Personal Injury Cases – Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone & Morelli

Throughout New Britain, Hartford, Norwich, Manchester and surrounding areas, people are making New Year’s resolutions. For many, the start of 2015 is a time when you can begin achieving your goals of getting into better shape and becoming more physically fit. There are many health benefits associated with starting a new exercise routine, but a personal injury lawyer knows that there are also risks as well.

Serious injuries can occur when a person begins exercising and doesn’t know how to stay safe. Sometimes, however, injuries are not the fault of the person who is working out. Injuries can occur when exercise equipment has a malfunction or defect. Injuries can also occur when gym facilities fail to live up to their duty to patrons to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe way. In situations where an exercise injury is the fault of a machine manufacturer or gym operator, victims harmed by the incident should take legal action to obtain compensation for losses.

Exercise Injuries Affect Thousands

According to NBC News, there are approximately 50,000 injuries sustained while exercising each year in the United States that are serious enough to send victims to emergency rooms.

One such incident made headlines recently because it involved a U.S. senator. The Los Angeles Times reported that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid sustained an injury when a resistance band broke as he was exercising. The band struck him in the face and precipitated a fall. The senator also struck other exercise equipment when he was falling down. He was hospitalized with broken facial bones and with several broken ribs.

Exercise resistance bands breaking are one of the common causes of exercise injuries. However, the most dangerous workout equipment appears to be treadmills. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that there were 575 serious injuries suffered in 2009 when people fell off a treadmill, tripped over a treadmill or tripped while working out on a treadmill.

The number of exercise injuries has increased in recent years. The Health-I -Team reports that between 2007 and 2010, there was a 45 percent increase in the number of exercise related injuries.

This increase came at a time when there were numerous recalls of defective exercise equipment. For example, 16,700 treadmills had to be recalled in 2005 because there was a risk that users would sustain an electric shock due to problems with the machines. Another 4,600 treadmills had to be recalled in 2007 due to a risk of overheating that could prompt the treadmills to start on fire. In 2008, the company that had previously recalled the overheating machines had to recall another 20,000 treadmills. This time, the problem was that the machines would unexpectedly speed up as they were being used.

Manufacturers can be held liable for exercise-related injuries any time people are using exercise machines as directed and a defect in the product causes harm. The owners of gyms are generally responsible for injuries only if they were negligent in keeping the premises reasonably safe for their patrons.

Contact a Hartford accident attorney today at the Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone & Morelli. Call 1-800-WIN-WIN-1 for your free case consultation or visit www.salomoneandmorelli.com.  Also serving New Britain and Norwich to Manchester, New Haven and the Waterbury-area

Drivers in Hartford, Manchester, New Haven and the Waterbury-area need to ensure they do everything possible to ensure that they make safe choices behind the wheel. Many motorists today are purchasing vehicles that have add-on safety features or optional crash protection technologies. Motorists seek out these features because they believe that this can help them to avoid becoming involved in an accident.

Technologies can make a difference in helping to prevent car accidents. However, a personal injury lawyer knows that most tech devices in vehicles are not perfect and are prone to malfunctioning or failure. While technology is a good add-on that drivers can use as one tool to help prevent accidents, a reliance on technology can be dangerous. Motorists should never assume they can substitute automated features for their own common sense or their own extra care behind the wheel.

In-Vehicle Technologies Limited Provide Limited Accident Prevention

Some of the most common add-ons that drivers believe will help them to stop crashes include blind spot detection systems and lane-keep or lane departure warning systems. The purpose of blind spot detections systems is to help drivers become aware when something is in the area to the side of their vehicle that they cannot see. The purpose of lane departure warning systems is to prevent motorists from straying outside of the lane where their vehicle belongs.

Blind spot detection systems were available as an optional add-on in around 75 percent of cars in 2014. These systems were available as a standard feature in two percent of cars. Lane departure warning systems were available in around 50 percent of vehicles in 2014.

AOL Auto reports that AAA and MIT’s AgeLab conducted a study to assess how well these common crash prevention technologies actually performed. The results showed that the technologies have much room for improvement.

Blind spot detection systems generally did not work as well when vehicles were traveling at higher speeds. These systems also were not very good at alerting drivers to the fact that a motorcycle was beside their car. The detection systems did not identify motorcycles until 26 percent later than passenger cars. By the time the system alerted the driver to the motorcycle, the motorcycle was within 14 feet of the vehicle. Since many drivers use blind spot detection systems to aid them when they are merging onto highways or when they are changing lanes on high-speed roads, it is bad news that these systems don’t work well at high speeds.

Lane departure systems also tended to malfunction when conditions were not optimal. For example, if the pavement was worn, if the driver was in a construction zone, if the roads were wet or if the weather was bad, the lane departure system often failed to function correctly.

Many different vehicles from different car makers were tested and these problems were virtually universal. Drivers need to be aware of the shortcomings of these crash protection systems and they should remember that it is ultimately their responsibility to watch the road carefully and take steps to avoid getting into a collision.

Contact a Hartford accident attorney today at the Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone & Morelli. Call 1-800-WIN-WIN-1 for your free case consultation or visit www.salomoneandmorelli.com.  Also serving New Britain and Norwich to Manchester, New Haven and the Waterbury-area.