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Earlier this month, one man was killed and two others injured in what appears to be a failure-to-yield accident in Coral Springs, Florida. According to one local news source, the accident occurred on Coral Ridge Drive, near the intersection of Wiles Road.

Evidently, the driver of a Honda Fit was traveling south on Coral Ridge Drive. He attempted to make a left-hand turn onto Wiles Road when another motorist in a Chevy Corvette crashed into him. The driver of the Honda Fit was immediately taken into the hospital, where he was tragically pronounced dead by hospital workers. The two men in the Chevy Corvette were also taken to the hospital, but their injuries were much less serious and they are both expected to make a full recovery.

At this early juncture, it is unclear what caused the accident. However, one of two possibilities is likely. Either the driver of the Honda Fit failed to yield as he made the left turn in front of the Corvette, or the Corvette was traveling in excess of the speed limit, potentially losing his right-of-way.

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Earlier last month, the Florida Supreme Court heard a case regarding the criminal culpability of a hit-and-run driver who claimed he had no idea he ran over the accident victim. According to one local Florida news report, the near-fatal accident occurred on the A1A Highway in Boca Raton.

Evidently, a skateboarder had fallen off his skateboard and into the road. As the defendant was driving past, he struck the boy, running him over and dragging him for 90 feet. One eyewitness to the accident testified that she saw the truck’s tires bounce up and down after the boy was hit. Another witness testified that he saw the skateboard get spit out the back of the truck after snapping in two.

The driver was pulled over by police three miles from the accident site. There was no visible damage to his truck and no brake or skid marks. It was also raining at the time of the accident. The driver claimed that he had his radio, windshield wipers, and air-conditioning on, and that he had no idea he hit the skateboarder. At a criminal trial, the man was found guilty for leaving the scene of an accident resulting in injury and was sentenced to two years in jail.

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Earlier last year, 21-year-old Floridian Kayla Mendoza was involved in a fatal head-on collision that took the lives of two young girls. The accident, which occurred on the Sawgrass Expressway, was caused when Mendoza went the wrong way down the Expressway. According to a local news report, the driver had tweeted “2 drunk 2 care” earlier that night a few minutes before the fatal crash.

Mendoza, who was just 20 years old at the time, has recently pleaded guilty to the offense of DUI manslaughter. The evidence presented showed that Mendoza had consumed two fishbowl-sized margaritas at the bar prior to getting behind the wheel.

Regarding the infamous tweet, her fiancé claimed that it was in response to him giving her a hard time about not coming home after work. However, that certainly would have been up for interpretation by the jury.

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Earlier this month in Miami-Dade County, an accident between a BMW car, a minivan, and a Miami-Dade County bus sent two people to the hospital. According to a news report by NBC Miami, one of the two people who were hospitalized was a five-year-old girl.

Evidently, the BMW was stopped and waiting at a red light at the intersection of NE 135th St. and West Dixie Highway when it was rear-ended by the minivan. The force from the collision sent the BMW spinning into the intersection, where it collided with the side of the Miami-Dade County bus that was heading south on West Dixie Highway. When emergency crews responded to the scene, the roof of the BMW needed to be cut off before the occupants could be extracted.

The BMW had five people inside, two of whom were seriously injured and taken to the hospital for urgent care. The three others in the BMW suffered only minor injuries. The two people in the minivan also suffered minor injuries. No one on the bus was hurt. All three people in the back seat of the BMW were not wearing their seatbelts at the time of the accident.

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Towards the end of last month, a construction accident in southeast Miami injured two workers who were on-site at the time. According to one local news report, the accident occurred at 200 SE 3rd Ave., right in downtown Miami.

The accident took place all the way up on the 26th floor of the building. Evidently, an interior wall that was used to frame a larger cement wall fell atop two workers. At the time of the accident, the elevator in the building didn’t go up that high, so the rescue was difficult. However, rescue crews were able to use some of the construction equipment to lower the men down to one of the floors that had elevator access, and from there they were taken down in the elevator.

One of the workers was seriously injured by the accident, and another worker suffered minor injuries. The current status of the workers has not been released. The federal government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has taken over the investigation, and the results are still pending. At this point, it is unclear how the accident occurred and who may have been at fault.

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Earlier this month in the Keys, an elementary school teacher was pulled over and cited for driving under the influence. According to a report from the Miami Herald, the woman—who teaches at Florida City Elementary School—was heading southbound on U.S. 1 around 1:45 in the morning when she was pulled over.

Evidently, the woman was traveling in her 1995 Red Toyota Camry when an on-duty officer noticed that she came close to crashing into about five cars. The officer told police that if she wasn’t stopped she was “going to kill somebody.” The officer began tracking the woman at mile-marker 81 and pulled her over two miles later at mile-marker 79 when he again noticed her weaving in and out of the center lane of traffic.

When the officer pulled the teacher over, he administered a series of field sobriety tests, which the woman failed. He then arrested her and brought her to the station, where her breath-alcohol level was .221, over twice the legal limit in Florida. The teacher has since posted bail and was released pending the outcome of her case.

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Earlier this month near Key Biscayne, an accident between a car and two bicyclists claimed the life of one of the bicyclists and sent the other to the hospital with critical injuries. According to a local news report, the accident occurred in the early-morning hours, around 5:30, when the driver was returning from a nightclub.

Evidently, the driver was in the eastbound lanes of Crandon Boulevard when he looked down briefly to change the song on his iPhone. As he did so, he collided with the two bicyclists. Rather than immediately stopping and seeing if the victims needed assistance, the man continued driving back to his parents’ home in Key Biscayne.

Once there, he staged a robbery, smashing the rear windows of his Volkswagen with a set of golf clubs. However, he then immediately decided that he could not go through with the farce, and he called 911. The operator encouraged him to return to the scene, which he did. Once police arrived, they noticed that he had a strong odor of alcohol coming from his body, and that his eyes were bloodshot and his speech was slurred. He was arrested and charged with DUI and manslaughter.

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No one wants to be involved in a serious auto accident. However, according to a recent report, some states are better than others when it comes to the ability of accident victims to recover for their injuries from an at-fault driver and his or her insurance company. Unfortunately, Florida didn’t quite make the top of the list. In fact, Florida came in second-to-last.

The report looked mostly at the required amount of insurance that all drivers must have to legally drive and compared that number to the percentage of compliant drivers. For example, in Florida motorists need to carry the following insurance coverage:

  • $10,000 in bodily injury per person;
  • $20,000 in bodily injury per accident; and
  • $10,000 in property damage per accident.

In the insurance business, this kind of coverage is written as $10,000/$20,000/$10,000. Other states, such as Maine, require drivers to insure themselves with $50,000/$100,000/$25,000.

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In December a Buffalo, New York man accepted a settlement offer for $5 million to compensate him for injuries he sustained in an accident that took place back in 2008 while at work on a construction site. According to one local news report, the man’s injuries were quite severe, including a punctured lung, eight herniated disks, and a torn rotator cuff.

Evidently, the man’s case was almost dismissed after the defendants in the case—the general contractor and the property owner—made several arguments to the judge for early dismissal. First, the defendants argued that the man’s medical condition was not good at the time of the accident and that the injuries he claimed arose after the accident were preexisting. If the judge found this to be true, the damages sought by the man would be greatly reduced, potentially to zero.

Second, the defendants claimed that the man failed to pursue a safer alternative to his chosen path when he was injured. If the judge found that this was the case, the plaintiff’s own negligence may have mitigated the defendants’ responsibility.

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Earlier this week in a tragic accident that occurred in Melbourne, three women—all sisters—were killed when they were involved in a chain-reaction accident on northbound Interstate 95. According to one local news report, the three sisters were on their way home after a short gambling trip.

The women were in a 2007 Hyundai Elantra driving behind a 2008 Infiniti when the Infiniti left the roadway and slammed into the median guardrail. After the car crashed into the guardrail, the women in the Hyundai collided with the Infiniti. After that, several other vehicles crashed into the wreckage. Altogether, four vehicles were involved in the chain-reaction accident.

All three sisters were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. It is unclear at the present moment whether they were killed in the initial collision with the Infiniti or if they were killed as a result of one of the subsequent chain-reaction crashes. There was also one other passenger traveling with the woman. She was admitted to the hospital with critical injuries.

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