California has proposed DUI declaration laws that will come into effect in 2008. Under this law, anybody applying for a driver’s license will have to sign a declaration saying he’s aware of the fact that he could be held liable for injuries caused due to driving in a drunken state. Just before the year ends, we are reminded of just how vital such a law is.

On December 30, two Maryland families were shattered when they lost five family members, including 4 kids, when their car was involved in a head-on collision with a Ford pickup truck being driven by – what a shocker – a drunk driver. Not only was the brainless 24-year-old drunk, but he was also driving on the wrong side of the road, which isn’t so surprising considering that he was too intoxicated to see straight. The impact sheared off the passenger doors and some of the people in the car fell out. Two young girls, 10-year-old Haley and 7-year-old Lacie Burkman were killed. A mother and her two daughters, also in the same car, were killed. It’s believed that they were relatives of the Burkmans.

We’ve already learned that the young man, 24-year-old Michael Gagnon, had been drinking heavily in a bar. When he left the bar he stopped at a local Taco Bell, where staff called the police to warn them that a driver, too drunk to drive, had just left the establishment.

It’s not clear why the bar served him that much liquor in the first place. Police reported that Gagnon’s blood alcohol level was in excess of three times the legal limit. Did they assume he’d wear off his intoxication in the three minutes it took to leave the bar and get to his car, or were they just more than happy to have his business. Did they really think that a man so drunk, that the staff at Taco Bell were surprised that a man so out of himself could still be behind the wheel, wouldn’t cause harm to others? The role of the bar in question has to be probed. They never should have allowed a man, with enough alcohol to set the city of Los Angeles, California on fire, to drive away.

As of now, Gagnon is being treated for his injuries and will be arrested once he’s released, charged with five counts of aggravated vehicular homicide.

If you have suffered grievous injuries, or have lost a family member due to a drunk driver, do not hesitate to contact the California personal injury attorneys at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

The new year should hopefully be a better year than years past and that isn’t just a festive season wish. The State of California is all set to pass a bunch of laws that are aimed at decreasing the frequency of accidents on its roads.

The most high profile of these laws signed with great fanfare by Governor Schwarzenegger won’t go into effect until June 1st. The cell phone law bans adult drivers from using cell phones or messaging devices when they are behind the wheel, although hands free devices are allowed. Let’s hope there won’t be any more Senator-driving-while-yakking-on-phone-causing-accident type scandals to scuttle any impact of the law.

Moving on to other laws, the no smoking in a car ban will go into effect on January 1st. This law prohibits anyone from lighting up even in a stationery vehicle if there are kids present in the car.

The third law deals with one of the more serious violations out there and hopefully will have some effect on the numbers of DUI accidents in the state. The law requires anyone applying for a driver’s license to be informed that driving under the influence and causing an accident can expose him to a murder charge. This law was born out of the number of drunk drivers who seemed to be getting off with a fine and not much else after their attorneys successfully argued that their drivers were unaware of the dangers of drinking and driving. Lawmakers are taking no more of that nonsense. Every person in line for a driver’s license will have to sign a declaration stating that he or she is aware of the implications of a DUI. Hopefully this should make it more difficult for drunk drivers, who are frequently responsible for some of the most destructive accidents on the road, to get away with their actions.

So that’s what is in California’s traffic safety goodie bag this festive season. All three laws especially the cell phone ban and the DUI declaration law have huge potential for increasing traffic safety and some very promising benefits. At The Reeves Law Group we advocate harsher punishments for drunk drivers to reduce the astounding number of repeat offenders, and this might be a step in that direction.

It was a fiery day in the 700 block of the South Westlake Avenue in Los Angeles, California. A fire that began in the apartment of a 58-year-old resident, killed him and displaced at least 11 other residents. In all, two children and nine adults have been displaced from the 10-unit building. Seventy-one firefighters had to be pressed into service to bring the fire under control. Luckily for the residents, the flames were contained in the apartment where the fire started.

The fire caused an approximated $50,000 worth of damage to the building and $5,000 to the contents of the building. The cause of the fire is not clear.

One thing is clear however. The residents were living inside a ticking time bomb as far as the danger of a fire was concerned. Investigations have revealed that the building was equipped with basic fire sprinklers. The apartment of the man killed, Doug Jones, where the fire is believed to have started did not even have a functioning smoke alarm. With safety conditions like these, the residents have their good fortune and some Christmas blessings to thank for the fact that they escaped without injuries. They certainly aren’t alive because the building management did their job right - that’s for sure.

For now, one man is dead, and 11 people face an extremely uncertain future. The fact that the accident happened in a festive season makes it even more distressing. The residents have been referred to the Red Cross for placement assistance, but it will be a while before they feel comfortable in their new apartments once again.

A fire in a residential building can be a devastating experience. Most fires take a second to ignite and barely a few minutes to cause extensive damage. California law mandates that apartments should be fitted with smoke alarms. The management at block 700 was obviously negligent in its responsibilities, thereby being responsible for the damage and destruction caused by the fire.

If you have been injured or a loved-one has been killed due to a fire caused by negligence, contact the California persona injury and wrongful death lawyers at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

In the auto industry, it never rains, it pours. Towards the end of a year that has seen more than its fair share of car recalls, multi million dollar lawsuits against motor companies and some soiled reputations, comes another whopper of a downpour. This time it involves one company that has been normally regarded as having better than average safety standards when it comes to its vehicles.

A whistleblower at a Toyota/GM joint venture plant has alleged that managers at the plant frequently allowed cars with defects to go out in the market without being fixed. These defects include malfunctioning seat belts and brakes, defective headlights and faulty wheel alignment.

The treatment meted out to the woman, Katy Cameron, by Toyota, a company that’s normally acclaimed for its transparency, is shocking. According to her, she has been harassed by company managers to the point where she is currently under extreme stress and being treated for depression.

It was earlier insisted that none of these defects had been linked to an accident. Now it seems that might have been a matter of chance rather than an indication of the vehicle’s safety. Toyota is facing lawsuits in California relating to two accidents that might have been caused by its defects. In one of them, the family of a man who was killed when he was trapped in his seat belt during an engine fire, has filed a lawsuit against the company. The victim’s son claims that during an engine fire in his Toyota, while he was able to escape, he was unsuccessful in getting the seat belt off his father resulting in his death.

An accident like this is a terrible tragedy, and when seen in the context of managers at the plant, allowing cars with defects including broken seat belts to roll out of the shop floor, it crosses the line from being a tragedy to a heinous crime.

Toyota is sticking to its “we were not responsible” line, and says the facts should come out when the case proceeds to trial.

If you or a loved-one has been injured or killed as the result of a defective car, contact the California personal injury lawyers at The Reeves Law Group immediately for a free consultation.

For 83-year-old Rita Kittower, the only thing that helped ease the pain of her husband’s loss was the knowledge that he died a peaceful death at the assisted living facility he had been housed in over the past year. Or at least that’s what she thought.

A few days after burying her spouse of 49 years, Rita received information that turned her world upside down – an anonymous caller told Rita her husband Elmore hadn’t died peacefully in his sleep, but had been beaten to death by a member of the staff at Silverado Senior Living in Calabasas, California, the facility where Elmore had been living. The attacker, the caller said, hit Elmore in the eye, and attempted to suffocate him with a towel.

At first too horrified to contemplate the truth, Rita then contacted the Los Angeles Sheriff Department who asked for permission to exhume her late husband’s body. On November 14, Elmore Kittower’s mortal remains were exhumed from his grave and taken to a coroner’s office for an autopsy. The results, according the Los Angeles Times which carried this report, were inconclusive, but sources say that there did appear to be some trauma to his body that indicated some form of assault.

Already, detectives have been investigating the case and have even arrested one suspect, a staff member at the nursing home who had been suspended from duty recently. Silverado Senior Living denies any charges of wrong doing by staff members and said that the suspect had been terminated for some other offence and not for abusing assisted living residents.

Although it might still be too early to draw any conclusions from the tests, one hopes that the truth will come out quickly, so Rita Kittower can finally lay her husband to rest.

If you have a loved-one who has been the victim of nursing home abuse or neglect, contact the California personal injury lawyers at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

In a heartrending incident in Washington, a 3-year-old boy was killed when a couple of adults fell on him inside an inflatable bouncer.

The boy, Jacob Pierce, was attending a birthday party at Hoppin’ Houses, a play area in Castle Rock that features inflatable houses. As the kids, including Jacob, were playing in the bouncer, two adults fell on Jacob. The boy received severe head injuries from being hit by their knees and elbows.

Jacob was rushed to St. John’s Medical Center in Longview where he was pronounced dead due to head trauma.

It’s not immediately clear what two adults were doing in an inflatable house meant for children. They obviously had no business roughhousing with a bunch of toddlers. And what of supervision at the facility? A recreational facility that has children as its primary users should have adequate safeguards in place to ensure that parents can leave their kids in there for a half hour of fun, without worrying if they’re going to get elbowed in the head. Jacob’s mother Rebecca Perce is rightfully furious when she says,” You need to have more supervision than an 18 year old adult sitting at the counter.”

Now, here’s the shocker. According to Jacob’s cousin who went back to Hoppin’ Houses later that day, the place was open for business and was, to top it all off, hosting another birthday party. The blood stains on the floor where Jacob bled after the incident had been covered with a mat. Needless to say, the family whose child’s birthday was being celebrated at the venue was blissfully unaware and uninformed of the tragedy that had taken place at that very same spot a few hours earlier.

This incident underscores the kind of callousness and negligence that prevailed at the Hoppin’ House, a place where kids are supposed to feel free – and safe.

If your child has been injured or killed due to head injuries in an accident that was the result of another’s carelessness, you can take steps to protect your legal rights. Call the California wrongful death attorneys at The Reeves Law Group today for a free consultation.

When the Santiagos and the Baezs set out for one of their frequent nights out together, they were planning on a fun evening of casino-hopping. As they were returning just before midnight on Route 76 east of Pala in San Diego County, California, an SUV coming in their direction crossed the centerline and hit their Toyota Camry head on. All four passengers in the Camry were killed.

The driver of the SUV, Anthony Boles, was dragged out of the flaming SUV by a Good Samaritan who happened to be driving by. As he was dragged out of the SUV, Boles reportedly screamed out that he wasn’t the driver. If the Samaritan thought those were the painful cries of an injured man, he would have been wrong – they were the intoxicated ramblings of a man who police now say was not just drunk at the time of the accident, but flying high as a kite on methamphetamine.

As more revelations about the terrible accident, which shattered two families right before Christmas come out, we learn that Boles has had a colorful history marked by large chunks of time spent behind bars. He has at least one conviction for drunken driving and was, to top it all off nicely, driving without a license at the time of the crash. His license, Sign on San Diego reports, was suspended for the second time just four days before the crash for lack of insurance.

In 2003, he had been found guilty of several misdemeanor charges, and a year later had been convicted for assault with a deadly weapon. He was at that time sentenced to two years in prison, out of which he reportedly served a few months. In August 2006, he was pulled over for speeding and given probation. Soon after that he was arrested once again for drunken driving and was sentenced to 10 days in jail. This was obviously not a man who believed in doing things halfway. If he was going to break laws, he was going to break a whole bunch of them, and in extravagant fashion.

On Friday, years of ham-handed punishment and a failure to effectively and severely deal with this former jailbird proved costly, and not just for Boles. Four people are dead, all of them with young children, their lives effectively changed forever. All because one man lived his life like a game of Russian Roulette. Only this time, four other innocent persons had to pay with a bullet to the head.

For the sake of others on the road, one hopes Boles is dealt with severely and faces the consequences of his actions this time round. The Santiago and Baez kids deserve nothing less.

If you have been injured, or a loved one has been killed by a drunk driver, contact the California personal injury lawyers at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

When the Crown Princess, a luxury cruise operated by Miami based Carnival Corp. began to list just a few hours after it left Port Canaveral on July 18, 2006 passengers might have been forgiven for believing they were living out the Titanic nightmare. The 113,000-ton ship reportedly tilted 16 to 18 feet for no apparent reason, causing severe injuries as objects began tumbling off shelves and people began to be thrown about. In the terrifying bedlam that followed, at least two passengers on board suffered critical injuries. When the tilt was finally corrected and the liner reached dry land, more than 90 passengers had to be taken to hospital.

At the time of the incident, the ship was nearing the end of its nine-day luxury Caribbean cruise. There was no evidence to suggest that choppy waves or bad weather had caused the tilt.

Now, new interviews with two of the ship’s crew members suggest that the tilt might have occurred due to human error. Interviews that the National Transportation Safety Board conducted with Dr. Andrew Proctor and Second Officer Adam Stratford indicate that it was Stratford who took the ship off autopilot, which caused the liner to tilt at an alarming angle.

The interviews are part of a collection of 200 documents and transcripts collected by the National Transportation Safety Board in its attempts to investigate the case. At the time of the incident, Princess Cruise officials did not name persons responsible for the accident, saying only that human error was responsible.

This isn’t the first time that Princess cruises has had such accidents. The last time was in 2006 on another ship operated by the company. That ship had to turn around because one of the passengers felt seriously sick. The resulting emergency turnaround that followed led to at least 37 people being injured, including crew members.

As dangerous as injuries sustained at sea are they pale in comparison to the kind of terror and trauma that passengers must have undoubtedly felt as the ship began to tilt. Cruise lines have become popular for stuffing just about every entertainment and dining avenue available on dry land into their liners. One wishes they would pay as much attention to the kind of personnel they put in charge of the controls as they do they in their choice of showman bar tenders and salsa dancers.

If you have been injured or a loved one has been killed as the result of pilot error in a boating accident, contact the California boating accident attorneys at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

Volkswagen Beetles – 1,000,000
Ford Motor Company – 3,600,000
Toyota – 533,124

No, these aren’t car production figures at some of the major auto makers these years. These are the number of vehicles that were recalled by these companies in 2007 which will soon end as something for a record year as far as auto recalls are concerned.

Most of the outrage this past year has been about the other major recalls of the year – million of toys recalled by companies like Mattel. But the auto industry has also reeled under the effect of vehicle recalls, and many like Ford have found that decades old reputations have been tarnished.

So, what have the recalls been about? Well, they’ve covered pretty much every part of a vehicle that can possibly malfunction which essentially is every part. Malfunctioning sensors that cause engines to die in the middle of a freeway, anti-lock brake modules that could burn, air bag sensors that could be disabled by a mixture of water with road salt – the list goes on. Seemingly small problems on the surface, but with big enough risks to cause auto makers to panic.

No other auto maker has been bitten by the recall bug as much as Ford, the company that continues to face lawsuits over its accident prone Explorer and its use of Firestone tires. The tires were responsible for at least 25 deaths and 50 injuries according to the NHTSA. And it’s not just consumer vehicle recalls Ford has grappled with. In March this year, the company recalled more than 100,000 Ford Police Interceptors after complaints that some of them were developing cracks in their wheel welds.

Ford is also known for some spectacularly poor compensation offered to users of its vehicles. This year, Ford users who complained about how their vehicle prices nosedived after all the scandal over the Explorer, were offered the princely settlement of a $500 voucher on future Explorer purchases that in effect puts more money in Ford’s coffers.

In the case of the Crown Police Interceptors, when cops complained that the design of the car made the gas tank dangerously prone to an explosion in the event of a rear end collision, Ford magnanimously provided shield kits to protect the gas tank in case of an accident. Where product liability is concerned, Ford really does seem to be the king of the roads.

If you have been injured or a loved-one has been killed as the result of a recalled product, contact the California personal injury and recalled products attorneys at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.

It’s a proposal that’s sure to meet fierce resistance in California – a state with over 2.2 million drivers over the age of 65. But an Oxnard lawyer, Mark Heipler is going ahead with it anyway.

Spurred by the death of Thousand Oaks, California dentist Glenn Garvin who was killed when his bicycle was knocked down by 82-year-old Norma Seigel in her Lexus, Heipler proposes mandatory behind the wheel tests every 10 years for senior citizens over the age of 65. His arguments that compulsory driving tests for people above a certain age would pressure family members to pay more attention to the potential risks these older citizens and their dementia and arthritis can pose while they’re on the road.

Seigel had cataracts at the time of the accident that killed Garvin, and said he didn’t see the bicyclist. But hers is far from the only case. In 2003, 82-year-old George Russell Weller crashed his car into a market in Santa Monica, California killing 10 people. But notwithstanding cases like this, any proposed legislation for such geriatric profiling has always met with staunch resistance. A previous similar proposal was abandoned after hectic lobbying by senior groups. According to current laws, a person over the age of 70 needs to apply personally for renewal of his driving license and requires a written test and an eye exam, but not a driving test. Heipler’s proposal would mandate a driving test too.

Opponents of the proposal claim the costs of conducting mandatory tests on all seniors would be terribly expensive. Other claim that family members should step in when they see that their parent’s driving habits may be getting risky. Looking out for bent fenders and a tendency to collect tickets are warning signs that could mean that family members should step in.

If you’ve been injured in a car accident, call the experienced California personal injury attorneys at The Reeves Law Group for a free initial consultation.