Based on news articles, this latest study coming out of the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety identifies a definite link between fatal automobile collisions and the age of a driver as well as whether or not the vehicle is carrying one or more other young passengers.

Titled “Teen Driver Risk in Relation to Age and Number of Passengers,” the AAA’s report used traffic accident statistics from 2007 to 2010. In general, researchers determined that odds for a fatal accident involving a vehicle driven by a 16 to 17-year-old motorist increased with the addition of each young occupant. As study authors reminded, the report reconfirmed what safety advocates have apparently known for quite some time.

As Maryland personal injury lawyers, I and my legal staff represent individuals hurt in all manner of accidents throughout Maryland and the District of Columbia. When it comes to automobile, commercial truck and even motorcycle accidents, we have heard the horror stories of victims and their families. One common thread is likely to be heard from most anyone hurt or seriously injured in a car or trucking-related wreck: “We never saw it coming.”

While this may be true in many instances, there are likely those individuals who may have realized, albeit all too late, that a collision was impending. One thing is certain; most anyone who has avoided being involved in a traffic accident most likely was keeping a watchful eye on the surrounding vehicles. This is not to say that being aware of one’s surrounding is a fool-proof method for staying out of harm’s way, but it could help.

Now, it goes without saying that any approach to reducing traffic accidents, and by association related fatalities and severe, sometimes life-altering personal injuries, would be met with at least some acceptance. Red-light cameras are supposed to accomplish their job, in part, by being “advertised” by local law enforcement agencies.

Being injury attorneys based in the Baltimore area and serving residents of Maryland and Washington, D.C., we can appreciate the efforts of safety advocates to encourage increased adherence to traffic laws. According to a report from a TV station in Florida, very few drivers will admit to liking these red-light cameras. But since more than 150,000 men, women and children are hurt annually as a result of another driver running or otherwise ignoring a red traffic signal, there is certainly some merit to these traffic control devices.

Any traffic accident that can be prevented is one that parents and family members would surely want to avoid. With the number of severe injury accidents and fatal car, truck and motorcycle collisions across our state, there is much to be said about saving our young people from possible injury or death as a result of a bad traffic wreck.

Whether one lives in Gaithersburg, Annapolis, Rockville or Washington, D.C., no doubt you or someone you know has a family member who may have been hurt in a car or commercial trucking-related roadway accident. In the best of cases, a few minor bumps or bruises may be all that the victim suffered; others may not have been that lucky. With closed-head injuries, compound fractures and spinal cord damage all potential injuries resulting from a car crash, anyone would be happy to avoid a hospital stay and subsequent physical therapy.

As Baltimore car and trucking accident attorneys, I and my legal staff find it difficult to reconcile the possibly thoughtless act of driving while intoxicated with the deaths of innocent individuals. Whatever the reason, a preventable car accident -- fatal or otherwise -- is a tragedy. As occupants in another person’s vehicle, we as passengers assume a fair amount of risk. Trust is a precious commodity; sometimes one that is spent all too quickly on the wrong person.

As personal injury lawyers in Maryland, we see numerous stories of men, women and children who are injured or killed in traffic accidents that might have been avoided had a passenger spoken up or the driver exercised some discretion. Driving under the influence of alcohol is not only illegal, it is dangerous and can be life-altering. For those who survive a car or truck crash, whether here in Maryland or over in Washington, D.C., the road to recovery can be long and hard.

Whether one is injured in Baltimore, Bowie, Annapolis or the District, there is nothing enjoyable about being hurt, laid up in the hospital and then having to foot the bill for another person’s thoughtless or negligent act. More than one family has been hurt physically, emotionally and financially by a reckless or inattentive driver. With medical treatment costs going through the roof, it only makes sense to choose the right attorney when planning one’s strategy to recover medical, rehabilitation and other costs following a roadway accident.

As Maryland personal injury lawyers, we have seen enough post-accident carnage to know how shaken a victim of a car or truck collision must feel in the aftermath of a serious highway wreck. The same goes for cyclists and pedestrians who are hurt as a result of being struck by a car or commercial delivery truck. In cases where a victim is incapacitated or even killed, the family may need to bring a suit on their behalf to compensate for possible long-term care costs brought on by a careless driver.

As Maryland personal injury lawyers, as well as auto and trucking accident attorneys, I and my colleagues are painfully aware of the odds that an individual, perhaps someone’s mother, father, spouse or child, will be killed as a result of a highway collision caused by a negligent driver. If this wasn’t sobering enough, the shear randomness of some traffic accidents can be very nerve-wracking to some people.

Here in Baltimore, as in other cities like Gaithersburg, Howie and even Washington, D.C., car, truck and motorcycle accidents take place on a shockingly frequent basis. Protecting one’s family from a potentially life-altering and sometimes deadly occurrence can weight heavily on some parents. With not rhyme or reason to many automobile and trucking-related wrecks, all one can say is be aware of the potential dangers and drive defensively.

In a perfect world there would be no single-vehicle, multi-vehicle or commuter-related wrecks anywhere in our state or across the nation. But enough dreaming, because in the real world people make mistakes and others pay for those mistakes by being injured or killed as a result.

As Maryland personal injury lawyers, my firm sees first-hand the effects of senseless car and truck collisions on a weekly basis. Not a day goes by that somewhere across the state, someone innocent bystander or vehicle occupant has been hurt by the actions of another individual. In cases where a death has resulted from a negligent act, it’s not uncommon for the family of the victim to file a wrongful death suit against the person responsible for that fatality.

We take no pleasure in suggesting that many traffic collisions are caused by thoughtless or negligent actions on someone’s part. This is why we, as Maryland personal injury attorneys, offer our services to victims and their families to help recover the costs related to a severe and sometimes debilitating roadway accident.

We have seen it played out time and time again; an innocent driver and/or his passengers receive serious bodily injury following a bad car crash, which then necessitates days or weeks of hospital treatment followed by many more weeks or months of physical rehabilitation (especially in cases of severe closed-head trauma or spinal cord damage); and that’s just to get back to some level of mobility for a person to try to go on with their daily life. Naturally, there will be more challenges once the physical scars have healed, such as returning to work or trying to get along with a potentially permanent physical handicap.

As Baltimore auto and trucking accident lawyers, we have been witness to numerous individual victims of passenger car, commercial truck and motorcycle collisions. What never ceases to amaze is how these victims manage to press on with their lives following what are typically violent and painful incidents that interrupt and sometimes permanently change the course of these individuals’ lives. Despite the pain and discomfort, victims of bike, truck and motorcycle accidents must persevere if they are to have a hope of returning to a normal semblance of life, at least as they knew it before the tragedy of a serious roadway wreck.

The other side of the coin is, of course, the negligent individuals whose actions placed their victims in a particular physical or medical situation. Many of these people do, in fact, own up to their mistakes or negligent acts that cause injury to another person. But there are certainly others who fail to admit fault and who, through the legal system, must be forced to account for their deeds. Of these individuals, there are some who run from their responsibility as well as the law. A few are never caught; others are arrested, eventually.

It must be said that road rage incidents fall into this area of preventable accidents. Unlike a situation where a car or truck has a mechanical problem that prevents a driver from avoiding a potentially deadly crash, a person who is bent on causing injury through threatening or unadvised driving behavior has it within their power NOT to carry out a possibly life-threatening act on the highway.

Of course, this is not a perfect world and there are, sadly, individuals who for no other reason than personal anger or lack of emotional control can turn on fellow motorists who they perceive as “the problem.” While many road rage incidents do not result in bodily harm, there are a percentage of occurrences involving “driving while angry” that do result in injuries and sometimes roadway deaths.

As Maryland personal injury attorneys, I and my legal staff have seen the effects that car and trucking-related wrecks have had on the old and infirm. It’s one thing to have a slip and fall accident at a nursing home; it’s a something quite different when an elderly man or woman receives a traumatic blow in an auto wreck. Roadway collisions can take a toll on these individuals and may send them to the hospital for the rest of their lives, depending on the victim’s age and the seriousness of their injuries.

Older individuals are hurt in all types of accidents every week in Baltimore, Rockville, the District and Annapolis. Those who are sent to the emergency room following a traffic accident may face an uncertain future, with broken bones and head injuries that may never heal sufficiently for that person to return home.

Of course, one doesn’t have to live in the East to know that teenager drivers, at least as a group, are more prone to being involved in traffic accidents than other age groups. This may sound somewhat pejorative, but statistics from across the U.S. tend to bear this out, which is why parents all over the country tend to dread the day when their kids become drivers, if only because the family’s auto insurance premiums take a big jump up.

While nobody looks forward to a car or truck accident, parents especially can spend sleepless nights worrying about their teen sons and daughters borrowing the family car to drive friends to a movie or to go out to eat after high school sporting event. A phone call from the local police is a nightmare scenario that any mother or father would rather not consider, but they do occur, usually at the most unexpected times.

As personal injury attorneys serving individuals in Baltimore, Annapolis, Gaithersburg and the District, I and my colleagues travel on streets and highway along with thousands of other motorists every day; any danger to one’s health and well-being is a legitimate concern.

Of course, passenger car and motorcycle accidents can occur any time without notice, but those crashes caused by a poorly designed roadway or badly regulated speed zone could potentially be avoided given the proper amount of attention. Sometimes all it takes is public outrage to bring the topic to the fore.

There is no manual or instruction booklet that can prepare a person to cope with a debilitating roadway collision; the injuries can sometimes be too extensive to leave any hope for a total recovery; yet, every once in a while, we read of an individual who has beaten the odds.

While these all-too-rare stories of near-miraculous recoveries from auto accidents are uplifting, they can also be instructive from the standpoint of understanding how a severe traffic collision can also be a life-altering event in anyone's life. With spinal damage, closed-head trauma, ruptured internal organs and abdominal bleeding all being possible results of a high-speed car or truck crash, the odds can be stacked against a car wreck victim before he or she even reaches a shock trauma center.