Wilkes-Barre Pennsylvania Personal Injury Blog

Insurance companies are well known for writing and trying to enforce policy provisions that are more beneficial to the company than to the insured. A recent example from Pennsylvania concerns insurance coverage in motorcycle accident cases.

In Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance Company v. Hymes, the Pennsylvania Superior Court ruled that a motorcyclist who was injured after being thrown from his bike could not use the underinsured motorist coverage in his parents' insurance - even though he lived in their residence.

The court reasoned that even though the injuries occurred off of the motorcycle, they directly resulted from the motorcyclist's operation of the vehicle. The injuries were therefore subject to the "household exclusion" language of the parents' policy.

This exclusion stated that underinsured coverage was to be denied to "anyone while in, or, getting into or out of or when struck by a motor vehicle owned or leased by you or a resident relative who is not insured for underinsured motorist coverage under this policy."

National Child Passenger Safety Week is next week, Sept. 18-24. Pennsylvania officials are preparing to mark it with free checkups of child safety seats and are urging parents and guardians of young children to participate.

Making sure you have the right seat, and that it is adjusted properly, can help keep your child as safe as possible on the road. Taking a moment to check the fitting is definitely time well spent.

That's why PennDOT, law enforcement agencies, and safety groups hold this annual event. Last year, more than 5,000 car seats were checked, at over 140 locations around Pennsylvania.

State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan encouraged adults to make sure kids are restrained properly. If anyone has any doubts about whether they are using a child safety seat properly, now is the time to visit a safety inspection location."

PennDOT Secretary Barry J Schoch adds that do-it-yourself doesn't always work well, when it comes to installation of child safety seats. He cites data showing that 8 of every 10 child seats are installed incorrectly.

Fatal accidents involving large trucks and buses have taken over 3000 lives every year for the past several years in the U.S. In 2009, according to federal data, 3,380 people were killed in large truck crashes and another 254 in bus crashes.

What can be done to prevent these terrible crashes in the first place?

Federal efforts to improve trucking safety are based on the Comprehensive Safety Accountability program begun last year. Under the CSA program, the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is attempting to use an electronic tracking tool to better enforce safety standards. The goal is to identify at-risk carriers earlier and take appropriate action to get them off the road sooner.

The issue of bus safety has received renewed attention following last March's deadly crash in New York City and several others around the country, including in Pennsylvania. Congress is considering requiring that busses be equipped with seat belts and have stronger windows to prevent ejection in rollovers.

Texting while driving is a serious problem all around the country. In a society built around speed and mobility, the combination of automobiles and cell-phones is a dangerous one.

Nationally, in 2009 alone, 5,474 people were killed in the U.S. in distracted driving accidents, according to federal data. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that another 448,000 were injured. Of the fatal crashes, 995 involved distraction caused by a cell phone.

So distracted driving is a problem everywhere. That's why over 30 states have passed some form of ban on texting while driving. But the problem is particularly acute in Pennsylvania, which has long resisted passing statewide laws to restrict drivers from texting or talking while behind the wheel.

Proposed bills to create texting limitations have failed before in the Pennsylvania legislature. In 2011, such proposals are back again. Senate Bill 314 calls for texting while driving to be made a primary offense. When something is a primary offense, law enforcement officers do not have to observe another, different violation before pulling someone over.

When will government safety agencies finally succeed in getting rules in place aimed at getting proper rest for fatigued truck drivers?

Fatigued drivers are a major cause of truck accidents in Pennsylvania and across the country. For far too long, however, the trucking has resisted federal efforts to create stricter limitations on the number of hours that truckers can legally drive before taking a break.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) is scheduled to finalize new rules on truck drivers' hours of service by July 26. The rules would then be implemented later this year.

Under current law, a truck driver can work up to 60 hours in seven days. The limit for an 8-day period is 70 hours. Once those limits are reached, drivers must be off duty for at least 34 consecutive hours. That 34-hour break restarts the drivers' work week.

What has happened regarding the safety of artificial hips since last year's major recall by DePuy Orthopedics?

In August 2010, DePuy, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, recalled a hip implant used by 93,000 patients after the implants repeatedly failed prematurely. Over 1,000 lawsuits are already underway against the company for damages caused by the implants.

Most of those product defect cases remain resolved. The notable development right now is that doctors' groups are taking the lead on developing databases designed to track the success rates of artificial hips and knees across the country.

"We've been doing a huge experiment and no one's been keeping track of the data," said one doctor involved in the database effort. William Maloney, the vice-chairman of the American Joint Replacement Registry. Maloney is also a professor of orthopedic surgery at Stanford University School of Medicine.

Next week will mark the beginning of National Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month, and Pennsylvania needs this heightened awareness more than most states. Nationally, motorcycle accident deaths have been declining. But in Pennsylvania, they rose by six percent in the first nine months of 2010.

The fatality figures were released by a widely respected safety group, the Governor's Highway Traffic Safety Association. According to the association, motorcycle fatalities decreased by two percent nationally last year. This was the second straight year where the national figure declined.

In Pennsylvania, however, motorcycle fatalities were up. There were 197 motorcycle accident deaths in the first nine months of last year, compared to 186 during the same period the year before.

Following a bus accident that killed the driver and a passenger on the New Jersey Turnpike, a Pennsylvania-based motor coach company has been ordered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to stop all inter- and intrastate services.

After an investigation into the bus company, the safety agency declared the company an "imminent hazard" to public safety. The FMCSA can declare a company an imminent hazard when it "finds that the carrier's operations pose a substantial likelihood of serious injury or death."

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood stated: "Safety is our number one priority. It is absolutely essential that reckless and unsafe bus companies like this are immediately removed from our roads."