When you get into a car accident, a variety of injuries can happen. Many people sustain whiplash, bruising, and sometimes even broken bones. Another fairly common injury that a car accident can produce is a traumatic brain injury (TBI). TBIs can and often do range in severity, especially if you sustained the injury from a car accident. In severe cases, a brain injury could also lead to death. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were more than 61,000 people who died from a TBI in 2019, with even more injured. If you suffered a TBI in a car accident, you should speak to an Illinois car accident injury lawyer to discuss your options to recover compensation.

What is a TBI?

A TBI is an injury that occurs to your brain after your head suffers a blow, bump, or jolt. Many TBIs occur from car accidents. The CDC estimates that about 25 percent of TBIs are caused by vehicle accidents. TBIs can also occur when something penetrates the brain, such as a bullet, projectile, or skull fragment.  Most TBIs only injure brain tissue and heal within a couple of weeks, but with more severe TBIs, the symptoms and effects of the injury may last for years or even a lifetime. 

Look for These Symptoms

TBIs can present a variety of symptoms depending on the severity of the injury. When a TBI is mild, it is often referred to as a concussion. Symptoms of a mild TBI include:

Whether traveling or hosting a huge gathering at home, Thanksgiving should be celebrated with safety in mind. The Thanksgiving holiday means family, friends, food, and fun. However, winter weather, busy traffic, alcohol consumption, and kitchen chaos can result in accidents that dampen the celebrations. These accidents can be avoided with just a bit of extra caution. Here are some tips to make the holiday safer and ensure everyone has a great time.

Driving Safety

The risk of auto accidents increases with millions of people crowding the highways and byways during the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend. Those who’ll be driving should have their vehicles inspected, serviced, and cleaned before the trip. They should also remember to drive defensively, be aware of the weather and road conditions, observe the speed limits, allow for more time to reach their destination, and avoid distracted, drowsy, or impaired driving.

A properly written witness statement could play a pivotal role in helping car accident victims to recover damages. An eyewitness may have knowledge about the accident that is not available in any other pieces of evidence. A witness statement puts observations in writing. A successful witness statement should include the witness’s contact information, details of the accident, information about injuries and property damage, and a signature. 

Witness’s Name and Contact Information

A witness statement should include the full legal name of the person making the statement. It should also contain important contact information including a phone number, home address, and email.

Including the Who, When, What, and Where of the Car Accident

The witness statement should address the who, when, what, and where of the car accident. It should list the names of all involved parties, details about the vehicles involved in the crash, the date and time the crash took place, and where the accident took place. The witness should be as specific as possible about what he or she saw and heard.

Bicycle accidents can result from one primary factor or a combination of factors that are often motorist-related. Whether people ride a bike for their daily commute, exercise, or fun, they face risks every time they hit the road. In 2019, 864 cyclists were killed in traffic crashes. Hospital admissions due to bicycle accidents have increased by 120% over the last 15 years. 

The most common causes of bicycle accidents are:

Distracted Driving

Distracted drivers pose the greatest danger to bicyclists. When drivers are talking on the phone, texting, taking selfies, or conducting video chats, they are significantly more likely to cause dangerous collisions. Drivers are 23 times more likely to crash when texting and 3 times more likely to be involved in an accident when making a phone call.

Forward-Collision Warning, Blind-Spot Monitoring, Automatic Emergency Braking, and other advanced safety systems are keeping drivers safe. These systems use radar, cameras, and other sensors to keep an eye on what’s happening on the roads around them. Using onboard computers, they process the collected information and respond when a crash appears imminent.

Forward-Collision Warning (FCW)

This safety feature uses cameras, radar, or lasers to watch the road ahead and monitor relative speed and distances between vehicles. It provides a visual, audible, and/or tactile warning of an impending collision with a pedestrian, car, or another object. These systems are sometimes accompanied by auto-braking features that will automatically hit the brakes if the driver fails to heed the warning.

Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB)

Using radar and forward-facing cameras, the AEB system detects potential collisions and warns the driver of an impending forward crash with another car, object, or pedestrian. If the driver fails to react in time, the system automatically applies the brakes to prevent or reduce the severity of a crash.