When you are involved in a car accident while you are driving, you probably realize that the party who caused the accident will most likely be responsible for paying for any damages to your vehicle and the costs associated with your injuries. With this in mind, it is crucial to determine exactly how the accident happened so that the liable party can be identified and held accountable.

Things can become more complicated, however, when you are injured as a passenger in someone’s vehicle. From a legal standpoint, the at-fault party is still financially responsible for your injuries, but what happens if the at-fault party is the person with whom you were riding? Seeking compensation from a friend or a loved one can be very difficult, especially if you hope to maintain a relationship with that person in the future.

Insurance Considerations

Connecticut is considered a “fault” state in regard to car accident claims. This means that injured victims can seek compensation directly from the insurance company of the driver who causes a crash. In most cases, medical damages are only paid out after fault for the accident has been determined. Presuming that your friend or loved one was the only at-fault party, you will have almost no choice but to pursue compensation from his or her insurance carrier.

In all states, it is illegal to drive or operate a vehicle when you are intoxicated or your blood alcohol content (BAC) is more than 0.08. Unfortunately, that does not mean that everyone refrains from doing so. According to the Connecticut Judicial Branch, there were around 8,390 DUI cases that were recorded in the state in 2018. It is well known that driving while you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol is dangerous and puts both you and everyone else on the road at risk. Alcohol-related car accidents can result in serious injuries to others and damage to their property. If you have been injured in a drunk driving accident, you have options for obtaining compensation. These include:

Suing the Driver

The first thing you could do is to attempt to obtain compensation from the driver or the person who caused the accident. In Connecticut, you can demonstrate fault for an accident by showing that the driver was acting negligently when the collisions occurred. If a driver was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time of the accident, this is usually sufficient to prove negligence.

Suing the Establishment

Another option for receiving compensation is to pursue a claim under the Connecticut Dram Shop Act. This is a law that allows a victim of a drunk driver to hold the establishment from which the alcohol was sold responsible for the accident. To pursue a claim under the Dram Shop Act, you must be able to prove that the establishment sold alcohol to the driver when he or she was already intoxicated and that the intoxication of the driver was the proximate cause of the accident in which you were injured.

Distracted driving is one of the most serious problems plaguing today’s roads. It is so easy, especially with the popularity and availability of cell phones and other handheld devices, for drivers to pay attention to something other than the road, putting themselves and everyone else around them in danger. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were nearly 3,200 people killed in car accidents involving a distracted driver in 2017. The NHTSA also estimates that more than 420,000 people are injured in accidents involving distracted drivers every year. These injuries can range from superficial scrapes or bruises to severe injuries, such as whiplash or traumatic brain injuries.

What Is Distracted Driving?

There are a couple of definitions people use when they talk about distracted driving. In general, the NHTSA defines distracted driving as something that diverts a driver’s attention from the task of safely operating their vehicle. This can be literally any type of distraction, from a child in the back seat to a cell phone.

Types of Distracted Driving

Distracted driving is the collective term used for multiple types of activities that cause a driver to take their attention from the road. There are three different types of distractions that can affect drivers:

The trucking industry in the United States is alive and well. According to the American Trucking Associations (ATA), there were 33.8 million trucks registered in the U.S. and used for business purposes in 2015. Trucks were responsible for moving 71% of America’s freight by weight and generated nearly $739 billion in gross revenues in 2016. Though it is safe to say that trucks are an integral part of the country’s economic system, they can be quite dangerous, especially if they are involved in a motor vehicle collision, which is not uncommon. According to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), there were an estimated 119,000 injury crashes and 4,213 fatal crashes involving trucks in 2016.

The Scope of the Problem

The FMCSA and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) conducted a study in 2007 to try to pinpoint certain causes of semi-truck crashes. The Large Truck Crash Causation Study looked at a multitude of different truck crashes over a span of multiple years and determined what they believe to be some of the top causes of truck crashes. According to the study, driver fatigue was estimated to cause around 13 percent of all large truck crashes.

What Causes Driver Fatigue?

Because of the nature of the business, there are several reasons why truck drivers may experience fatigue when they are driving. Commercial truck drivers work long hours and often do not get the breaks that they need to keep themselves and others on the road safe. Truck drivers are also under strict deadlines, which is why some drivers disobey the hours of service rules, which were designed to limit the amount of time a driver is behind the wheel.

Almost all of us have been affected by drunk driving in some way or another. Some of those reading have gotten into fender benders with someone they suspect was drinking. Others have been seriously injured in car accidents caused by an impaired driver. Still others have friends or family members who have been killed or injured in a car accident involving alcohol. Incidents involving an alcohol-impaired driver cause approximately 10,000 deaths in the U.S each year. Lawmakers have responded to the problem of drunk drivers by imposing serious criminal penalties for those who drive with a blood alcohol content (BAC) over the legal limit. Now, that BAC threshold which determines if someone is breaking the law or not may be lowered.

Blood Alcohol Content Threshold

A prestigious panel of the National Academics of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is recommending that states lower the legal limit which determines is someone is charged with driving under the influence (DUI). As it currently stands, all states have a BAC limit of 0.08 percent, although Utah has passed a law which will lower the legal limit beginning December 30. The 489-page report suggests that changing the BAC threshold from 0.08 percent to 0.05 percent would ultimately result in fewer deaths and injuries caused by drunk drivers. A person’s blood alcohol content is determined by several factors, not just how much alcohol they have had to drink. So, this proposed measure would affect drinkers in different ways. For example, a 150-pound man might require two drinks to reach 0.05 percent BAC while it may take a physically smaller person only one drink to reach a BAC of 0.05 percent.