In a rear end car accident, Florida law imposes a presumption that the rear driver is at fault. This presumption can be overcome with sufficient evidence. If the rear driver can show that the lead driver stopped or changed lanes abruptly or arbitrarily in a place that a reasonable person would not expect them to, then Florida law no longer presumes the rear driver to be negligent.

If the lead driver’s vehicle is stopped illegally, then Florida law no longer presumes the rear driver to be negligent.

Lastly, if the rear driver in the wreck can show that his or her car suffered from a mechanical failure like sudden brake failure (and the mechanical failure is not the fault of the rear driver) then Florida law no longer presumes the rear driver to be negligent.

These exceptions to the rear driver negligence presumption played an important role in a recent Florida wrongful death lawsuit involving a highway wreck. The case almost got thrown out of court until a judge ruled that the plaintiff (who represented the rear driver) presented enough evidence of the first exception.

Without evidence that the lead driver of a tractor trailer abruptly changed lanes and decelerated, the rear driver would have been presumed to be the negligent party and the case would likely have been thrown out of court.

Alice Bryant did just that after her auto accident caused damage to her vehicle and personal injury. However, the trial judge threw out her personal injury lawsuit because she had first obtained a judgment for the property damage incurred in the wreck that caused the personal injury.

Other Florida courts have noted that bringing a suit for both property and personal injury damages is more difficult than bringing them separately, but nevertheless, Florida law requires all damages resulting from a single incident to be litigated in a single lawsuit, even when it involves a car accident.

For more information about Florida traffic injury law, visit this Florida personal injury lawyer resource page.

Your freedom ends where it begins to impinge on my freedom. It’s one of the pilars of our legal system. You are free to do many, many things in America. But when the freedom our laws provide to you begin to impinge on the freedom our laws provide to me, that’s where you’re not free to act any more.

For example, drink as much alcohol as you want. You are free to do so if you’re older than 21. There is no legal limit to the amount of alcohol you can drink. That’s one of the freedoms our law provides to you.

However, the second you drink to much alcohol and get behind the wheel of a vehicle, you’re impinging on my freedoms, on my rights to a safe road and perhaps even life and the pursuit of happiness. So that’s where your freedom to drink ends.

Two recent articles in the New York Times have addressed the practice of using cell phones while driving and text messaging while driving. You don’t need studies to tell you that these practices are dangerous. You see it every day, but one study is particularly illuminating.

It found that in braking tests at 70 mph, drivers with a blood-alcohol level of .08 (legally drunk in Florida), stopped four feet further down the road than sober drivers while texting drivers stopped 70 further than they should have.

Texting and driving is significantly more dangerous than drinking and driving. I’m tired of moving over in my lane to avoid swerving texters. I’m tired of being held up in traffic by people on their phones going 10 mph below the speed limit because they’re distracted. It’s time to outlaw this practice and make our roads safer.

The problem, according to one of the NY Times pieces is that while everyone recognizes the danger, they don’t think they are part of the problem so they continue driving distractedly. The article cited studies showing that the same people who complained about phones distracting drivers rated themselves as being safe drivers even while using a phone in their car.

The absurdity of the public’s opinion on this is readily apparent, but sadly not at all surprising. Nearly everyone rates themselves as being of above average intelligence, but if everyone were above average, who would be below. We tend to see ourselves more favorably than we really are.

So that’s the most important problem – we don’t think we’re the problem so we’re unlikely to give up our supposed “right” to text while driving. But it’s not your right – you are not free to drive distracted because it impinges on my freedom.

Another problem as today’s Times points out is that our own government is covering up evidence that cell phones are dangerous instruments when used in a car. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration caved in to Congressional pressure and withheld hundreds of pages of research and warnings about the use of phones by drivers.

The outrageous of this is so grandiose that I’m saving it for another blog post entirely. For now, I’m addressing problem one only. Get off your high horse. While you may be of above average intellignce, there’s no way you’re a safe driver while you’re on your cell phone and especially while you’re texting.

For years I was one of those people who thought I was different – safe. I would complain about drivers distracted by cell phones but I would still text and drive. Then in another post here I describe my transition away from texting and driving. What I found was surprising and holds far-reaching consequences for our perceptions and in particular, road rage. When I stopped texting and driving, I limited my texting to times when I was stopped at a red light. I found that on my 25-minute drive to and from work everyday, I was never stopped at a red light long enough to type an intelligible text. I could get one word at a red light, but never more than three. Try this sometime and it will change your perception of how much time you spend in traffic. It’s not much.

This most recent Daytona interstate accident occurred yesterday on I-95. Pamela Reid of Palm Coast actually caused two separate accidents. The first occurred on U.S. 1 and no one was hurt. That was just shortly before she caused the fatal I-95 crash.

Reid crossed the median on I-95 and crashed head-on into a 2003 Chevy. The wreck spun the car and caused it to roll, ejecting both occupants. Bruce Castle, 42, of Port Orange was killed and Trevor Luce, 34, of Palm Coast was critically injured. Reid was seriously injured.

An investigation is ongoing and charges are pending. Troopers believe Reid was under the influence of alcohol when the crashes occurred.

If Reid does not have insurance or does not have adequate insurance, I pray that Luce has under/uninsured motorist coverage or he will be looking at a hefty bill once he recovers. More people are forced into bankruptcy from medical bills than any other reason. The right insurance coverage can save you from the same fate.

I wish Luce a speedy recovery, and hope he has adequate insurance. If not, there may be one way he can recover from Reid. See my previous blog  Tragic Highway Death Sober Reminder of Importance of Underinsured Motorist Coverage to learn more.

Neither of the injuries were life-threatening, and charges are still pending against the truck driver. This guy is very lucky that the women were lying in soft sand. On other stretches of the beach, the sand is very hard-packed. If the accident had taken place there, we would likely be hearing a much different story.

While I’m not commenting either way, this incident brings to mind something we discussed in law school. Sometimes, the law can be quite arbitrary. The same action by a person can result in very different legal outcomes.

The truck driver in this case backed out of his parking spot without looking. That’s of course clearly negligent, but the legal outcome would have been very different had he been on hard sand and the girls had suffered critical or lethal injuries.

The quality of the sand was just blind luck. For the same action, this truck driver could be facing life in jail. Be careful out there.

The guy who caused the accident was arrested for drunk driving and is uninjured. Hopefully justice will be served in the future for this driver because nothing about the accident was just in my eyes. Why is it that the drunk driver is completely unhurt while one innocent woman died and a family of three was seriously injured?

Mark Lester Wolf, 39, of Palm Coast was speeding southbound in his Mercedes and did not even hit the brakes before rear-ending a ‘06 Nissan Frontier driven by Christopher T. Reaney, of Port Orange. The Frontier spun clockwise, overturned with its roof hitting a metal sign pole. Everyone inside was wearing their seatbelts but Kelly L. Frates, 35, of Port Orange died from her injuries.

Chris Reaney, Catherine Reaney, 66, and William Reaney, 68, also of Port Orange were taken to Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach with serious injuries.

I pray the Reaney family members recover fully from their injuries, but they likely face a long road back. While my heart goes out to them and to the family of Kelly Frates, as a lawyer, my thoughts are also drawn to the legal implications.

For everyone reading this blog, this is a stark reminder why you need underinsured motorist coverage. I haven’t seen Wolf’s insurance policy but I wouldn’t be surprised if he does not carry enough bodily injury insurance to cover the damages he caused. Someone who is reckless enough to drink and drive so irresponsibly does not strike me as the kind of person who will carry lots of insurance to protect others.

That is why it’s so important for us, the responsible drivers to protect ourselves. Insurance companies do not explain the importance of underinsured coverage because it is not in their best interest to do so. The Reaneys may not have even heard their agent mention those words. If Wolf’s insurance won’t cover the damages and the Reaneys don’t have adequate underinsured coverage, they might be looking at out-of-pocket payment for their medical bills. The majority of US bankruptcies are due to medical expenses. I hope it doesn’t come to that.

It may not if the Reaneys can avail themselves of a recent court case that could allow them to collect punitive damages from Wolf’s insurance company. Normally, auto insurance companies do not have to pay for the punitive damages caused by a drunk driver. However, a wrinkle in insurance law says that if certain conditions exist, then the insurance company can be on the hook for punitive damages.

If Wolf is underinsured or uninsured and the Reaneys do not carry underinsured coverage, this punitive damages strategy is likely the only avenue for the Reaneys to cover their medical expenses.

For more information about auto insurance, how to protect yourself and pay for your injuries, visit this car accident lawyer site.

Fortunately, most people have never experienced a car accident and have never had the need to hire a Central Florida injury lawyer or attorney to represent them for injuries sustained in a wreck. However, if you’d like to know what a car accident trial is like, my friend, San Diego attorney Ross Jurewitz found that the Maryland law firm of Miller and Zois has posted this trial transcript. While the transcript involves a car accident trial in Maryland, the trial is similar to what happens in a Florida car wreck trial.

Saturday night Feb. 7th, Cameron James, a 27-year-old South Carolina woman lost her life in a car accident on I-95 as she traveled northbound in an SUV driven by Dyquan Dukes. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reports that the vehicle swerved “sharply to the left to avoid slower traffic but then went over a guardrail on the northwest side.” Cameron James was not wearing her seatbelt and was ejected from the vehicle as it rolled. Nothing in the story indicates that Dyquan Dukes was text messaging while driving, but what is most likely is that the driver was not paying sufficient attention to the road for whatever reason. Whether or not a jury would consider the driver negligent would certainly depend on the precise reason for the accident.

This tragedy is an unfortunate example of the all too common occurrence of drivers not paying sufficient attention to the road while driving. Please think about it before you make a phone call or a text message while driving. To learn more about negligence and the law, visit our website and browse our informative video library.