Seat belts have saved countless lives since federal law began requiring all vehicle manufacturers to install them in new cars in 1968. By 1995, nearly all U.S. states, including Colorado, had mandatory seatbelt laws. According to the National Safety Council (NSC), seat belts reduce the risk of front-seat passenger fatalities by 45% and reduce moderate to severe injuries by 50%. Still, 223 unbuckled Colorado motorists died in car accidents in a single recent year. Many of those traffic fatalities were…

Sharing the roadway means putting our lives partly in the hands of other drivers, hoping they will drive carefully to avoid causing an accident. Reasonable measures require drivers to follow traffic laws and avoid distractions. Like all states, Colorado expects drivers to adhere to traffic laws, including the law prohibiting drunk driving. Impaired drivers cause nearly 30% of all traffic deaths in the U.S. and thousands of serious injuries. Recognizing and reporting a drunk driver in Colorado could save the…

In any court process, someone new to a courtroom hears terms that are not commonly used in daily life, except within the legal world. Two of these terms are “motion to dismiss” and “summary judgment.” Both terms refer to motions made by either the plaintiff’s legal representation or the defendant’s. In Westminster personal injury cases, the plaintiff is the injury victim, and the defendant is the negligent party responsible for the injury. Although both motions can bring a case abruptly…

No one expects their day to end in an emergency room, but nearly 40 million people experience injury-related emergency room visits each year. Injuries always cause trauma and distress and can derail a life in an instant. Sometimes the impacts are temporary, but they may also have permanent consequences. If the injury was caused by someone else’s careless, reckless, or wrongful actions, those temporary or permanent consequences become the damages in a Westminster personal injury claim. Before filing a claim,…

In today’s busy world, multi-tasking has become second-nature, but the results can be devastating when drivers multi-task behind the wheel. Distracted driving risks not only the driver’s life but the lives of others on the road. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), there were 3,308 lives lost to distracted driving in a single recent year. NHTSA describes distracted driving as “Any activity that diverts attention from driving.”  There are three types of distracted driving in Colorado that…