Anzellotti, Sperling, Pazol & Small

Search, Evaluate, Execute – SEE

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:23:51 +0000

As Motorcycle Awareness Month continues, we offer motorists the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s SEE or Search, Evaluate, Execute driving strategy. The MSF developed the program because cars and trucks are most often at fault in multi-vehicle accidents involving motorcycles. When used, SEE enhances highway safety for motorcycles, trucks, and cars by creating more time and space for drivers to react. We urge you to follow the link to the MSF website and then take a few moments to SEE how you can become a better, safer driver.

Motorcycle Safety Foundation website

The medical system shouldn’t just say “I’m sorry”

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 23:22:16 +0000

Just when you think things couldn’t get any tougher for victims of medical malpractice and their families, hospitals and practitioners come up with a new scheme to shield themselves from the civil justice system: saying they’re sorry. According to a new Pop Tort blog, hospitals in Boston are establishing an “apology and settlement offer” program. Under the program, doctors and hospitals will admit they have made a mistake and make an offer to compensate the patient—or the patient’s family if they happen to have died as a result of the error or negligence‐for the error.

There are a few problems with this: First, the hospital investigates what has happened and then determines how severe the error or negligence was. Second, if the patient or surviving family members accept the offer made by the hospital they must sign away all their legal rights, no matter what they may learn about the case at a later date. Finally, the patient or family member is not required to have legal representation during the process. As a result, they are at a serious disadvantage because, and we’re sure you’ll be shocked to hear this, the hospital WILL be represented by its attorneys.

Look, it’s bad enough when insurance adjusters descend on car accident victims and attempt to browbeat them into signing away their rights. We shouldn’t give hospitals and doctors the power to do essentially the same thing, especially when you consider how difficult it can be to determine exactly what happened when a medical error has occurred and how much it will cost to make things right. We hope “apologize and pay” schemes like the one in Boston die on the vine.

To learn more, read the Pop Tort blog.

Motorcycle Awareness Month: Your assignment

admin — Thu, 03 May 2012 18:56:20 +0000

Here are today’s assignments for Motorcycle Awareness Month:

First: Find the motorcycle in the picture we posted on our Facebook page today.

Second: Take a couple of minutes to watch this video produced by our friends at the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. It features a number of tips that will help car drivers peacefully coexist with motorcycle riders.

Third: Call the experienced legal team at Anzellotti, Sperling, Pazol & Small if you or a loved one has been in an accident with a car or truck while motorcycling. Studies show that auto and/or truck drivers are usually at fault when motorcycles and other types of vehicles collide. If you’ve been in an accident, contact us today to arrange a no-cost consultation. We’ll evaluate your case and help get you on the road to justice.

Ohio gets serious about ban of texting-while-driving

admin — Wed, 02 May 2012 20:57:41 +0000

Could it be? We don’t know if the buzz generated by National Distracted Driving Prevention Month was the catalyst, but it appears that the Ohio State Senate is on the verge of passing legislation outlawing texting while driving.

Today’s edition of the “Columbus Dispatch” reports that Senate Republicans held a closed-door meeting last night to discuss moving the measure which has been stalled in the upper chamber since overwhelmingly passing the House last June. One new twist: the Senate version of the legislation may include a provision that would prohibit 16- and 17-year-olds from using ANY electronic device while they are behind the wheel.

When asked for the source of the total prohibition language, Senator Tom Patton of Cleveland, Chair of the Highway and Transportation Committee that has jurisdiction over the bill, claimed authorship and noted that he has six children.

Read article

Guidelines for motorcycle safety

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:38:17 +0000

May is National Motorcycle Awareness Month. As part of the campaign to help car and truck drivers share the road with motorcyclists, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has prepared the following guidelines:

Road users are reminded to never drive, bike, or walk while distracted. Doing so can result in tragic consequences for motorcyclists.
A motorcycle has the same rights and privileges as any other vehicle on the roadway.
Allow a motorcyclist a full lane width. Although it may seem that there is enough room in the traffic lane for a motor vehicle and a motorcycle, the motorcycle needs the room to maneuver safely. Do not share the lane.
Because motorcycles are small, they can be difficult for other road users to see them, or judge their speed and distance as they approach.
Always signal your intentions before changing lanes or merging with traffic. This allows motorcyclists to anticipate traffic flow and find a safe lane position.
Because of its smaller size, a motorcyclist can be hidden in a vehicle’s blind spot. Always check for motorcycles by checking mirrors and blind spots before entering or leaving a lane of traffic and at intersections.
Don’t be fooled by a flashing turn signal on a motorcycle – motorcycle signals may not be self-canceling and motorcyclists sometimes forget to turn them off. Wait to be sure the rider is going to turn before you proceed.
Remember that road conditions that are minor annoyances to motorists can pose major hazards to motorcyclists. Motorcycle riders may change speed or adjust position within a lane suddenly in reaction to road and traffic conditions such as potholes, gravel, wet or slippery surfaces, pavement seams, railroad crossings, and grooved pavement.
Allow more following distance—three or four seconds—when following a motorcycle so the motorcycle rider has enough time to maneuver or stop in an emergency. In dry conditions, motorcycles can stop more quickly than cars.

Find more motorcycle safety tips on our YouTube channel.

Have medical errors affected your life?

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:34:58 +0000

In August of 2007, school principal Merlyna Adams went to the hospital because she was experiencing pain in her side. Three weeks later after being transfered to and being mistreated in a number of hospitals near her home in LaPlace, Louisiana, she developed sepsis, a serious infection that led to the amputation of both legs below the knees and both hands.

Each year more than 98,000 people are killed as a result of serious medical errors or negligence. Many thousands more are severely injured. Tort reform, and in particular caps on damages that may be awarded by juries in medical malpractice suits, make it difficult for patients and their families to hold hospitals and doctors accountable for these mistakes. As a result, the quality of care provided in states that have enacted such caps has deteriorated according to data generated by a number of impartial studies.

If you or a loved one has been injured due to medical errors or negligence, call the experienced medical malpractice attorneys at Anzellotti, Sperling, Pazol, & Small today. We will evaluate your case and help you determine how to fight for justice and the compensation you need to help protect your family and rebuild your life.

Learn more about Merlyna Adams’ tragic and disturbing story.

Try the texting simulator if you’re not convinced!

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 03:21:51 +0000

As National Distracted Driving Prevention Month comes to a close, we invite our friends to try use this texting while driving simulator developed by the New York Times. The simulation clearly demonstrates the extreme difficulty—if not downright impossibility—of controlling a car traveling at highway speeds while looking away to read and respond to texts, answer the phone, fiddle with the radio, eat, or converse with people riding in the backseat.

Access the simulator

It is our sincere hope that this simulation and all the information we’ve posted about distracted driving over the past month motivates you to take an active role in the fight against this dangerous and totally preventable source of car, truck, and motorcycle accidents.

For our part, our effort to curb distracted driving will continue long after the official observation of DD Prevention Month ends. Check our website, aspands.com, to learn more.

May is Motorcycle Awareness Month

admin — Tue, 01 May 2012 03:18:31 +0000

For those who may not know, May has been designated “Motorcycle Awareness Month” by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the U.S. Department of Transportation. For the next 31 days we’ll be offering a vast array of tips and information designed to make the road safer for motorcyclists—primarily by making car and truck drivers more aware of their presence.

Here’s a preview

Don’t Text While Driving

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:08:37 +0000

Sometime this weekend take ten minutes and forty-four seconds to sit down and watch this video with your kids. When you are done crying, make sure you and they share it with everyone you know.

AT&T Don’t Text While Driving Documentary

Outrageous practices in medical bill collection

admin — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 18:04:16 +0000

Regular visitors to this page and our website, www.aspands.com, have learned that hospitals, along with most other health care providers, don’t think much of the civil justice system and lawsuits. It appears, however, that their distaste for court actions is situational. If a patient who has been injured because of medical errors or negligence files a suit, that’s bad. But if a hospital files a suit to collect money from a patient who is unable to pay their bill, well, that apparently is just fine.

At least that’s what a story published online by Forbes today clearly implies. According to the article, over a five year period (2005 to 2010), North Carolina hospitals—most of which are tax-exempt non-profits—filed more than 40,000 lawsuits against patients with overdue bills. Most of the lawsuits are filed against people that were uninsured and who typically pay the highest possible retail rate for healthcare services.

Along with filing thousands of lawsuits, many of these “charitable” institutions are using other less tasteful, though equally aggressive tactics to collect from the people they treat, including embedding bill collectors in emergency rooms who try to get patients to pay outstanding bills before they are treated. Those who succeed in forcing the sick to cough up some bucks receive gift cards. Those who aren’t successful sometimes face termination.

We know the Summer Olympics don’t start for a couple of months, but if they were handing our medals for hypocrisy the medical industry in general and hospitals in particular would win golds by wide margins.

Read more about the outrageous situation:

Check out the article in Forbes

Read this story in the Charlotte Observer

And this one from the New York Times