El Paso Personal Injury Law Blog

What happens when an 81 year-old Academy Award winning actor gets knocked off his bicycle by a truck? The bicycle accident sounds more gruesome than it turns out to be. He's injured, but generally okay. The incident is cautionary though: these things can happen to anybody, even a famous, stoic actor like Gene Hackman.

First, drivers need to responsibly share the road with cyclists. They must take extra precautions to look for them and treat cyclists like any other vehicle. They have a right to share the road. A car accident involving a pedestrian or a cyclist can be catastrophic and usually easily preventable.

Imagine that you are driving home with your husband in the middle of a sunny Texas summer day. The last thing you are worried about is other drivers falling asleep at the wheel. All of the sudden you see in your rear view mirror a huge semi-truck barreling down on you. You don't have any time to get out of the way and the truck hits you like, well, like a semi-truck. Your car spins out of control and the next thing you know you wake up after being unconscious only to find your husband dead next to you.

This is what happened to a woman of New Braunfels, Texas. "If you could have seen the scene that killed my husband ... or any of the other scenes that have been tied to sleep apnea and truck wrecks, it does look like a war zone," said the wife who lost her husband. The truck driver responsible for the fatal truck accident wasn't simply tired. He suffered from an untreated sleep disorder that puts him and others at risk on the road.

For many families, packing up and taking the kids out for a camping adventure will remain a memory that lasts for years and years. Camping trips can become tradition, but that is unlikely if one trip turns tragic.

Two sets of plaintiffs have joined together to file a wrongful death lawsuit in Texas. They had gone on a group camping trip out of state and were met with devastation when the weather went terribly bad. Out of the 11 people who went camping with their group, only five returned to their Texas homes alive.

With the holiday season comes excitement about family, fun, food and drinks. The drinks are where the danger comes in, usually. It sounds like this New Year's celebration in El Paso turned out to be a relatively safe one with regards to DWI accidents.

In fact, El Paso sources report that not one drunk driving accident occurred in the city during this year's celebrations. Hopefully, this means that 2012 will be a year filled with more responsible drivers and less lives lost to the recklessness that is drunk driving and driving under the influence of drugs.

After a car accident takes place, the involved parties will usually ask themselves all kinds of questions. Whose fault was it? Could I have done something to have prevented the accident? I think that the other driver was negligent. Should I go after him in a personal injury lawsuit?

There are not as many questions in one Texas car accident that there could be, thanks to a video recording of the two-car collision that occurred on Wednesday morning last week. However, the details of the accident do have the public wondering whether the lack of using hazard lights should land one of the drivers in trouble in this scenario.

There are all sorts of arguments that people use to defend their use of cell phones behind the wheel. Some simply argue that it's their personal freedom to talk and drive. Some argue that their driving isn't affected by the distraction and that they are at no great risk of a car accident. And some argue that they have to use the phone for business reasons, meaning that an all-around ban would hurt their pockets.

But a recent report on the topic of distracted driving, safety and business suggests that the pro-business argument for using cell phones while driving is faulty. Some businesses throughout the country have taken the proactive safety move to ban workers from using phones while driving, and many of them have not seen productivity decrease with the increase in safety.

None of us imagines that we will wind up in a serious car accident. We drive every day, and that we would become the victim of a fiery collision seems unlikely. But it happens to all kinds of people. And on Tuesday, it happened to two drivers who were involved in a Texas car accident.

Fortunately, no one in the wreck suffered life-threatening injuries. But things could have ended much worse, if it hadn't been for a sort of unexpected super hero who stepped in. When the cars crashed, an explosion was ignited. Who pulled a driver from his fiery vehicle? Here's a hint: Ho ho ho!

Texas is known for its fun. But big fun ended tragically during a Texas Rodeo last March, marking the end of a rodeo-goer's life and the beginning of a wrongful death lawsuit. Some might be surprised to find out that the company that ran the amusements at the rodeo last year is returning next year, with the death that occurred on its ride and all.

According to reports, a 47-year-old man was riding the company's roller coaster when he fell to his death. His safety latch on the carriage reportedly came loose, and he didn't survive the serious fall. While the ride won't be returning to the 2012 rodeo, the company who owned the ride will be.