Articles Posted in Single-vehicle Accidents

A Maryland woman who reportedly drove her car into Wakefield Lake was lucky to narrowly escape her submerged vehicle.

The Charles County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement that the woman will face charges stemming from her texting while driving accident.

Police say that the 25 year old woman was driving north on the St. Charles Parkway when she accidentally veered off of the road, causing her car to hit a tree, and then ricochet into Wakefield Lake, some 20 yards from the roadway. She reportedly escaped from the vehicle, which was submerged in approximately five feet of water, through the driver’s side window. She apparently admitted to officers that she had been texting and driving when she lost control of the vehicle. The incident remains under investigation.

Continue reading ›

This past Sunday, just after 1 o’clock in the afternoon, the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office responded to an accident near the intersection of Thompson Corner Road and Dawn Acres Lane.

According to authorities, a driver of a Ford Bronco was traveling south on Thompson Corner Road, when he lost control of the vehicle. This caused him to leave the roadway, striking a utility pole, and several trees before his vehicle overturned.

The car reportedly had two juvenile passengers. The rear seat juvenile passenger was partially ejected from the vehicle, and had to be flown to Children’s Hospital. The front seat juvenile passenger was flown to another hospital as a precaution, and the driver of the Bronco was taken to another hospital for treatment of his minor injuries.

Additionally, the St. Mary’s County Sheriff’s Office Collision Reconstruction Team responded to the scene and began their investigation. So far alcohol and excessive speed do not appear to have been a contributing factor in the accident.

Continue reading ›

According to reports, a 17 year old Maryland high school junior died earlier this month in a single vehicle car accident in Clinton. He was allegedly driving a car he had purchased just days earlier.

The young man reportedly crashed just before three in the afternoon near the 11900 block of Brandywine Road in Clinton. He allegedly ran off the road and crashed into a tree, and was pronounced dead at the scene. The cause of the crash remains unknown.

According to local residents, the twisting stretch of Brandywine Road is known for causing car accidents. One resident told a news agency that he had placed giant rocks in his front yard in order to protect his house from potential crashes.

While the cause of this particular tragic traffic accident remains unknown, statistics reflect the fact that young drivers are more susceptible to being involved in car accidents, whether as passengers or drivers, than their more experienced counterparts. According to a list compiled by the California DMV, in 2008 alone 103 teens aged 15-20 died in Maryland in car accidents.

Continue reading ›

Living here in Maryland, it’s quite common to hear of traffic accidents that happen every day on our freeways, rural routes and city streets. While rear-end car crashes and side-impact automobile collisions can be rather common in cities like Baltimore, Bowie and the District, we don’t see many rollover accidents in-town, but that doesn’t mean they have never happened; it just takes a certain set of circumstances to result in that kind of traffic wreck.

As experienced trial lawyers representing individuals who have been hurt or seriously injured in a car, truck or motorcycle accident, we have gone to bat for many victims of auto and trucking-related collisions caused by negligence on the part of the other driver. In cases of multi-car crashes, it is usually found that the fault lies primarily with one driver. As Maryland personal injury attorneys, our job is to help victims and their families recover the cost of medical expenses made necessary by the thoughtless act of another person.

Sometimes a single-vehicle accident occurs, which may be caused by the failure of a critical vehicle part or component, such as the brake system, steering mechanism or one of the car or truck’s tires. One type of accident can be caused by the overall vehicle design. Rollover incidents, which tend to affect vehicles with high centers of gravity (such as a full-size van or sport utility vehicle). While the design of these types of motor vehicles provides a great deal of utility and convenience, that very design can affect the way they handle in emergency situations.

Continue reading ›

When people think of traffic accidents, such as collisions between commercial trucks and passenger cars, sport utility vehicles and motorcycles, or taxi cabs and city buses, it’s easy to envision crumpled wrecks with leaking fluids, some of them one of the flammable. In fact, fires resulting from car, truck or motorcycle accidents are not as infrequent as one might expect; but they are can be even more deadly than the roadway collision that caused the blaze in the first place.

As Maryland injury attorneys, I and my legal staff know very well how a driver and occupants of a motor vehicle can be seriously burned following a bad traffic accident. Gasoline and diesel fuel leaking from a ruptured fuel tank can feed a fire that may quickly engulf a vehicle and its occupants. Burn injuries are some of the worst types of personal injury scenarios, requiring hospitalization and long recuperation times. Many burn victims never make it out of the hospital, as a significant percentage succumb to their injuries despite doctors’ efforts.

Those who do survive severe burns be scarred or disfigurement for life. Other side effects of a bad burn injury may include loss of one or more limbs, nerve damage, and emotional problems such as depression. Burn victims can experience extreme and almost unbearable pain because of many exposed nerves across large expanses of the person’s body. The recovery time for many types of extensive burn injuries can be measured not in days or weeks, but in months or years — sadly, many burn victims end up with some level of permanent disability due to their injuries.

Continue reading ›

Being involved in any kind of a motor vehicle accident can be painful, to say the least, but closed-head trauma and spinal cord damage can be some of the worst and long-lasting injuries sustained by victims of passenger car and commercial truck wrecks. As Maryland automobile accident attorneys, I and my legal staff understand the extent of the pain and suffering victims of car, truck, bus or pedestrian traffic collisions can experience.

Whether one is hurt in a traffic collision here in the Baltimore area, over in Rockville or across in Washington, D.C., the potential long-term effects of a closed-head or spine injury can be daunting to families with limited means. Even those people who have good-paying jobs can end up losing their income due to an extended hospital stay, or worse, permanent disability and incapacitation. Lost wages, hospital emergency room treatments, rehab costs and long-term nursing care can each be a costly component of a serious injury accident.

Take, for instance, closed-head trauma; in the case of injuries sustained by a victim’s brain, the effects following that initial injury can range from concussion and brain contusions to bleeding within the brain itself. Unfortunately, unlike open-head wounds, which typically result in obvious signs of physical trauma — such as loss of consciousness, interrupted breathing, and bleeding – the effects of a closed-head injury can often be much more difficult to detect and treat right after the accident. For traumatic brain injury associated with a closed-head incident, the symptoms may be as simple as a slight headache to a possibly more noticeable telltale signs such as dizziness, tired feeling, impaired memory, nausea or vomiting, among others.

Continue reading ›