Florida Child Injury Law Blog

Posts Tagged ‘teens’

Teen drivers and cars can be a deadly combination. We all know this. And it’s National Teen Driver Safety Week so here’s some new info.

Statistics on teens and distracted driving is a topic we often cover on our Clearwater Car Accident lawyer website to raise public awareness. It is the hope of our personal injury law firm that by posting local crash reports as well as information about safety and injury prevention information, we can reduce the number of serious injuries suffered in a car crash.

Here’s another teen driver study, this one by the University of Texas at Austin. They looked at the relationship between time of day, number of passengers, kind of vehicle and seriousness of  injuries in teen car crashes. Some of  the data you might find surprising!

• Teen age drinking and driving is the deadliest combination.
• Driving a pickup puts teens at a far greater risk of injury than driving a car. (A more powerful engine appears to lead to more aggressive driving.)
• Driving with one young passenger is riskier than driving alone or with two teens in a vehicle.
• Drivers are more aggressive during morning rush hour.
• 16 and 17 year old drivers are more likely to drive aggressively than young people age  18-20 years.

Jim  Dodson and our Clearwater Car Accident Law Firm reminds you to wear white today to White Out Teen Crashes, in support of National Teen Driver Safety Week.

If you find yourself in the awful position of needing helpful  information after your child has suffered a serious injury, request a complimentary copy of my book, “When Kids Suffer Big Injuries” here.

An ATV accident, in Hudson on Saturday, injured 4 children. The all terrain vehicle was on Hicks Road heading south when it pulled into the path of a Ford Ranger going west on Denton Road. The Florida Highway Patrol reports the driver of the Ford left the scene of the crash. The collision resulted in serious injuries to the four ATV riders when they were thrown from the vehicle.

The three teens  and a twelve year old who were hurt were taken to local hospitals, according to a news report. One of the teens is in critical condition. The hit-and-run accident remains under investigation. Authorities are looking for information about the driver of the Ford Ranger.

Clearwater Child Injury Lawyer Jim Dodson, your online resource for free consumer legal guides , child safety and injury prevention articles, informative videos about steps to take after an injury and answers to your frequently asked questions.

Social networking giant, Facebook, has added a new Safety Center designed to provide information for teens and parents, as well as law enforcement and educators.  A number of best practices are offered in an effort to create a safer online environment. 

 Questions like “What should I do if my teen is being cyberbullied?” are addressed to parents concerned about their child’s well-being online.  Parents who might not understand their teen’s “connected world” should review the information and tips Facebook provides in this new offering. 

 Educators should also benefit from the new Safety Center page.  Instructions are offered concerning how to manage group pages so that teachers can use Facebook as another avenue to responsibly interact with students and parents.  Teachers will also be able to connect with over 270,000 other educators via the Facebook on the Education page.

Our Florida Child Injury Lawyer offers a wealth of  safety information articles and resources to protect children and families on our website, including: dog bite prevention, teen driver safety, drown proofing your child, bike helmet safety, car seat safety guidelines and more!  

Working to make safety, every child’s reality,  toll free number  @ (888) 340-0840.

The 2010 Florida’s Kids and Alcohol Town Hall Meeting will be broadcast on WEDU-TV, Thursday, April 22^nd at 9pm.

Teens, parents, educators, counselors, community activists and law-enforcement representatives will all join together in an open honest discussion related to the underage drinking and the effect that it has on all of our lives.

Prescription drug misuse will also be covered in this year’s meeting.  This is the 5^th year that WEDU has offered this forum.  This will be an opportunity to listen to the concerns and suggestions from all of the participants involved in the discussion.

The Dodson Law Firm applauds the efforts of WEDU-TV in producing this project to enhance the safety of children throughout the state of Florida.

Teens who have their own car are more likely to have a car crash than those who share a family automobile.  This came from an interesting study released earlier this year by researchers at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.

The statistics are staggering.  One out of every four teenagers who possess their own car has been in a crash.  That percentage drops to 10% for teens who share a car.  Traffic crashes are the leading cause of death for U.S. teens, killing more than 5,000 each year. 

In 2007, 7,000 people nationwide were killed in automobile accidents involving a teen driver.  3,000 of these individuals were teenagers. 

Our firm website provides important safety information in an effort to educate young drivers to avoid accidents and injuries, such as “Make Rules for Your Car”. There are also links to resources about subjects such as distracted driving and video links to teens and their own personal experiences with driving  and accidents.  

If you need more information, request  Jim Dodson’s  free accident book  and learn common mistakes to avoid if you or a loved one have been involved in a Florida Accident. Although the book is available at no cost, the information is invaluable.

Parents are well aware of the popularity of texting.  It’s become a widespread form of communication for teenagers over the last decade.  But when teens attempt to text and drive the results can be disastrous.

 A team of researchers from Eastern Virginia Medical School and Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters in Norfolk studied the actions of 21 teens between the ages of 16 and 18 in a series of simulated driving experiments.

 Teens drove through rural and urban simulated settings in 10-minute time blocks.  First without any distractions and then while text messaging, talking on a cell phone or operating a MP3 music player.

 Donald Lewis, chief of Eastern Virginia Medical School’s Department of Pediatrics said the findings although not surprising were frightening.  The worst results came when the teens were texting.  Mistakes included slowing down dramatically and weaving more than a foot outside their simulated lane.

 The problem appears to be epidemic. AAA recently conducted a national survey and found that 46% of teens send text messages with their cell phones while driving.  At this point, 19 states and the District of Columbia ban texting by all drivers, while 9 others prohibit it by young drivers.