Archive: October 2011

October 28, 2011

WHAT CAUSES TRAFFIC CRASHES?

The dictionary defines accident as “an unexpected and undesirable event, a mishap unforeseen and without apparent cause.” Strictly speaking, most accidents are not accidents at all: they are collisions that could and should have been avoided. So, what causes them, and how can you avoid them?

Four factors contribute to the vast majority of collisions. In ascending order they are:

  1. Equipment Failure
  2. Roadway Design
  3. Poor Roadway Maintenance
  4. Driver Behavior

Over 95% of motor vehicle accidents (MVAs, in the USA, or Road Traffic Accidents, RTAs, in Europe) involve some degree of driver behavior combined with one of the other three factors. Drivers always try to blame road conditions, equipment failure, or other drivers for those accidents. When the facts are truthfully presented, however, the behavior of the implicated driver is usually the primary cause. Most are caused by excessive speed or aggressive driver behavior.

 

  1. Equipment Failure - Manufacturers are required by law to design and engineer cars that meet a minimum safety standard. Computers, combined with companies’ extensive research and development, have produced safe vehicles that are easy and safe to drive. The most cited types of equipment failure are loss of brakes, tire blowouts or tread separation, and steering/suspension failure. With the exception of the recent rash of Firestone light-truck tire failures, combined totals for all reported equipment failure accounts for less than 5% of all motor vehicle accidents.
    • Brakes - Modern dual-circuit brake systems have made total brake failure an unlikely event. If one side of the circuit fails, the other side is usually sufficient to stop a vehicle. Disc brakes, found on the front wheels of virtually every modern vehicle, are significantly more effective than the older drum braking systems, which can fade when hot. ABS (Anti Blockier System) or anti-lock brakes prevent the wheels from locking up during emergency braking maneuvers, allowing modern vehicles to avoid many accidents that previously would have occurred.
    • Tires - Today’s radial tires are significantly safer than the bias-ply tires of 25 years ago. They still, however, need attention regularly. Under inflation, the most frequent cause of tire failure is considered the main culprit in the recent Firestone tire-failure fatalities. Uneven or worn-out tires are the next most serious problem and can also lead to tire failure. Uneven wear is caused by improperly balanced tires, or misaligned or broken suspensions. Remember, all that keeps you connected to the roadway is your tires. If you don’t check your own, have your mechanic check them every 5,000 miles.
    • Steering & Suspension - Your suspension keeps your tires in contact with the roadway in a stable and predictable manner. Your steering enables you to go around road obstacles and avoid potential accidents. Even a safe, well-trained driver is helpless in the event of a steering or suspension system failure. Such failures are catastrophic, especially at high speeds. Have your suspension and steering systems checked out by a mechanic every 10,000 miles.
    • With regular component inspections by trained individuals, equipment failures can be virtually eliminated.
  2. Roadway Design - Motorists may blame roadway design for accidents, but it’s rarely the cause. Consultants such as the Texas Transportation Institute have spent years getting road barriers, utility poles, railroad crossings, and guardrails to their current high level of safety. Civil engineers, local governments, and law enforcement agencies all contribute to the design of safe road layouts and traffic management systems. State and federal governments provide guidelines to their construction, with design flexibility to suit local conditions. Roadways are designed by engineers with special consideration given to the following:
    • Hazard Visibility - Permanent roadway hazards consist of intersections, merging lanes, bends, crests, school zones, and livestock or pedestrian crossings. Temporary hazards include road construction, parked or disabled vehicles, accidents, traffic jams, and wild animals (especially deer).
    • Roadway Surfaces - Engineers can use different surfaces (for example, grooved pavement) depending on the environment, traffic speed, traffic volume, and location of the roadway (noise barriers). Roadway markings let drivers know about their ability to pass safely (dotted & double lines), the location of the roadway in inclement weather (reflective cats-eyes & stakes), and where road surface ends and the shoulder begins.
    • Traffic Control Devices – Traffic light signals, speed limit signs, yield and stop signs, school & pedestrian crossings, turning lanes, police surveillance cameras, and traffic circles or roundabouts.
    • Behavioral Control Devices - Built-in obstacles that limit the ability of a vehicle to travel, including crash barrels, speed bumps, pedestrian islands, raised medians, high curbing, guard rails, and concrete barriers.
    • Traffic Flow - Interstate highways remain the safest roads because their flow of traffic is in one direction. One-way streets ease traffic congestion in city centers as well. Rural two-lane roadways are statistically the most dangerous because of a high incidence of deadly head-on collisions and the difficulty impatient drivers’ face while overtaking slower vehicles.
    • Roadway Identification Signs - enable someone without a detailed map to travel from one place to another. They give advance notice of intersections, destinations, hazards, route numbers, mileage estimates, street names, and points of interest.
    • Weather - inclement conditions can aggravate existing hazards and sometimes create new road surfaces (ice & snow).
  3. Poor Maintenance - Roadway maintenance contributes to some motor vehicle accidents, but not to the extent that drivers use it as an excuse. Unfortunately maintenance schedules and procedures vary greatly from city to city and state to state, so nationwide standards don’t exist. Below we outline some potential roadway maintenance shortcomings that you should be aware of.
    • Debris on the roadway can be a problem, and is the responsibility of local highway departments.
    • Faded road signs, and signs obscured by foliage, occasionally contribute to accidents. If you know of any offending signs, contact your local police department to see if they can get the problem remedied.
    • Potholes cause a small number of accidents (primarily tire & suspension failures), but the accidents usually occur at low speeds and don’t cause many injuries. Call the police to get large dangerous holes attended to. Some Northern US cities have pothole complaint lines that are active during the winter and spring.
    • Roadway construction is an oft-mentioned reason for accidents. Again the blame usually rests on aggressive drivers who are unwilling to merge or slow down when approaching a construction zone. In most states, fines are doubled in work zones, making it expensive as well as unsafe to speed. Stop-and-go traffic requires thoughtful, alert driving to avoid a collision with the car in front of you. Too often we worry that someone will cut in front of us in a traffic jam. The real problem is that drivers forget about the vehicle directly in front, rear-ending it while looking in their rearview mirror or daydreaming. Leave plenty of room between your car and the one directly in front of you. Our 3 second rule applies to traffic jams as well. If a few people cut in front of you, let them.
    • Salting & Sanding - Many wintertime accidents are blamed on inadequate salting or sanding of icy roadways, but as so often, the real culprit is usually excessive speed. And salting only works if the ambient temperature stays above the middle teens. Recent environmental concerns have curbed widespread salting in recent years so less effective materials like clay, sand, and soot have replaced it in some areas. The fact remains that if highways are icy, speed needs to be reduced whether the roadway is salted or not.
  4. Driver Behavior - Humans tend to blame somebody or something else when a mistake or accident occurs. A recent European study concluded that 80% of drivers involved in motor vehicle accidents believed that the other party could have done something to prevent the accident. A miniscule 5% admitted that they were the only one at fault. Surveys consistently reveal that the majority consider themselves more skillful and safer than the average driver. Some mistakes occur when a driver becomes distracted, perhaps by a cell phone call or a spilled cup of coffee. Very few accidents result from an ‘Act of God,’ like a tree falling on a vehicle.

Speed Kills - The faster the speed of a vehicle, the greater the risk of an accident. The forces experienced by the human body in a collision increase exponentially as the speed increases. Smart Motorist recommends that drivers observe our 3 second rule in everyday traffic, no matter what your speed. Most people agree that going 100 mph is foolhardy and will lead to disaster. The problem is that exceeding the speed limit by only 5 mph in the wrong place can be just as dangerous. Traffic engineers and local governments have determined the maximum speeds allowable for safe travel on the nation’s roadways. Speeding is a deliberate and calculated behavior where the driver knows the risk but ignores the danger. Fully 90% of all licensed drivers speed at some point in their driving career; 75% admit to committing this offense regularly.

Consider this example: a pedestrian walks out in front of a car. If the car is traveling at just 30 mph, and the driver brakes when the pedestrian is 45 feet away, there will be enough space in which to stop without hitting the pedestrian. Increase the vehicle speed by just 5 mph and the situation changes dramatically. At 35 mph, with the pedestrian 45 feet away and the driver braking at the same point, the car will be traveling at 18 mph when it hits the pedestrian. An impact at 18 mph can seriously injure or even kill the pedestrian.

Who are the bad drivers? They are young, middle-aged, and old; men and women; they drive luxury cars, sports cars, SUVs and family cars. Almost every qualified driver I know admits to some type of risky driving behavior, most commonly speeding.

Aggressive Drivers - As we’ve described, modern cars are manufactured to very safe standards, and the environment they’re driven in is engineered to minimize the injuries suffered during an accident. The most difficult area to change is aggressive driver behavior and selfish attitudes. A 1995 study by the Automobile Association in Great Britain found that 88% of the respondents reported at least one of the behaviors listed below directed at them (in order of descending frequency):

  • Aggressive tailgating
  • Lights flashed at them because the other motorist was annoyed
  • Aggressive or rude gestures
  • Deliberate obstruction — preventing them from moving their vehicle
  • Verbal abuse
  • Physical assault

The same group was then asked about aggressive behavior they had displayed towards other drivers. 40% indicated that they had never behaved aggressively towards another driver. A further 60% of the survey respondents admitted to one or more of the following behaviors (listed in order of descending frequency):

  • Flashed lights at another motorist because they were annoyed with them
  • Gave aggressive or rude gestures
  • Gave verbal abuse
  • Aggressively tailgated another motorist
  • Deliberately obstructed or prevented another from moving their vehicle
  • Physically assaulted another motorist (one positive response)

These behaviors are probably under-reported, since most people are not willing to admit to the more serious actions, even if no penalty exists. The majority of these incidents happened during the daylight hours (70%), on a main road (not freeway or divided highway).

NYS Police characterize aggressive driving by the following traffic violations:

  • Excessive speed
  • Frequent or unsafe lane changes
  • Failure to signal
  • Tailgating
  • Failure to yield the right of way
  • Disregarding traffic controls
  • Impaired driving

The NYS State Police point out that there is a difference between aggressive driving and “road rage.” Road Rage behaviors, such as using the vehicle as a weapon or physically assaulting a driver or their vehicle, are not aggressive driving. They are criminal offenses, and there are laws in place to address these violent crimes.

October 25, 2011

SEAT BELTS CAN CAUSE INJURIES IN A CRASH!!!

Bleeding

Blood in the urine or stools can indicate internal damage caused by the pressure of the seat belt. The organs can become compressed and create urinary tract or bladder damage. In addition to bleeding when voiding, accident victims should also watch for any changes in bowel movements or urination. Endometriosis or colon obstruction can result from seat belt trauma causing bleeding and constipation, report doctors at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. Coughing up or vomiting blood could indicate lung damage, respiratory tract injury or stomach problems.

 

Weakness

Weakness in the legs can result from damage to the lower back, the abdomen or spinal nerves. The weakness may appear in one or both legs. General feelings of dizziness or weakness could indicate symptoms of shock or internal organ damage.

Bruising

When the seat belt is pulled in a crash, bruising and muscle strains can occur in the area over which the seat belt was tugged. Swelling and skin discoloration can commonly result and usually dissipates in a couple days.

Breathing Difficulties

When a person has trouble breathing following an accident, they may have sustained damage to the organs in their chest from the pressure of the set belt. Heart or lung damage can make breathing difficult.

Stiff Neck

While a person may become sore from the pressure of the seat belt, lingering signs of more serious damage to the neck should be monitored. A whiplash injury results when the torso is held in place and the head snaps. Increasing stiffness or pain in the neck may result if a spinal injury occurred because of whiplash.

Abdominal Pain

When the seat belt crosses the kidneys and delivers a serious blunt force, the first symptoms include abdominal pain and pain in the area between the hips and ribs, report doctors at Merck. Low blood pressure and anemia can result from the blood loss. Untreated, kidney damage can lead to delayed bleeding, infections and kidney failure.

October 24, 2011

2011 Safest Cars

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has issued its Top Safety Picks for 2011, with 66 vehicles making the grade. This year’s evaluations show that when it comes to vehicle safety features, a strong roof, one that offers exceptional protection in the event of a rollover accident, is more important than ever.

The Top Safety Pick designation is given to those vehicles that do the best job of protecting drivers and passengers in front, side, rollover, and rear crashes based on “good” ratings in IIHS tests – the organization’s highest rating. IIHS’s rating grades are “good,” “acceptable,” “marginal” and “poor.” However, last year, the IIHS toughened its standards, adding the requirement that all qualifiers must earn a “good” rating in IIHS roof-strength tests that measure how much protection is offered in a rollover crash. That stricter standard sharply narrowed the initial field of 2010 models. But many carmakers have improved the roofs of their vehicles in the last year.

“We added the roof-strength requirement after our research confirmed the importance of roof strength when it comes to the seriousness of injuries to persons involved in rollover crashes,” said Russ Rader, IIHS vice president of communications. “Federal studies on fatality and injury data showed that vehicles with stronger roofs resulted in the occupants having a much lower rate of serious injuries.”

Hyundai/Kia and Volkswagen/Audi led the pack — each have nine models in the ’11 model-year winner’s circle. Tied for second, with eight winners each, are General Motors, Ford/Lincoln, and Toyota/Lexus/Scion. Subaru is the only manufacturer that had a winner in all the vehicle classes in which it competed, with five models earning Top Safety Pick designations.

In IIHS’s roof strength test, a metal plate is pushed against one side of a roof at a displacement rate of 0.2 inch per second. To earn a “good” rating for rollover protection, the roof must withstand a force of four times the vehicle’s weight before reaching five inches of crush. This is the vehicle’s “strength-to-weight” ratio.

That IIHS standard for a “good” rating for rollover crash protection is twice as tough as the current federal standard. The IIHS estimates that the roofs it deems strong enough for a “good” rating will reduce the risk of serious and fatal injury in single-vehicle rollovers by about 50 percent, compared to roofs that meet the minimum federal requirement.

At the beginning of the 2010 model year, after IIHS toughened its requirement, only 27 vehicles qualified for the award, but carmakers re-worked existing designs and introduced new models with stronger roofs. This increased the number of qualifiers to 58 by September of 2010. Now, for 2011, another 10 vehicles join the winners’ list, while two discontinued models dropped off.

This means that consumers shopping for a safer new vehicle have “plenty of choices to consider in most dealer showrooms,” said Adrian Lund, IIHS president. “In fact, every major automaker has at least one winning model this year.”

Carmakers are only legally required to include the vehicle’s National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration’s safety rating on its sticker, but more of them are also including the IIHS rating, added Rader. “And carmakers also like to say in their advertising that the vehicle was an IIHS Top Safety Pick.”

One first-time winner is the Ford Explorer, which boasts a new design that includes the stronger roof-protection rating. Until this model year, the Explorer had never earned a Top Safety Pick rating. Ford also upgraded the roof of two of its midsize SUVs, the Ford Flex and Lincoln MKT, and did the same with the midsize Ford Fusion and Lincoln MKZ sedans. The latter both missed out on the initial round of 2010 winners because they did not have the required roof strength at the time.

The Ford Fiesta rounds out Ford’s winners and is the only minicar to earn a Top Safety Pick rating for the ’11 model year.

With the Chevrolet Cruze, GM offers another choice for consumers who are looking to buy a safe but fuel-efficient small car. GM designed the Cruze, which has 10 standard airbags (including ones for the knees), in such a way that it would outperform the federal government’s minimum roof strength requirements.

The other Detroit carmaker, Chrysler, added torso airbags to the redesigned Jeep Grand Cherokee to bolster side crash protection and earn a “good” side-crash rating. The previous design relied on head-curtain airbags to cushion occupants in side crashes and was only rated “marginal” for side protection.

Volkswagen’s redesigned Touareg is the only large SUV to earn a Top Safety Pick designation for 2011. The Institute doesn’t normally evaluate SUVs as big as the Touareg, but Volkswagen requested crash tests to demonstrate the new Touareg’s crashworthiness. “Big, heavy vehicles like that already start with a high level of safety, because of their size and bulk,” said Rader, “So, we typically don’t use our resources to test those, but VW asked for a special test for this redesigned version.”

None of the small pickups the Institute has evaluated qualified for this year’s award, and large 2011-model-year pickup trucks have not yet been tested.

http://autos.aol.com/article/improved-roof-strength-key-to-top-safety-pick-awards/

 

Top Safety Picks 2011 from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
LARGE CARS
Buick LaCrosse
Buick Regal
BMW 5-Series (except 4-wheel drive and V8)
Cadillac CTS Sedan
Ford Taurus
Hyundai Genesis
Infiniti M37 and M56
Lincoln MKS
Mercedes E Class
Toyota Avalon
Volvo S80SMALL CARS
Chevrolet Cruze
Honda Civic (4-door (except Si) with optional ESC)
Kia Forte (Sedan)
Kia Soul
Mitsubishi Lancer (Except 4-wheel drive)
Nissan Cube
Scion tC
Scion xB
Subaru Impreza (Except WRX)
VW Golf (4-door)
VW GTI (4-door)		 MIDSIZE CARS
Audi A3
Audi A4
Chevrolet Malibu
Chrysler 200
Dodge Avenger
Ford Fusion
Hyundai Sonata
Mercedes C Class
Subaru Legacy
Subaru Outback
Volkswagen Jetta (Sedan)
Volkswagen Jetta (SportWagen)
Volvo C30
LARGE SUV
Volkswagen Touareg
MINICAR
Ford Fiesta (Built after July 2010) 		 MIDSIZE SUVs
Audi Q5
Cadillac SRX
Chevrolet Equinox
Dodge Journey
Ford Explorer
Ford Flex
GMC Terrain
Hyundai Santa Fe
Jeep Grand Cherokee
Kia Sorento (Built after March 2010)
Lexus RX
Lincoln MKT
Mercedes-Benz GLK
Subaru Tribeca
Toyota Highlander
Toyota Venza
Volvo XC60 Volvo XC90MINIVAN
Toyota Sienna

 

October 17, 2011

Rear-End Crashes Go Up After Red-Light Cameras Go In – It Only Makes Sense!

When the nation’s No. 1 cheerleader for red-light cameras admits there might be one teensy-weensy downside to the program, you just know it’s going to be a lulu so large it couldn’t be crammed under the carpet without making a bulge the size of a circus tent.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) recently enthused over traffic-tickets-by-mail schemes for an entire issue of its Status Report. On red-light cameras, however, it did allow that “most studies also reported increases in rear-end crashes.”

It went on to say, “This isn’t surprising. The more people stop on red, the more rear-end collisions there will be.”

Duh!

Not to worry, however, because “photo enforcement leads to significant overall reductions in crashes,” assures Susan Ferguson, the institute’s senior vice-president for research.

Well, that depends on who’s telling the story. The institute itself did two studies, both in Oxnard, California, the most recent one published in 2001. Other studies have been done, but the IIHS roundly pooh-poohs them. Why? Because they don’t follow a curious methodology the IIHS invented especially for Oxnard.

IIHS insists that all red-light-camera studies must account for “regression to the mean” and for “spillover effects.”

Regression to the mean is a fact of life; in any one year, there could be an extraordinarily large number of crashes at a particular intersection, but over several years the count will revert back to average (mean).

Funny that IIHS insists regression be accounted for in studies at stoplights when it never considers the same factor in its studies of speed limits.

Spillover effect is IIHS’s trick for giving the cameras credit for reducing fatalities even where they aren’t. It assumes that red-light cameras at a few intersections will cause drivers to stop promptly all over town, or all over the county, or maybe all over the state, so improvements outside the cameras’ ZIP Codes are credited to them nonetheless. As statistical acrobatics go, this one is breathtaking.

But you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The obvious way to gauge the payoff of red-light cameras is to compare intersections with cameras to those without, then zoom in on crashes actually caused by drivers running red lights. Instead, IIHS considered all crashes at all 125 signalized intersections in Oxnard and concluded that injury crashes dropped by 29 percent due to the cameras, even though they were installed at only 11 intersections.

Spillover effect, don’t you know.

Skeptics will notice that crashes went down rather randomly all over town, and some ordinary intersections outperformed those with the gotcha equipment. The cameras look remarkably ineffectual until, just in time, spillover effect arrives to snatch victory from the jaws of ho-hum.

Skeptics will also notice that these IIHS studies, which pretend to be about red-light running, never bother to isolate those crashes specifically caused by running red lights. Why? It says, “The crash data did not contain sufficient detail to identify crashes that were specifically red-light-running events.”

This is believable only to those who’ve never heard of police reports. Oxnard, like most California jurisdictions, reports crashes according to the California Highway Patrol protocol, which includes a “primary collision factor,” i.e., the cause of the crash. Those reports are collected into a CHP database (SWITRS). Running red lights falls under the category of “stop signals and signs.” According to Steve Kohler of the CHP, it includes stop signals and stop signs. Nothing else.

Since all signalized intersections in Oxnard are, by definition, controlled by signals and not stop signs, red-light running should be neatly isolated as a “primary collision factor.” When IIHS finds numbers that support the story it wants to tell, it jumps on them like a trampoline. When it hides from numbers as it did in this case, you can bet they go the wrong way.

 

IIHS has refused to release the study’s raw data so that others may verify its conclusions, but Jim Kadison, a disarmingly sincere member of the National Motorists Association, went directly to SWITRS for crash data on the nine signalized Oxnard intersections used in the first IIHS study. He smelled something funny in IIHS’s breakdown of crashes; just nine percent were rear-enders. Across the nation, it’s about 40 percent, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Looking at the data, Kadison could reduce rear-enders down to a single-digit share only by narrowing the definition of intersection to “between crosswalks.” Narrowing that way chops off the entire approach to the intersection, exactly where rear impacts happen. It looks like IIHS purposely designed its study to avoid seeing rear-enders.

Sure enough, when he opened the “intersection” to include crosswalks and 100 feet each side of them, rear crashes rose to a more normal share. Over this enlarged zone, rear-end crashes increased by 33 after red-light cameras were installed. At the same time, side impacts dropped 25 percent. Kadison concludes that the cameras merely trade one type of crash for another.

IIHS’s claim of safety from cameras is flatly contradicted by a number of cities that have tried them. “At some intersections [with cameras] we saw no change at all, and at several intersections we actually saw an increase in traffic accidents,” admitted San Diego police chief David Bejarano on ABC News’s Nightline.

In Charlotte, North Carolina, station WBTV had this to say, “Three years, 125,000 tickets, and $6 million in fines later, the number of accidents at intersections in Charlotte has gone down less than one percent. And the number of rear-end accidents, which are much more common, has gone up 15 percent.”

In Greensboro, the News & Record reports, “There has not been a drop in the number of accidents caused by red-light violations citywide since the first cameras were installed in February 2001. There were 95 such accidents in Greensboro in 2001, the same number as in 2000. And at the 18 intersections with cameras, the number of wrecks caused by red-light running has doubled.”

The granddaddy of all studies, covering a 10-year period, was done for the Australian Road Research Board in 1995 (cameras went up in Melbourne in 1984). Photo enforcement “did not provide any reduction in accidents, rather there has been increases in rear end and [cross-street] accidents,” wrote author David Andreassen in the page-one summary.

Red-light cameras turn out to be a very expensive way to crank up rear-end crashes. Motorists in Washington, D.C., alone pay a half-million dollars a month in fines. That’s not enough, IIHS says. It wants points on driving records, too.

October 11, 2011

Facebook and Lawsuits

As a result of the explosion in popularity of social networking Web sites such as Facebook and MySpace, where members “post” and share information about themselves as never before, attorneys, and particularly litigators, have begun to take note of the potential utility of this new medium. …some recent court proceedings demonstrate that an adversary’s MySpace or Facebook page may sometimes contain the all-important smoking gun, and such sites can potentially be used to serve legal process on an adversary. At a minimum, understanding the potential uses of social networking sites should be considered when preparing for litigation.

 

However, the ability to use information discovered from a social networking Web site as evidence has not yet been fully tested in courtrooms, and attorneys must understand the evidentiary and ethical implications of seeking and discovering such evidence. In fact, at least one ethics opinion has already addressed issues arising from counsel’s potentially unethical use of such a site to discover evidence.

 

One thing is clear: Attorneys and their clients must become acquainted with the potential usefulness of social networking sites, as well as the potential hazards and limitations.

 

Among other things, gathering evidence on a person’s profile page poses Fourth Amendment privacy concerns, because the Web site member may claim that he or she has a reasonable expectation of privacy for the information posted on his or her profile page, or on a “friend’s” profile page. Therefore, one must consider:

 

1. whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy on a social networking site accessible to the public at large; and

 

2. whether there is a reasonable expectation of privacy on a social networking site that has been secured by some form of privacy protection, the later creating greater concern.

 

Moreover, in addition to having to satisfy the evidentiary standard for “relevance,” discussed above, evidence gathered on a social networking site must also be properly authenticated and may be inadmissible for numerous evidentiary reasons such as hearsay if, for example, a third party “wall post” or “comment” is offered into evidence. While these areas have not yet been developed by case law, they must be carefully considered.

 

Indeed, a recent ethics opinion dictates that attorneys must be careful when gathering evidence from a person’s social networking profile page. In Ethics Opinion No. 2009-02 the Philadelphia Bar Association Professional Guidance Committee addressed the propriety of an attorney discovering information from another person’s Facebook profile page. In that case, in order to discover information contained on an adverse witness’ Facebook profile page, the attorney asked someone to send a “friend request” to that witness in order for the attorney to discover impeaching information.

 

According to the opinion, an attorney must disclose his or her true intentions when attempting to access a member’s profile page. The committee cited to its rule of professional responsibility regarding non-lawyer assistants, which provides that lawyers are responsible for the actions of third-party non-lawyer assistants. The Committee also noted that other ethical rules prohibit attorneys from “engag[ing] in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation.” (snip)

 

Finally, attorneys themselves must also be careful about their own profile pages, because even judges are turning to MySpace and Facebook to gather “impeachment” evidence to use against attorneys appearing in their courtrooms. For example, recently, a state court judge in Texas used Facebook to discover information and to admonish attorneys appearing in front of her. The attorney in question had asked for a continuance from the judge due to a death in the family, but was later sanctioned by the judge when it was discovered that the attorney’s Facebook profile page revealed a week full of drinking and partying.

 

October 7, 2011

Doctor, nurse uniforms usually lousy with germs

Doctors’ and nurses’ hospital uniforms contain dangerous bacteria majority of the time, study shows

Washington, DC, August 31, 2011 – More than 60 percent of hospital nurses’ and doctors’ uniforms tested positive for potentially dangerous bacteria, according to a study published in the September issue of the American Journal of Infection Control, the official publication of APIC – the Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology.

A team of researchers led by Yonit Wiener-Well, MD, from the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, Israel, collected swab samples from three parts of the uniforms of 75 registered nurses (RNs) and 60 medical doctors (MDs) by pressing standard blood agar plates at the abdominal zone, sleeves’ ends and pockets.

The researchers at this 550-bed, university-affiliated hospital found that exactly half of all the cultures taken, representing 65 percent of the RN uniforms and 60 percent of the MD uniforms, harbored pathogens. Of those, 21 cultures from RN uniforms and six cultures from MD uniforms contained multi-drug resistant pathogens, including eight cultures that grew methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Although the uniforms themselves may not pose a direct risk of disease transmission, these results indicate a prevalence of antibiotic resistant strains in close proximity to hospitalized patients.

 

“It is important to put these study results into perspective,” said APIC 2011 President Russell Olmsted, MPH, CIC. “Any clothing that is worn by humans will become contaminated with microorganisms. The cornerstone of infection prevention remains the use of hand hygiene to prevent the movement of microbes from these surfaces to patients.”

“New evidence such as this study by Dr. Wiener-Well is helpful to improve the understanding of potential sources of contamination but, as is true for many studies, it raises additional questions that need to be investigated,” added Olmsted.

According to the World Health Organization, the risk of healthcare-associated infection (HAI) in some developing countries is as much as 20 times higher than in developed countries. Even in hospitals in developed countries like Israel, the site of this investigation, and the U.S., HAIs occur too often, can be deadly, and are expensive to treat. HAI prevention is therefore the best approach for patient safety. Infection preventionists, in collaboration with direct care providers, can prevent more than half of HAIs by applying proven prevention practices as part of a comprehensive infection prevention and control program.

 

http://scienceblog.com/47573/doctor-nurse-uniforms-usually-lousy-with-germs/