St. Louis Legal Blog

Missouri residents often find themselves driving alongside large trucks, and they will want to be especially careful when that happens. According to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration, 2017 saw a decrease in every type of fatal traffic crash except large truck crashes.

For example, passenger vehicle, motorcycle and pedestrian crash fatalities saw a 1.4, 3.1 and 1.7 percent decrease, respectively. Speeding-related deaths went down 5.6 percent, and bicyclist deaths dropped by a significant 8.1 percent. The total number of people killed in traffic fatalities declined by 1.8 percent 37,806 in 2016 to 37,133 in 2017.

Working as a nurse is a rewarding and challenging career. Its rewards are obvious: You get to help patients be well and use your unique skill set to improve the health of your community. Its challenges are apparent, too: you must navigate complex situations, work long hours and cater to patients who are sometimes resistant. There are also physical challenges in nursing that are often overlooked.

Little attention is paid to the physical strain that nurses are often subjected to as part of their job. According to Healthcare Finance, this has motivated the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to develop new standards governing the treatment of nurse injuries. These are three reasons why such injuries are common.

Missouri drivers may be safer on roadways that have replaced traffic lights with roundabouts. Experts say that while traffic lights are better at reducing the overall number of accidents, the collisions that do happen are more severe. Accidents at roundabouts are less likely to be fatal and more likely to only result in minor injuries.

This is what led a county in North Carolina to replace an intersection marked by stop signs with a roundabout in June. In 2011, a 21-year-old woman was killed in a car accident at the intersection when another driver ran a stop sign. Although additional signs were put up to warn of the stop ahead, two more accidents happened there that resulted in serious injuries. The roundabout cost $1.2 million, but according to state engineers, it will cut down on accidents by 89 percent and save $2.5 million in crash-related costs. One advantage of roundabouts is that unlike stop signs and traffic lights, they do not require drivers to estimate whether they have time to get through an intersection. Instead, they just have to look left.

Drivers in Missouri and the rest of the nation are susceptible to being distracted while they are behind the wheel of their vehicle. Certain forms of technology can do this, as well as something as simple as allowing the mind to wander. Because driving while distracted can result in significant losses and costs, it is important that a solution is found.

For over 10 years, fleet companies have been collecting vehicle data to identify the adverse events, such as hard acceleration and braking, that occur in their trucks. Fleet management devices and analytics can be used to combine the adverse events with driver coaching. They can also use the events to turn on certain devices, like video cameras. However, and probably more importantly, the data that is being collected by the fleets can be used to forecast the conditions that are likely to result in collisions or situations in which drivers may be fatigued or distracted.