A woman is dead after a single-vehicle rollover wreck on Interstate 55. The early morning crash happened as the woman was traveling south. As her vehicle rolled, she was ejected from it. She died from the injuries that resulted from the crash. An investigation into this terrible accident indicates that the woman was not wearing her seatbelt. It is unclear why the wreck occurred, and authorities continue to investigate.

For years, messages concerning seat belt use have been all over the news, especially whenever there is news coverage of an ejection accident, such as the one described above. Despite the frequent, tragic reminders of what can happen when someone does not use a seatbelt, people continue to drive and ride without them. Seat belt use has increased over the years, but it is still not at one hundred percent. Highway safety agencies and law enforcement officials plan to continue enforcing and reinforcing the importance of seat belt use as long as there are people on the roads who are not buckled up.

In Mississippi, as in many states, seat belt use is required by law. Under Mississippi law, drivers and passengers in the front seat who are age seven or older must wear seat belts. Kids who are over four and under seven years old must buckle up no matter where they sit in a vehicle. Small children who are less than four years old must be buckled in a properly-fitted, properly-installed child safety seat. Drivers who do not ensure that they and the other occupants of their vehicle follow the seat belt law may be required to pay a fine.

Seat belts have proven to be the device that prevents more car accident deaths and injuries than any other vehicle safety feature. One way that seat belts save lives is by keeping people inside of vehicles. Ejectment accidents like the one described above are horrific, and the survival of drivers and passengers who are ejected is uncommon. When someone is ejected from a vehicle during an accident, there is a seventy-five percent chance that they will die. Their death may be instantaneous, or it may occur hours or even days later, as a result of their injuries. The effectiveness of seatbelts in preventing ejection is overwhelming – fewer than one percent of the people who wear seatbelts are ejected from wrecked vehicles.

In addition to decreasing the risk of death by ejectment, seatbelts also lessen the severity of injuries that result from car accidents. Automobile accident victims who do not wear seat belts report medical bills that are, on average, fifty percent higher than the medical bills reported by car accident victims who were wearing their seat belts.

Adults who drive or ride with children in a vehicle are responsible for ensuring that they wear seatbelts or are buckled into properly-fitted, correctly-installed child safety seats. Children are more likely than adults are to be hurt or killed in car crashes. Child safety seats and seat belts can prevent up to eighty percent of the child and infant deaths that result from motor vehicle wrecks .

If you were hurt or you lost a loved one in a car crash, we’re here to help. Call the Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorneys of Barrett Law PLLC at 1 (601) 790-1505 to arrange a consultation.

A woman died after she was ejected from her vehicle in a recent rollover accident on I-20 near Bovina. An investigation into the wreck revealed that the woman might have fallen asleep at the wheel. She was also not wearing a seatbelt at the time of the early morning wreck.

Approximately fifteen hundred people die, and thousands more are hurt every year in crashes caused by drowsy drivers. While fatigue can cause a driver to have any motor vehicle accident, many drowsy-driving wrecks are similar to the single-car rollover crash described above. Unfortunately, despite the media coverage of these horrible crashes, many Americans continue to drive when they are fatigued.

Sleep habits affect driving in much the same way that alcohol use affects driving, yet many people who would not dare to drink and drive think nothing of getting behind the wheel when they are tired. Sleep deprivation is a significant problem in America, but most people do not believe it is that big of a problem since they and many people they know are tired almost all of the time. It is a significant concern, and researchers have been working hard to understand the impacts that sleep, or the lack thereof, has on our bodies and our minds.

Research has revealed that driving drowsy is very similar to driving drunk. Everyone knows how often drunk drivers cause death and destruction. People must learn to make the connection between drowsy driving and drunk driving and think twice before driving when they are tired. As does a drunk driver, a tired driver moves along the road in a state of decreased awareness and impaired judgment. Tired drivers’ reaction times are slow, just like drivers who are intoxicated, creating a delay in their response to everything from curves in the road to vehicles or pedestrians in their path.

One crucial point that Americans must understand about drowsy driving is that it is not only the chronically sleep-deprived who are at risk for a crash caused by fatigue. Even a single instance of not getting enough rest can increase your risk of a wreck. If you think that stay-awake strategies like coffee, gum, mints, or energy drinks can help you stay alert enough to avoid an accident, know that they do not decrease your crash risk. You might feel alert for a short time following the use of those items, but your body is still tired, and that tiredness may overtake you without you even knowing it. Remember – no one tries to fall asleep at the wheel. If you start to feel tired, the safest thing you can do is stop and rest.

If you were hurt or someone that you love died in an accident involving a tired driver, contact a Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorney right away. The Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorneys at Barrett Law PLLC are here to serve you and your family. Call us at 1 (601) 790-1505 to learn more.

A person and a cow are dead following a recent motor vehicle wreck on Highway 18. A man was driving a van westbound on Highway 18 when he struck a cow that was on the road. His van then went off the highway and hit a tree. The Mississippi Highway Patrol is investigating the accident.

Livestock does not often go on the road. The owners of cows, horses, sheep, and other domestic animals keep their livestock inside of barns, fenced pastures, or other contained areas to protect the animals from harm. Unfortunately, cows and other livestock occasionally escape from their shelter or enclosure and wander around loose. When one or more animals escape, they create a risk of harm to themselves and people.

The risk of harm increases when livestock wanders into a road. Drivers are not expecting to encounter livestock on the highway, and they may attempt to swerve to avoid the animal that has suddenly appeared in their path. Unfortunately, swerving can sometimes cause a driver to lose control of their vehicle and have a wreck. Also, even if a driver swerves, the animal could continue moving in a way that makes a collision unavoidable.

Any collision with a wild or domestic animal has the potential to cause injury or death to the people and animals involved in the crash. Large animals like moose, deer, horses, and cows pose the greatest threat because of their size and weight. When a vehicle strikes an animal, the animal may be tossed into the air before it lands on the vehicle’s hood, roof, or windshield. Animals that are large and heavy can crush cars and shatter windshields, severely injuring or killing vehicle occupants.

Collisions with animals are dangerous and often deadly. Fortunately, drivers can sometimes avoid having a vehicle wreck when they encounter an animal on the road. If you see an animal in the street, slow down if it is at all possible. Look carefully at the area around you. Both escaped livestock, and some wild animals like deer tend to travel in groups. When one animal moves into the road, others may be following it.

If you can avoid hitting the animal or animals that are on the road without swerving so hard that you wreck your vehicle, that is the best possible result. However, due to traffic, weather conditions, or other circumstances, you may not see the animal or animals that are on the road until a collision is inevitable. In that situation, if you can hit the animal at an angle rather than head-on, it is a good idea to do so. Hitting an animal at an angle increases the chance that the animal will be deflected from your vehicle instead of onto it.

If you were hurt or someone that you love was killed in an accident involving a wild animal or livestock, contact a Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorney right away. The Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorneys at Barrett Law PLLC are here to serve you and your family. Call us at 1 (601) 790-1505 to learn more.

In a previous article, we began our review of the ten most dangerous jobs in America, based on 2018 statistics from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. We resume our exploration of that list, along with the reasons those jobs are so dangerous, with the sixth most dangerous job in America.

Sales workers and truck drivers have the sixth most dangerous job in America. The primary cause of work-related injuries and death for these workers is transportation, which makes sense considering the many hours they log behind the wheel. Sales workers travel routes throughout their workday, and truckers make pickups and deliveries on local and long-distance routes.

People who work as trash collectors and those who pick up your recyclables hold the fifth most dangerous job in America. Transportation accidents cause the most injuries and fatalities for these workers, who spend their days driving and riding on trucks in all kinds of weather.

The fourth most dangerous job in America belongs to the roofers. Trips, slips, and falls are the most common cause of injury and death among these workers. That is not surprising, because roofing work often happens at heights where a slip or a fall could be deadly. Those of us who do not do roofing work may not realize how physically demanding roofing work is. The job involves a great deal of heavy lifting and climbing, and work takes place in all kinds of weather, including the heat of summer and the chill of winter.

Aircraft engineers and pilots have the third most dangerous job in America. This may be surprising, considering that the number of large, commercial aviation airplane crashes is relatively low. However, the majority of workplace injuries and fatalities in the aviation industry involve aircraft in the private sector.

Fishing is dangerous work, earning it the number two spot on the list of America’s ten most dangerous jobs. The primary cause of workplace injury and death among fishing industry workers is transportation. Transportation in the fishing industry includes time spent on fishing vessels, where fishers spend long hours doing physically demanding work that includes hauling in nets and traps.

The most dangerous job of all belongs to loggers. The logging accidents that claim the most lives and cause the most injuries involve falling objects, which are often the trees that they are attempting to fell. Accidents involving logging equipment, including feller-bunchers, chainsaws, and skidders, are also a top cause of injury and death among loggers.

Whether or not you hold one of the ten most dangerous jobs in America, a workplace accident can keep you off of the job and out of a paycheck for quite some time. If you suffered any type of injury on the job, or you lost a family member in a work-related death, you do not have to navigate the daunting process of filing a workplace injury or death claim alone. Call the Mississippi Workplace Accident Attorneys at Barrett Law PLLC at 1 (601) 790-1505 to learn more.

 

 

 

Automobile accidents are not part of anyone’s plan for their day. Unfortunately, motor vehicle wrecks happen all across Mississippi and all over America every day, at all hours of the day and night. If you have an accident, take the following steps to ensure that you care for the needs of yourself and others and comply with the law.

The first thing you must do if you are involved in a motor vehicle wreck is to stop your vehicle. It is a crime to fail to stop at an accident scene, so do not even think about continuing on your way. Next, check yourself for injuries. Call 911 if you can, or if you are unable, ask someone to make the call for you. If you are unable to move or if it hurts to move, wait for emergency personnel to arrive. If you’re injured and you are not too hurt to move about, proceed with as many next steps as you can before first responders arrive. When they arrive, be sure to get your injuries evaluated before doing anything else, in case you need to go to the hospital.

If you can move, check on others in your vehicle and the other vehicle or vehicles involved in the wreck. Describe any injuries that you see to the emergency personnel on the phone, because information about what is happening at the accident scene is helpful to dispatchers.

Next, If your vehicle came to rest in the road, move it to the side if it is safe to do so to avoid creating a situation where oncoming traffic collides with it. Also, if people can get out of their vehicles, gather everyone at a safe place.

If you notice that no one has called 911 because no one is hurt, make the call to let police know about the crash. Police reports and accident investigations are essential documents that can help you pursue claims for injuries and damages after a motor vehicle wreck. More importantly, calling the police after a crash is a requirement of the law in many places.

After you have called for help, wait for help to arrive. While you wait, exchange information with the other drivers and share insurance information with them. You’ll want to exchange names and telephone numbers, insurance contact and policy information, and vehicle information such as the year, color, make, and model of each car involved in the crash. Don’t forget to note where the accident happened. Be sure not to make any statements claiming responsibility for the crash, even if you know it was your fault. Likewise, do not blame the other drivers or get into a shouting match with them.

If you have a camera on your phone, take pictures of the accident. These pictures can be valuable during the insurance claims process. Also, write down the name and badge number of all officers who respond to the accident and ask them where you can go to obtain a copy of the accident report.

If you were hurt or if someone in your family was killed in a motor vehicle wreck, we’re here to help. Call the Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorneys of Barrett Law PLLC at 1 (601) 790-1505 to arrange an initial consultation.

 

Automobile accidents can cause a lot of stress and strain on top of any pain you are experiencing as a result of the crash. Your life was busy before you got in a wreck, and you may wonder how you’ll handle all of the responsibilities that were already on your plate as you recover from your injuries. Fortunately, you do not have to bear the burden of getting your life back on track after a car crash on your own. Mississippi automobile accident attorneys can help you with some of the daunting tasks that you are facing.

To receive the greatest amount of benefit from working with a Mississippi automobile accident attorney, contact several attorneys as soon as you can after your accident. Look for someone who is available to handle your automobile accident case, and meet with one or more attorneys that are available before selecting the attorney that you feel is best able to help you. When you turn over the tedious and frustrating work of pursuing an automobile accident claim to an automobile accident attorney, you free up your time so that you can focus on doing what you need to do to heal from any injuries you received in the accident.

Automobile accident attorneys are skilled professionals who are adept at navigating the automobile accident claims process. They know when a proposed settlement offer is not adequate, and they know how to negotiate with insurers to obtain a more fair result. Automobile accident attorneys know how to obtain the information they’ll need to support the claim that they make on your behalf, and they know how to present that information to the insurer in a way that supports your claim.

Some automobile accident victims attempt to contact the insurance company themselves and pursue an automobile accident claim. While insurers would have you believe that you, as an individual, can file a claim for damages, they make it difficult to do so successfully. For example, it is often difficult for people to locate and obtain medical records and other types of evidence that they could use to support their claim. Because the insurance claims process is so hard to navigate, many accident victims who have filed their own claims end up frustrated, exhausted, and without a settled claim for much longer than they need to. If you are in this situation, an automobile accident attorney may be able to help you. They can pursue a claim for damages on your behalf, and they can spend their time calling, emailing, and otherwise pursuing the insurer until your case is resolved.

If you were hurt or if someone in your family was killed in a motor vehicle wreck, you do not have to bear the burden of pursuing an automobile accident claim during this difficult time in your life. We’re here to help. Call the Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorneys of Barrett Law PLLC at 1 (601) 790-1505 to arrange an initial consultation.

 

 

 

While many motor vehicle accidents happen on the road, collisions do occur in other places such as parking lots. As many as one in five car crashes occurs in a parking lot. With the holiday shopping season in full swing, parking lots everywhere are busier than usual, and accident risk in parking lots is at its peak. Approximately five hundred people die, and sixty thousand people are hurt in parking lot collisions each year.

Before you embark on your next journey to the store, the mall, your work parking garage, or any other place where you’ll be parking in a lot, take time to learn more about parking lot accidents and how you can reduce the likelihood that you will be involved in one. Understanding the causes of parking lot accidents can help you make safe choices as you navigate parking lots. For example, it is estimated that distracted drivers cause up to two-thirds of parking lot accidents. In addition to distractions like cell phones that can cause trouble for drivers both on the road and in parking lots, drivers in parking lots are often so focused on locating a parking space that they fail to see vehicles and pedestrians nearby. Driving in a crowded parking lot can be frustrating. Still, it is worth taking the extra time to reduce your accident risk by driving slowly and maintaining an awareness of everything that is going on around you as you navigate the busy aisles looking for a parking space. Sometimes, drivers are inappropriately aggressive when attempting to claim a parking spot. If this happens, it’s not worth risking a collision by trying to pull into a parking place that an aggressive driver is trying to claim. Yes, it is frustrating, but it’s preferable to possibly being injured or damaging your vehicle in a crash.

When you arrive at the end of an aisle, or you locate your parking spot, do not forget to use your turn signal so that other drivers can anticipate the movement of your vehicle. If you manage to find a pull-through parking space amidst the holiday shopping chaos, here’s one more reason to celebrate – pulling out of a parking spot is much easier and safer than backing out of it. If you do park in a space that you must back out of, look behind your vehicle before backing up and check blind spots carefully.

Once you have safely parked your vehicle, you’ll want to make sure that you get into and out of the building safely. Keep your cell phone in your pocket or purse. If you’re distracted by looking at a screen while you are walking through the parking lot, you could step out into traffic or walk behind a vehicle that is backing out of a parking space. Children are often hurt in parking lot accidents because they are not tall enough to be seen out of the rear window of many vehicles. Keep kids close to you and hold their hand as you walk together through the parking lot.

Nearly fifteen percent of automobile accidents that cause damage occur in parking lots. If you were hurt or if your vehicle was damaged in a Mississippi parking lot accident, call the Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorneys at Barrett Law PLLC, at 1 (601) 790-1505.

As anyone who drives in Mississippi knows, too many people use their phones while they drive. Worse yet, too many accidents are caused by those distracted drivers, often resulting in serious accidents or death. The question is how does one prove that the party that caused your accident was distracted by their phone and that you were not? This may be crucial evidence in your case, and having experienced counsel help you attain your fair share of compensation is critical if you are harmed in a distracted driver auto accident. Barrett Law has the experience to help you through this process.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

Data from cell phones may be the critical piece of evidence that proves that the person who injured you in an accident is at fault. In turn, it may also prove that you were not at fault, which is sometimes equally important. Attaining that evidence will require the help of counsel experienced with automobile accidents and interpreting cell phone data.

What is the “Negligence” Standard?

Almost everyone has a cell phone. So you can be assured that if you were injured in a car accident, there is almost guaranteed to bet at least one phone associated with that other car, if not more. Finding out if the driver was using his or her phone at the time of the crash is vital to establishing negligence, which is the legal standard for fault in this sort of incident. “Negligence” means that a person did not meet the standard of care that a reasonable person would adhere to under the circumstances. If a driver was distracted by a cellular phone at the time of the accident, they cannot meet that standard of care and will be found to be negligent.

What Type of Records?

We all get a cell phone bill. While accurate enough for billing purposes, cell phone bills do not have the level of accuracy required for court. They are accurate within a minute, but most accidents are decided based on seconds. Instead, with the help of experienced counsel, you can attain Call Detail Records (CDR), which provide accuracy down to the second.  Because you will need to establish that the driver that hit you was distracted at the very moment they impacted with you, filing a subpoena or court order to attain CDR’s will be vital to your case. Determining whether the cell phone company whose records you are trying to see requires a simple subpoena or a court order is important to understand; either way, they can be attained by your attorney.

What Should You Do If You Are Injured By a Distracted Driver?

To best position your case, your attorney needs to start trying to attain cell phone records immediately after your accident. Filing a subpoena or for a court order for the cell phone company’s records and making sure that they are preserved is important, as, like most routine records, cell phone records are usually destroyed or erased on a schedule.  So time is of the essence.  Preserving this evidence is crucial to proving the other driver’s negligence, so do not hesitate.

Call Barrett Law now, an experienced Mississippi auto accident law firm, to represent you if you were injured or harmed by a distracted driver.

Barrett Law has the experience to take on defense attorneys and insurance companies that are focussed on denying your compensation for the harm you experienced. We are skilled at attaining cell phone evidence and presenting it in a manner to best position your case.  Contact us now at (601) 790-1505.

 

If you have ever been in a car accident, you know how traumatic they can be, whether just resulting in minor damage or totaling your car and causing significant physical harm. At that moment, you are not in a good position to be deciding what to say to other drivers, the police, and insurance company representatives. Clients often ask us, “what should I have had said?” By the time you are asking that questions, however, you may have already cost yourself a significant amount of money. As a simple advice, here are the five things you should never say or do after a car accident.

I’m Sorry

It may seem uncivilized, but apologizing for an accident is often misconstrued as claiming fault for it. Apologizing for the accident, or suggesting that it was unavoidable, may later be twisted to suggest that you caused the accident. At that moment, you actually have no idea what caused the accident—were the roads unreasonably maintained, was there a mechanical defect in a vehicle, was the other driver impaired—and it is premature to be assigning or claiming fault.

I Guess So

Police officers and insurance company representatives are going to ask you a lot of questions after an accident, some innocent fact-finding and some aimed at assigning blame. There is a human instinct to try to help people answer the questions they are asking you by saying “I guess so” or “that sounds right.”  It is much better to say “I don’t know” in those situations.  First, it is true, as people rarely have a full grasp of all of the facts involved in an incident. Second, if your assumptions are proven wrong later, saying “I guess so” may suggest that you were lying, not just trying to be helpful.

I’m Fine

Most people are caring and want to know about your physical condition. Medical professionals and witnesses often want to make sure you are not in danger. But after an accident, you are not in a position to assess your physical condition. Trauma clouds your judgment. Many serious conditions take time to develop and having said that you are “fine” at the time of the accident will undermine your subsequent efforts to be compensated for that harm. Take the time to have a medical professional assess your condition, and wait to declare that you are “fine” until he or she tells you that themselves. 

Stay Off Social Media

Posting on social media after an accident about the accident or your injuries may come back to haunt you.  Saying that “I wasn’t hurt” or “I’m lucky to feel OK” now may negate later statements by medical professionals that you actually were suffering from an injury at that time that may not have started to bother you yet. Statements regarding your pain or fault will be used by insurance companies to dispute your claims later. So refrain from making any statements on social media until your case is over.

I Don’t Have an Attorney

Insurance companies want to dispose of a case as quickly and as cheaply as possible. They are likely to offer you money early on as a result of an accident, especially in the early days before you have had a chance to attain legal representation.  Instead of saying “I do not have an attorney” say that you are still considering legal representation or do not have an attorney yet.  The financial offers at this early stage of the case are the lowest they will be, delaying negotiations with the insurance company will likely result in their offer to increase. The threat of current or future legal representation will make insurance companies less likely to try to sway your judgment with low-ball offers now,

Contact Barrett Law now if you have been in an automobile accident or are dealing with insurance companies.

Barrett Law is an experienced Mississippi law firm with a seasoned Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorney ready to talk with you now.  Calling us at (601) 790-1505 can mean the difference between being compensated what you deserve after an accident and having to live with injury, property damage, and financial uncertainty. We are standing by now to provide you with the advice you need to navigate this difficult time. 

Many people ask whether they can receive financial compensation after an automobile accident. The question that often follows is whether a civil claim is a better option than just seeking compensation through an insurance claim.

First, it is important to understand the difference between those options. A personal injury lawsuit is a civil claim that you would bring against the person, entity, or business that injured you based on negligence. Insurance covers compensating you for property and physical losses from an accident.

Even if you have been injured in an automobile accident, that does not mean that a lawsuit is a sure bet.  To have a compensable case, a few factors must be present, and each is discussed fully below. Obviously, you must have an injury, not just property damage to your vehicle. The accident must also be caused by another person’s negligence, meaning that they knew or should have known of a risk and ignored it. Finally, the damages you have suffered must be recoverable. If you have been in an accident, it is important to meet with an experienced automobile accident attorney to decide whether these factors are met in your case.

Question One—Have You Experienced a Personal Injury?

Injuries to either the body or mind can be compensated foreign a civil suit. A personal injury can be physical or psychological, and is distinguishable from injuries to your property, such as your vehicle. So if you have whiplash or a broken ankle after an automobile accident, you have experienced a personal injury. Similarly, if you have post traumatic stress, anxiety, or some other mental injury after an accident, you also have a personal injury.

Question Two—Did Some Other Entity’s Negligence Cause your Personal Injury?

An unavoidable accident that causes you a personal injury may not be compensable. In order to have a claim, your injuries need to have been caused by another person, company, or government entity’s negligence.  Again, that means that the other person new or should have known of a risk and ignored it. They were careless. Understanding what is and what is not negligence calls for a lawyer’s expertise, and a skilled attorney can advise you regarding whether the injuries you have suffered are a result of another’s negligence.

Question Three—Do you have recoverable damages?

Recoverable damages is a term that has two meanings.  First, it means that the personal injury you have experienced can be made up for financially.  That means that it must be quantifiable.  Medical bills you have paid, days you have been forced to miss work, a reduction in pay, your lowered quality of life, physical pain you have endured—all of these damages are quantifiable and recoverable with the help of an attorney.

Second, your damages must be recoverable.  That means that the person who injured you negligently must have sufficient assets or insurance to pay any settlement you receive. If you have been negligently injured and have compassable injuries, you may still not have a good case if the person who injured you is uninsured and unemployed.

Contact our experienced Mississippi automobile accident attorneys today to determine whether an insurance claim or a civil claim is right for you.

Call the Mississippi Automobile Accident Attorney at Barrett Law Firm at (601) 790-1505 now. Deciding to accept an insurance settlement or choosing to file a personal injury lawsuit may significant consequences and requires an attorney with extensive experience with this sort of decision. Barrett Law can provide you with that sort of advice and can help you protect your livelihood and future.