family, social or educational experiences and emotional damages.
To arrive at a figure for damages, an insurance company will determine the medical expenses related to your injury as a starting point for compensation. After tallying-up your medical costs, they will then look at the overall picture related to your injury. The adjuster will take into account factors such as the degree of pain and how long-lasting or invasive the injury is or will likely be. They will examine medical records for supporting evidence of the extent of the injuries and the anticipated recovery period. The more serious the injury, and whether the result is permanent or created visible effects, will also be considered. After calculating your medical expenses (referred to as specials) and accessing the general damages of pain and suffering, permanent, partial or temporary disability and emotional effects, the adjuster will determine a range of compensation. The settlement amount will likely be anywhere within this range – a low and a high end – with any lost wages added to the top. If you have been injured in an accident, you deserve to be fully compensated for your medical expenses, pain and suffering and lost wages. However, because there is built in flexibility in the insurer’s calculation, some insurance companies may offer you an unsatisfactory or hasty settlement in the interest of saving money. Calculating Personal Injury Damages – Experience Matters It is important to work with an experienced Iowa personal injury attorney to make sure that you or your loved one is being treated fairly. If you or a family member has been injured, contact the Des Moines personal injury Law Offices of John T. Hemminger at 515-283-2116 for help today. We have been working on behalf of injured Iowans for decades to make sure they get the maximum compensation they deserve. According to surveys by the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), there are tens of thousands of back and other injuries among nursing employees every year. Many of these injuries are severe enough that an employee must miss work or have to give up working altogether.
It may come as some surprise that nursing assistants and orderlies each suffer roughly three times the rate of back and other musculoskeletal injuries as construction laborers. In fact, BLS data reflects that nurses and nursing assistants suffer from more MSD injuries than any other occupation. The number one reason why nursing employees get these injuries is by doing their everyday jobs of moving and lifting patients. Lacking proper lifting machinery or adequate staff, healthcare workers risk injury when helping patients get in and out of bed, particularly if the patient is among the growing number who suffer from obesity. Nursing employees in a typical hospital lift heavy patients a dozen or more times every day, some of whom weigh in at 300 lbs. or more. Despite the growing problem, little action has been taken by hospitals and clinics across the country to protect healthcare workers from these types of back and neck injuries. Although some states are providing a legal means for healthcare workers to push back, injuries of healthcare professionals persist in many hospitals and clinics nationwide. Unfortunately, for healthcare workers across the country, these injuries are not mere inconveniences – they are often life altering and career ending. Contact an Experienced Iowa Nursing and Healthcare Back Injury Attorney If you work in the medical industry and have been injured at work, contact the Iowa workers’ compensation and personal injury law offices of John T. Hemminger for help today. If you have been hurt at your Iowa workplace, you may be eligible for compensation to aid in your recovery and cover your lost wages. Call us today for a free consultation at 515-283-2116. What’s in a name? Apparently, the term ‘accident’ may have something to do with how people view their responsibilities as drivers. Typically, when a reference is made to automobile collisions, people call it an accident. However, safety advocate groups would like to see these incidences called ‘crashes’ in order to focus attention on the problem of human error. They believe the use of the word accident implies that no one is at fault when crashes occur, fueling widespread apathy among drivers. With roadway fatalities increasing at a rate not seen in 50 years, many are calling for a change in semantics.
According to the nonprofit National Safety Council, fatal car crashes rose by approximately 6 percent in 2016 over the previous year, killing nearly 40,000 people, and 2016 fatal car crashes were the highest in nine years. Fatal car accidents increased an alarming 14% in just two years. The most drastic increase in fatal car accidents in 53 years. Motor vehicle deaths in 2016 are estimated to be the highest in almost a decade. Most of all fatal crashes are a result of driver behavior such as distracted driving, driving while intoxicated and other risky behaviors. Less than 10 percent are linked to vehicle malfunctions or weather. Since, the cause of many of these wrecks result from negligent actions taken by one or more drivers, some say ‘call it what it is’ – a crash – rather than referring to it as an accident outside of a driver’s control. As of 2014, New York City’s policy states the city “must no longer regard traffic crashes as mere accidents, in an effort to reduce roadway injuries and fatalities. San Francisco and other cities and at least 28 departments of transportation have adopted similar policies. Last year, the Associated Press announced a new policy stating that, when negligence is claimed or proven in a crash, reporters should avoid using the term ‘accident’, which can be read by some as a term exonerating the person responsible. Contact a Fatal Car Crash Attorney Many, including a number of aggrieved families who have lost someone to a car crash, hope that changing the language will lead to more responsible driving. With the rate of traffic fatalities rising, calling out negligent drivers may be a step in the right direction. If you or a family member has been injured in an Iowa motor vehicle crash, it is important to hold negligent drivers accountable and to seek compensation to aid in your recovery. Contact our Iowa personal injury lawyers at John T. Hemminger Law Offices for help at 515-283-2116. |
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