State’s top court looking at liability in snowmobile crashes
SAULT STE. MARIE, Mich. (AP) — The Michigan Supreme Court is looking at a pair of cases that involve possible liability against the state in crashes involving snowmobiles.
The issue is whether a snowmobile and a utility vehicle should be considered motor vehicles under a Michigan law. If so, governmental immunity might not apply to lawsuits alleging negligence against the Department of Natural Resources.
Audrey West said she was thrown into a river in Antrim County while her father was pinned under his snowmobile. They said they were forced to swerve when two DNR officers on snowmobiles were on the same road but in the wrong direction.
In another case, Mark Goss was severely injured in Chippewa County when a DNR ranger in a Gator utility vehicle crossed a trail and struck his snowmobile. The ranger, Roy Pederson, died.
The Michigan appeals court has ruled against the state in both cases. The Supreme Court will likely hear arguments in 2022.
Deadline for Distracted Driving Scholarship competition extended
For the past six years, top-ranking Michigan personal injury trial lawyers Christensen Law have sponsored their Distracted Driving Awareness Scholarship Competition in their ongoing effort to prevent drunk, distracted, and impaired driving.
In the run-up to this year’s competition, the expectation was that the pandemic lockdowns may have impacted the statistics in a positive way, but that does not seem to be the case. Indeed, despite the dramatically lower number of drivers on the road and miles driven in the United States due to COVID-19, pedestrian deaths skyrocketed, according to new data from the Governors Highway Safety Association.
Newly released data show that pedestrian deaths increased by 21% from 2019 to 2020, the largest single-year increase ever recorded. And it’s not just pedestrian fatalities that increased at the height of the pandemic. Other research from the NSC indicates that motor-vehicle fatalities shot up by 8% in 2020, even with fewer drivers on the road and fewer miles driven.
Distraction, drinking, and impairment continue to be major contributors to fatalities on the road. Younger drivers especially are the most likely to text and drive, with a large and growing percentage of fatal accidents caused by drivers in their 20s.
“The fact that these numbers continue to rise is of grave concern,” says Christensen Law founder Dave Christensen, “and it is ever more important to reinforce the message to our younger drivers about the dangers of impaired, distracted, and drunk driving.”
Available to any college student in the United States (or high school senior about to enter college), the selected winner will receive a $1,500 scholarship grant. This year, instead of a written essay, applicants are requested to make a short 60-second video, a public service announcement, aimed at an audience of their age peers.
For more information , visit: https://www.davidchristensenlaw.com/distracted-driving-scholarship/
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