UPCOMING ROUTES AVAILABLE

A10 www.kelownacapnews.com
Thursday, December 26, 2013 Capital NewsC
NEWS
▼ PERSONAL INJURY LAW
Why won’t we take driving a vehicle seriously?
A
s I came down the
stairs at the office,
feeling the bounce
of my belly excess, I realized that it was New
Year’s resolution time
once again.
Spending time on the
weekend meeting with
yet another injured victim of a car crash, I also
reflected on the unending tide of road traffic victims and the impotence I
have felt in my One Crash
is Too Many campaign to
stop that tide.
While the bounce of
my belly might be more
deserving of my attention,
nobody wants to read
about that in this column!
I have identified a
simple lack of focused
attention on driving as
our key road safety problem. I have proposed that
changing driving attitudes
to resolve that problem
would largely eliminate
ACHIEVING
JUSTICE
Paul
Hergott
road traffic incidents. I
am no expert in changing
driving attitudes, but I
came up with the “10 and
2” initiative to help do
just that.
I have also identified
what I think is the reason
why we don’t take driving
as seriously as we might
take the handling of a circular saw or other dangerous piece of equipment. We are led to believe that driving is a safe
activity, that except for
those big, fiery crashes
that happen to “someone
else” there are no serious
consequences to being in
a crash.
Car manufacturers
boast about crash safe-
‘‘
WE ARE LED TO
BELIEVE THAT
DRIVING IS A
SAFE ACTIVITY,
THAT EXCEPT
FOR THOSE BIG,
FIERY CRASHES
THAT HAPPEN
TO “SOMEONE
ELSE” THERE
ARE NO SERIOUS
CONSEQUENCES
TO BEING IN A
CRASH.
ty ratings, implying that
seatbelts and air bags will
protect us from serious injuries. The media pro-
vides regular reports of
crash upon crash upon
crash, noting that there
were no injuries or no
“serious” injuries.
Where is the motivation to focus your attention on driving if you are
continually reminded
that you are driving in an
air-bag-protected bumper-car where you are unlikely to sustain anything
of a serious injury in a
crash?
I know, and anyone
in the medical field will
agree, that people regularly suffer chronic, often
functionally limiting,
sometimes debilitating,
pain arising from “run of
the mill” car crashes. I’m
talking about the rear-enders and such that we see
on our streets and roads
every day. ICBC’s “community snapshot” for Kelowna notes that someone is
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West Kelowna
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Michelle Cres, Alexander Pl.
injured in Kelowna approximately every three
and a half hours. Many of
‘‘
…PEOPLE
REGULARLY
SUFFER
CHRONIC, OFTEN
FUNCTIONALLY
LIMITING,
SOMETIMES
DEBILITATING,
PAIN ARISING
FROM ‘RUN OF
THE MILL’ CAR
CRASHES.
those injuries resolve very
quickly, but many never
resolve.
Often air bags don’t
go off and damage to the
vehicles can be minimal,
if even apparent. Even in crashes with
lots of twisted metal the
drivers and other occupants of the vehicles don’t
know, themselves, that
they have sustained any
injury because symptoms
rarely come on at the
scene of a crash. Emergency services
are often not called in and,
when they are, the emergency services personnel are relieved to find
that everyone appears to
beOK. The media [from police information] reports
that there were no injuries, or injuries were minor.
Again and again and
again it is reinforced in
our minds that car crashes
don’t come with serious
consequences.
If only the media
were to follow up with
the vehicle occupants
when they wake up the
next morning, their muscles in spasm, or months/
years later when they are
continuing to suffer from
chronic symptoms that
originated when the head
flew back and forth, the
muscles, ligaments and
other tissues irreparably
strained and torn.
Rather than being part
of the solution, a road
safety strategy document
released in August, 2013,
by the Province of British
Columbia contributes to
the problem by focusing
attention not on the reduction of crashes, but on the
reduction of fatalities and
“serious injuries,” where
“serious injuries will be
measured as those injuries requiring admission to
hospital”. Car crash injuries very
rarely actually require admission to hospital.
I have worked with
some members of the local media to try to change
the way crash injuries are
reported, and I have been
encouraged by their response, but my efforts
have been too few and far
between.
I have also worked
with BC Emergency
Health Services about
how BC Ambulance representatives should re-
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port injuries, and have obtained agreement with
my proposition that “a
BC Ambulance Service
Representative should
never refer to injuries sustained in a motor vehicle
incident as “minor” and
should never indicate
at the scene of a motor
vehicle collision that any
of the occupants of any
vehicles/pedestrian/cyclist had not suffered any
injury at all.”
I have proposed a
meeting between heads of
emergency services (police/fire/ambulance) as
well as the media, so as to
achieve consensus against
being minimalistic in the
reporting of crash consequences, but I have not
been diligent enough in
making that meeting happen.
My New Year’s resolution for 2014 is to kick it
up a few notches. I could use some help,
perhaps with identifying minimalistic media
reports of crashes province-wide, and invite anyone interested in participating in these initiatives
to e-mail me. This column is intended to provide general
information about injury
claims. It is not a substitute for retaining a lawyer
to provide legal advice
specifically pertaining to
your case. Paul Hergott is
a lawyer at Hergott Law
in West Kelowna.
[email protected]
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