Travel Risks Category Archives — DC Medical Malpractice & Patient Safety Blog Published by Washington, D.C. Personal Injury Lawyers

December 23, 2022

Half of those hurt or killed in crashes used drugs or alcohol

As federal, state, and local officials seek to slash the nation’s spiking road toll of injury and death, law enforcement authorities need to crack down on the scary prevalence of motorists who get behind the wheel while intoxicated by marijuana or alcohol.

Indeed, as NPR reported:

“A large study by U.S. highway safety regulators found that more than half the people injured or killed in traffic crashes had one or more drugs, or alcohol, in their bloodstreams. Also, just over 54% of injured drivers had drugs or alcohol in their systems, with tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), an active ingredient in marijuana, the most prevalent, followed by alcohol, the study published [Dec. 13] by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration found. Although the study authors say the results can’t be used to gauge drug use on the roads nationwide, they say the high number of drivers, passengers, and other road users with drugs in their systems is concerning.”

December 16, 2022

A holiday health warning to take to heart about drinking

by Patrick A. Malone

Cardiologists and other doctors have words to the wise for the aging, party-hearty-for-the-holidays crowd: Excessive boozing, as part of their seasonal merry making, puts those who partake of too much liquid cheer at heightened risk of heart problems.

The last thing, too, that public safety advocates would want to see in times when the nation is battling a rising road toll is any more intoxicated motorists.

Experts have become sufficiently savvy about the health damage caused heavy seasonal drinking that they developed a name for the harmful condition: holiday heart syndrome, the New York Times reported:

November 24, 2022

Giving many thanks on yet another holiday fraught with health concerns

by Patrick A. Malone

Millions of us will have much to give thanks for during the annual holiday, which, like several of its recent versions, again will be a time of health wariness and uncertainty, too.

The seasonal feast — which brings so many the joy of not only a grand meal but also the pleasure of gathering with friends, family, and other loved ones — will be more costly than any in recent memory due to economic inflation and supply chain problems, the Associated Press reported:

“Americans are bracing for a costly Thanksgiving this year, with double-digit percent increases in the price of turkey, potatoes, stuffing, canned pumpkin, and other staples. The U.S. government estimates food prices will be up 9.5% to 10.5% this year; historically, they’ve risen only 2% annually. Lower production and higher costs for labor, transportation and items are part of the reason; disease, rough weather and the war in Ukraine are also contributors.”

August 12, 2022

D.C. drivers need to learn a key safety lesson: Slow down near schools

by Patrick A. Malone

With students returning to classes in a few weeks, motorists need to make an important safety pledge to youngsters and their communities in Washington, D.C.: Please, for goodness’ sake, slow down.

This is not happening as it should, putting kids at heightened risk, a new study has found. As the Washington Post reported:

“D.C. drivers traveling through school zones, where signage directs them to slow down and be more alert for children, are not reducing speeds and are getting into crashes at the same rate as along other roadways, according to a new study that offers a snapshot of driving behaviors around schools. The presence of traffic and school zone signs also doesn’t significantly slow drivers, especially around schools with lower-income students, according to the report by traffic analytics firm INRIX, which reviewed traffic data around 27 schools across the city’s four quadrants.”

July 6, 2022

The U.S. summer of 2022: Infectious outbreaks and vital vaccines

by Patrick A. Malone

In the 21^st century, in the wealthiest and supposedly most advanced nation on the planet, infectious diseases and vaccines continue to be major part of the news headlines.

Experts and regular folks are paying attention to the persistent coronavirus pandemic, a stubborn and apparently widening outbreak of monkeypox, and a startling spike of meningitis and listeria cases in or tied to Florida.

The coronavirus pandemic

July 1, 2022

Enjoy a great Fourth — safely and without dangerous, illicit fireworks

by Patrick A. Malone

This great country will celebrate its 246^th birthday on July 4, 2022 — a national holiday marking the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress.

Here’s hoping one and all have a glorious, fun, and safe Fourth!

Wouldn’t the holiday be all the finer if folks, especially those fortunate to be in the area of the nation’s capital, enjoyed the flashy public festivities. And if the annual bunch of knuckleheads didn’t partake of illegal fireworks, or the even more dangerous practice of firing guns into the air?

May 27, 2022

Road deaths shatter records, as pedestrian fatalities skyrocket, too

by Patrick A. Malone

Even with budget-busting gas prices, Americans are driving with abandon, especially as the nation heads into the summer vacation season. But what will get motorists to slow down, buckle up, and heed vital road safety steps — especially as the latest new numbers underscore the lethal toll if they don’t?

Traffic fatalities climbed by 10% last year versus the year before, busting the percentage increase record in such deaths since federal officials started keeping their tallies in 1975, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has found. The Washington Post reported that the 42,915 fatalities in 2021 were a the highest such number nationwide since 2005.

The spiking road toll also carried this grim outcome for pedestrians, a leading road safety group reported:

January 5, 2022

Motorists across region need to look in the mirror to improve road safety

by Patrick A. Malone

When it comes to serious traffic and road safety problems in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, to quote the late, brilliant cartoonist Walt Kelly of Pogo fame: We have met the enemy and he is us. We are the reckless, speeding, and law-defying motorists not only from the District but, yes, big numbers of bad-behaving folks from Maryland and Virginia.

As 2021 drew to a close, D.C. officials expressed their exasperation at the limits of their efforts to enforce laws to safeguard motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists in the nation’s capital, especially with a giant legal block to doing so: cooperation and help among Virginia, Maryland, and the District to enforce traffic laws and citations, also known as reciprocity.

The Washington Post, in two separate news articles, quoted District officials’ frustration over this significant and growing problem:

December 14, 2021

Pandemic is taking terrible toll on mental health, with links to road deaths, overdoses and homicides

by Patrick A. Malone

Not all grievous injuries are apparent to the eye, as anyone who has experienced catastrophic illness or injury can attest. And now we’re learning a lot more about the hidden costs — mental, emotional, social, and spiritual — inflicted by the coronavirus pandemic.

Reporters Emily Baumgartner and Russ Mitchell of the Los Angeles Times surfaced intriguing points of view on what has now become normalized but widely aberrant behaviors in the age of Covid. They did so, as they dug into the reasons for the unacceptable increase in road fatalities at a time when the public, overall, drove less and many people had open byways. The deadly toll that took in 2020 was expected to, but did not, reverse in 2021.

It got worse — and the reasons why need urgent attention, sources told the newspaper, which reported:

November 23, 2021

U.S. urges booster shots for all 18 and older and especially the 50+

by Patrick A. Malone

With studies showing that as many as half of patients infected with the coronavirus suffer physical and psychological problems for six months or more after they thought they first recovered, wise people may want to take every precaution they can against the disease.

They may wish to heed new federal recommendations calling for vaccine boosters, now approved for all Americans 18 and older and strongly encouraged for those older than 50.

The building data on “long Covid” is disconcerting, the Washington Post reported, noting: