The whole Santa Fe Christian campus is grieving the loss of 16-year-old football varsity player, William Wardrip, from Enchinitas, to a tragic car accident. Wardrip died when the SUV he was riding as a passenger got involved in a rollover accident in Fairbanks Ranch.

Reports said that the driver of the 1999 Lexus recently got his license and Wardrip was the only occupant not wearing a seatbelt.

The ninth to twelfth grade students were given a choice of staying at home or to join the prayer service in memory of Wardrip.

Grieving parents and students flocked the campus to join in the service.

Although drugs and alcohol were not a factor, the driver of the SUV may be facing liability for the death of Wardrip.

Aside from that, the parents or the owner of the SUV may also be held liable because the driver was also a minor and also a new driver.

Although there may be some comparative negligence on the part of Wardrib for not following the state seatbelt law, it does not remove the liability of the driver for his own negligent acts.

New drivers are not allowed to drive between 11pm and 5am and the accident occurred at 3am.

Another violation is that new drivers are not supposed to have passengers below the age of 20 without a parent or a guardian.

Hopefully, the driver would show remorse for the tragedy and the prosecutors may choose not to file criminal charges against him.

However, that does not stop Wardrib’s parents from pursuing a wrongful death claim.

Hopefully, this becomes a lesson to all teen drivers who overestimate their driving skills.

Reckless driving is not only a danger to the driver but to those around them as well.

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September 12-18, 2009 marks the observance of Child Passenger Safety Week

According to United States Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a new research conducted by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) showed that despite the high child safety seat use – majority of these children are still not properly secured.

A staggering figure from the study shows that while 99 percent of children ages 0-12 months old were secured in child safety seats as were 92 percent of children ages 1-3 years old and 89 percent of 4-7 years-old, three out of every four seats are used incorrectly.

Hence, regardless of the use of restraints, these children will still not be properly restrained and protected and would likely get seriously injured in case of a car accident.

In fact, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 72% of nearly 3,500 observed car and booster seats were misused in a way that could be expected to increase a child’s risk of injury during a crash.

According to the NHTSA, the errors in the use of child restraints included the wrong way of securing the child in the child seat as well as the errors in attaching the child seat to the car. Examples would include using the wrong child restraint based on age and weight and the incorrect installation of restraint to the vehicle seat.

The CDC pegs that in every day, children aged 14 years old and younger had an average of 4 deaths and 504 injuries in 2005. 1,335 children died and approximately 184,000 were injured.

While parents may be compliant with the use of child safety seats, they must also be correct in the use of it. Following the law would be futile, if they were negligent in securing the safety and protection of their children.

During the Child Passenger Safety Week, there will be thousands of free safety seat inspection stations set up across the country to provide assistance to the majority of parents in the proper installation of child safety seats.

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Hollywood star and sweetheart Renee Zellweger’s name was once again in the news but not because of an upcoming movie.

The 40-year old Oscar-winning actress was involved in a minor car accident in Beverly Hills. According to Lt. Tony Lee of the Beverly Hills Police Department, Zellweger was traveling alone in her silver Mercedes G wagon north on Camden Drive when a green Ford Explorer hit her after making an illegal u-turn.

The wrong-way driver was allegedly pulling out of a parking space when they attempted the turn.

Although the damage was minimal and the actress wasn’t hurt, she and the driver of the Ford exchanged information as the damages will be handled by their respective insurance companies. No one was cited for the crash.

Zellweger reportedly “politely” requested for her car be towed from the scene, and also requested that officers call her a cab.

Usually, collisions happen because of driver error. Drivers often misjudge distances or are unaware of their immediate surroundings especially when they back out of their parking.

According to the California Driver’s Handbook of 2009, a u-turn is considered illegal when it is done:

• Where a “No U-Turn” sign is posted.
• On a one-way street.
• On a divided highway by crossing a dividing section, curb, strip of land, or two sets of double yellow lines.
• Where you cannot clearly see 200 feet in each direction because of a curve, hill, rain, fog, or other reason.
• Business districts such as Areas with churches, apartments, multiple dwelling houses, clubs, and public buildings (except schools)

Drivers are advised that when they make a u-turn, to signal and use the far left lane or the center left turn lane.

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A Fountain Valley man is facing up to 13 years in prison for his reckless decision to run a red light which caused a devastating car crash Jan. 25, 2008 and killed Richard Lauvao of Santa Ana.

The force of the crash was so strong that Lauvao was nearly decapitated by his seat belt. Kenny Minh Phan, the driver who ran a red light, took off and abandoned his damaged Honda Accord instead of helping the victim.

Phan was later arrested after he was identified by the DNA he left on his car. He is currently on trial and is facing charges of felony hit-and-run causing great bodily injury and misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter.

Running a red light is the most common traffic violation associated with traffic control signals and devices. In California, it is mandated that the driver of any vehicle, the person in charge of any animal, any pedestrian, and the motorman of any streetcar shall obey the instructions of any official traffic signal unless otherwise directed by a police or traffic officer or when it is necessary for the purpose of avoiding a collision or in case of other emergency.

Anybody can easily become a red light violator, it often happens when drivers try to beat the yellow light and end up running through the red light. Inattentive and distracted drivers may fail to observe the traffic signals and inadvertently run through a red light.

Running through a red light or a stop sign may seem like an insignificant and as others may choose to believe, forgivable offense. It’s easy to use that excuses that you’re in a hurry or that everybody does it anyway but in truth, the consequences of violating this traffic rule can be criminally fatal.

In 2007, almost 900 people were killed and an estimated 153,000 were injured in crashes that involved red light running. More than half of the fatalities of running the red light are other motorists and pedestrians.

Also, in case of a car accident, any person who is caught running on a red light or in violation of a traffic signal is presumed to be the negligent party.

It may seem harmless to run a red light. But the risk you take in every second of speeding is hardly worth the number of lives you could destroy when you fail to follow the traffic signals. You could hit other people who are legally running their vehicles because you choose not to stop.

The red in traffic signals is a warning to stop. And whether running the red light was an inadvertent mistake or a reckless and conscious decision, drivers would have to face the consequences of their actions which in the case of running a red light, is often tragic.

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Just when you think that it’s much safer to take public transportation vehicles like buses than to drive your own vehicle. A study by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that more than 500 of the unsafe tractor-trailer and bus companies who’ve been ordered to shut down are still operational.

These “reincarnated” common carrier companies were found to owe thousands of dollars in delinquent fines with violations ranging from operating without the proper license to failing to test drivers for illegal drugs and alcohol.

Greg Kutz, GAO’s managing director for special investigations in fact said that there were about 300 fatalities from bus crashes last year and that carriers ordered to shut down were made into new companies to evade fines and avoid corrective actions.

According to the investigative report, at least 20 of the roughly 220 commercial bus companies that had been fined and ordered out of service in 2007 and 2008 by federal regulators have found a new lease on their illicit life by going by a different name.

One of these bus lines in fact, is responsible for a fatal crash in 2008 where 17 people were killed when the bus blew a retreaded tire in Texas.

Several unsafe common carriers in current operation despite the order to shut down were found offenders in California, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas, New York and Washington.

GAO also found that despite the efforts of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s efforts to regulate errant companies, it did not have the full computer capability to identify fraudulent companies using different addresses and names.

In response to that, Congress is now looking into creating a federal standard that would give the FMCSA more power to revoke licenses and impose fines.

The government should be more rigid about regulating these common carrier companies – the mere fact that it is open for the use of the general public means that higher standards of care and diligence should be expected.

Bus accidents also yield greater and more catastrophic fatalities and injuries just by their size, the mere fact that car accidents are more likely to happen should not make agencies complacent about substandard buses.

Under the law, in case of bus accidents, as common carriers, it is not just the driver who may be held liable. Company owners as well, are vicariously liable for the damages incurred by passengers who availed of their services.

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NBC Los Angeles recently posted a video where texting while driving was put to the test. According to the video, law enforcement officers have a much harder time identifying drivers who text rather than drivers who talk on the phone.

The California Highway Patrol and San Jose police in that video say that texting while driving is extremely dangerous and it can only lead to accidents.

The stories of Amanda Martin, a 17-year old girl who died in a car accident because she was texting while driving on her way to school, and of the twenty-five people who died in a train when the operator texted, were both mentioned to emphasize the gravity of the problem.

Texting is more dangerous than talking on the phone because the driver’s eyes and attention is not on the road. The first driver who tried the exam, even at the speed of 10mph hit two cones while texting.

All the drivers hit cones and sent barely readable text messages. Most drivers spent more time looking at the phone than on the road. All drivers, including the reporter admitted to not being able both texting and driving well at the same time.

In the report, the officers even shared an amusing story of a man who used both hands to text and ended up driving with his knees, the police say that mixing texting and driving could cost the driver and other people their lives.

According to the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association, Over 600 billion text messages were sent in the United States in 2008. A lot of people think that texting while driving is harmless and that they could easily just snap their attention back to the road.

However, a lot of studies have shown that driver inattention is the leading factor in most crashes and near-crashes and texting definitely, is a dangerous distraction. The dangers of text messaging while driving is already associated to driving while under the influence of alcohol—clearly, both are extremely risky driver behavior.

Text messaging is now banned for all drivers in 14 states and the District of Columbia. But just like the addiction of drinking while driving, texting while driving has proven to be a habit that’s just as hard to break.

With nearly 40 percent of drivers aged 30 and below who admitted that send or read text messages while driving, texting is indeed the new alcohol and the new killer on the road.

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