Knoxville Personal Injury Law Blog

Last month, we discussed the safety risks that truckers who suffer from sleep apnea pose on the road. As previously noted, truckers with sleep apnea are more prone to drowsy driving and may put themselves and fellow motorists at higher risk for truck accidents.

Unfortunately, a new study suggests that truckers who suffer from sleep apnea may be at risk for more than just drowsy driving. They may face a higher risk of strokes, diminutive lesions in the brain and silent strokes.

Ben Franklin once said: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." Two hundred years after he first popularized it, Franklin's maxim lives on. In the case of today's truckers, however, being early to bed in order to become healthy, wealthy and wise is rarely an option.

They face intense pressure to meet delivery deadlines, and to make a living they must often put in long hours on the road. Those long hours naturally tend to make truckers tired. And being tired puts them more at risk of causing truck accidents.

We have previously written about the difference between criminal and civil charges. But there certain cases in which law enforcement can face civil charges for inappropriate actions they took while responding to alleged criminal matters. Families in Knoxville and elsewhere have filed wrongful death or personal injury lawsuits against officers for actions such as excessive force or reckless driving during a car chase.

Recently, grieving Tennessee parents filed a $10 million lawsuit against the Tennessee Highway Patrol (THP) and one of its troopers. In November, their 20-year-old son died in a car accident, allegedly while being pursued by the THP trooper for a speeding offense.

The perils of distracted driving are well known in Tennessee and elsewhere. It is also well known that inexperienced teenage drivers are at a higher risk for being involved in car accidents than drivers in other age groups generally. New information has revealed, however, that one of the greatest distractions teens face on the road is the presence of other teenagers.

Two independently conducted studies confirm this perhaps unsurprising reality. The first study was completed by researchers at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. It focused on teens who typically drive with more than one passenger in the car.