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According to KOMOnews.com, a 35-year-old Seattle man was killed Wednesday night in a bicycle accident in Seattle on Highway 99.

Apparently, the bicyclist collided with a car a little after 10pm in the southbound lanes of Highway 99 near the Dexter Avenue exit. The driver of the car is suspected of driving under the influence at the time of the accident and was taken to the hospital with injuries.

If it is determined that the driver was in fact under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the accident, he or she could be charged with Vehicular Homicide, RCW 46.61.520. This Washington State statute provides that if a person succumbs to injuries as a result of negligent operation of a motor vehicle, the driver can be charged.

Additionally, the family of the person killed as a result of vehicular homicide can bring a suit for Seattle wrongful death against the person charged with vehicular homicide.
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The Bernard Law Group has launched a new website focusing on spinal cord injuries and the legal grounds involved when such tragedy strikes. Personal injury attorney, Kirk Bernard, is happy to announce the website, http://www.washingtonspinalcordinjuryattorneys.com/, as a resource for spinal injury news, information on causes of spinal injury, and advice for those with various kinds of spinal injuries.

As is the case for most serious injuries, spinal cord injury affects lives unexpectedly and in life-altering ways that require specific medical attention and long rehabilitation to reach a point of well being and good health. The Bernard Law Group believes that it is important for a spinal cord injury victim and their family to understand their legal options when holding those responsible whose negligent actions caused the injury.

As the main “pathway” for neurological impulses to transfer senses and unconscious functions back and forth between the brain and the rest of the body, the spinal cord is extremely important and sensitive. Spine damage can have a drastic influence on an individual’s life and what can be done to treat these injuries has a lot to do with what caused it. Depending on the degree in which the vertebrae-which helps protect the spinal cord- has been damaged, nerve signal transmission can be hindered, causing different types of paralysis.

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According to authorities, a father and his young son were killed in a single-engine aviation accident in Washington State. The man’s 5-year-old daughter was critically injured.

The Yakima County Coroner’s Office says that the 37-year-old man, from Yakima, Washington, and his 13-year-old son were killed in the crash that occurred Sunday afternoon.

The 5-year-old daughter suffered multiple fractures, as well as head injuries, and was first taken to Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital, before being airlifted to a Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center.

The rented plane, a single-engine Cessna, went down near the east end of Rimrock Lake, about 40 miles west of Yakima.

Allen Kenitzer, regional spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, says he isn’t sure of the plane’s destination or point of departure. The tragic crash is being investigated.
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Tuesday night in Thurston County, a 5-year-old boy was badly hurt in a hit-and-run accident. The boy sustained serious facial injuries and was airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

According to troopers, the boy was in a car that rolled across Yelm Highway. They believe that the car was either hit or cut off by another vehicle. The car ended up running through the fence of a golf course.

The suspect, who had two dogs in his car according to the police, kept driving after the Washington car accident. He was later found at a veterinarian’s office, where he was taken into custody.

An adult and another child in the vehicle that rolled were taken to local hospitals.
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Kirk Bernard of the Bernard Law Group is pleased to announce the launch of a new website focusing on the legal arena of auto product liability law. The website, http://www.washingtonautoproductliabilityattorneys.com focuses on detailing the latest in auto product recall news, offering consumers information and advice on automobiles and automotive parts that have been deemed dangerous.

The Bernard Law Group hopes to share its substantial experience litigating these types of cases with the public for the purpose of educating and warning drivers throughout the state of Washington about the dangers of the automobiles they commute in daily. The group also hopes to reach out to those individuals who may have been injured due to a defective auto product and offer them an opportunity to not only share their story, but also pursue just compensation under the law.

The public has the right to expect that auto manufacturers will produce a safe product built with the highest quality materials available. A manufacturer is expected to stand behind its product, and the public should demand accountability from the manufacturer for injuries caused by the product. When automakers fall short of that goal and put profits ahead of the safety of their consumers, injured individuals have a right to seek restitution for their losses through the legal system.

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The website latimes.com reported in an article on April 14, 2009 that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has recently published the results of a series of crash tests. The Institute crashed a Honda Fit into a Honda Accord, a Smart ForTwo into a Mercedes C-Class, and a Toyota Yaris into a Toyota Camry each at 40 miles per hour. Test results showed that small cars may be more efficient but your safety is definitely compromised. The vehicles were tested in “offset” crashes in which the cars do not crash head on; instead, the collisions are made to simulate the type of collision that would occur during an auto accident if a car had veered over the center line where the damage can easily break into the passenger compartment. The institute believes that the cars sustained enough damage that their occupants would also have suffered moderate to serious injuries.

Adrian Lund, president of the Arlington, Virginia based institute said, “Though much safer than they were a few years ago, minicars as a group do a comparatively poor job of protecting people in crashes, simply because they’re smaller and lighter. In collisions with bigger vehicles, the forces acting on the smaller ones are higher, and there’s less distance from the front of a small car to the occupant compartment to ‘ride down’ the impact. These and other factors increase injury likelihood.”

Dave Schembri, president of Smart’s U.S. operations said the tests were an example of “rare and extreme” accidents. The Smart ForTwo meets or exceeds all U.S. government crash-test standards. The other manufactures released similar statements.

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The website philly.com reported in a storyon April 29, 2009 that Ray LaHood, U.S. Secretary of Transportation has plans to order a full departmental review of motor coach safety. This action comes a day after five people were killed when a tour bus carrying French tourists crashed in Soledad, California a small town located in Monterey County. The wrongful death accident prompted the California Highway Patrol to close highway 101 in both directions.

Spokesperson for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Rae Tyson, stated that the review was issued after an April 21 hearing into a crash in Utah that killed nine people in January 2008.

In 1999 the National Transportation Safety Board recommended that the highway administration develop bus construction standards to reduce injuries during collisions and rollover accidents.

Tyson stated he expected the agency to present new bus safety policies by the end of the year.
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Tuesday morning during rush hour, a multiple vehicle crash occurred on southbound Interstate 5 at Northgate. Apparently, this crash led to a second, more serious crash in the northbound lanes when a motorcyclist struck an ambulance.

At Bernard Law Group, we handle personal injury lawsuits that are the results of auto accidents in Washington State every day. Call our attorneys at 1-800-418-8282. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

According to SeattleTimes.com, a motorcyclist, riding north on Interstate 5 near Northgate this morning apparently became distracted by the commotion on the other side of the freeway as emergency workers dealt with the aftermath of three, near-simultaneous collisions that blocked southbound lanes for nearly two hours.

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The website wsp.wa.gov reported in a story on April 28, 2009 that a Battle Ground School Bus was rear ended on SR-503, just north of N.E. 149th Street while stopped at a railroad crossing. According to the Washington State Police, the driver of the bus, Nina Millard, 39 of Battle Ground, had stopped at the railroad crossing to clear it when a 2008 VW Jetta, driven by Jace Delgado, 22, also from Battle Ground, struck her from behind blocking both northbound lanes. Both drivers were wearing their seatbelts and were not seriously injured.

Delgado claims to have been following an SUV that made a lane change to the left at which point Delgado noticed the bus with its stop paddle deployed when he attempted to swerve to avoid a collision. Unsuccessful in his attempt he hit the bus and Delgados’s Jetta ended up partially underneath the bus.

An investigation by the Washington State Patrol concluded that Delgado was traveling at an excessive speed and it’s fortunate that no personal injury in Washington was suffered by anyone in this incident.

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The website komonews.com reported in a story on April 20, 2009 that Chrissy Gombos of Kirkland called the authorities to report a near death experience in Skagit County, Washington. Gombos claims that a piece of debris came off the back of a truck on Interstate 5 which thankfully struck her cars’ under carriage and not the windshield.

Gombos said, “All of the sudden, out of nowhere within a split second, I saw a large chunk of something that didn’t really have a shape come off a generic delivery truck in front of us.”

It is still unclear what struck Gombos’ Ford Focus but it was rocked as if it had hit a bomb. The debris punctured the gas tank, and bent a front axle. She believes that the driver of the truck never knew what happened and kept driving.

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