More information is available from safecar.gov.

As many Americans take to the road, our firm hopes that you and your loved ones will be safe.  The following are some suggestions to maximize your safety while minimizing your chances of injuries in the event you are in an accident:

• Wear a seatbelt at all times.  There is no question that seatbelts save lives.  Whether you are moving your vehicle across the street to make room for your cousin’s RV camper, going a few blocks for some last minute Thanksgiving feast necessities, or driving across the country, always wear your seatbelt.  If you have young children, they should also be fastened securely, and any car seats should be properly installed.  According to seatcheck.org, motor vehicle crashes are the number one killer of children, either because they are improperly buckled into their seats, or because booster seats are not obtained for children who need them. 
• Don’t drink and drive.  While it goes without saying, operating a motor vehicle while inebriated increases your risk of accidents.  Please arrange for a sober driver if you plan to consume any alcoholic beverages, or simply stay where you are. 
• Don’t text and drive.  No shorthand message to friends or family is worth the risk of accidents that arise when those behind the wheel of a car attempt to send text messages while driving.
• Make sure your car is up to the trip.  Before you set out on the road, make sure your car is up to the task, to the extent possible.  Visually inspect your car to make sure all lights, including headlights, brake lights, and turn signals are fully operational before you leave home.  Some experts recommend that you travel with your lights on, even in daylight, to maximize your visibility.  Fill your gas tank, check your tire pressure, and top off your fluid levels, including both your engine coolant and window cleaner reservoirs.  Don’t forget to check your brake fluid levels, while you are at it.  We recommend that you check your mode of transportation before the day you will be traveling. 
• Plan your route, but have a backup plan.  As many motorists take to the highways, delays and detours are a distinct possibility.  Even with a global positioning system (GPS), it is very easy to get lost in unfamiliar territory, which may also contribute to accidents on the roadway.  You can use NAVTEQ to set your route with a FREE, real-time traffic report for many routes. 
• Have a navigator.  There is no question that driving while looking at a map or, in these modern days of “apps,” a phone is not a great idea.  While having a navigator is ideal, there are services available for those who may be traveling alone this holiday season, or with passengers who are too young to assist with navigation.  Caroline Lewis, an attorney with The Brad Hendricks Law Firm, swears by MapQuest 4 Mobile’s voice-guided, turn-by-turn, GPS navigation App for iPhone, which is FREE, when navigating unknown territory alone.
• Sleep well.  Get a good night’s sleep before you travel.  If you feel drowsy while driving, do yourself, and others a favor and pull over for a short nap and caffeinated reinforcement.  According to drowsydriving.org, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration conservatively estimates that 100,000 police-reported crashes are the direct result of driver fatigue each year, which in turn results in approximately 1,550 deaths, 71,000 injuries, and $12.5 billion in monetary losses.
• Schedule regular stops.  Even if you do get a good night’s sleep, driving can be monotonous and tiring, as anyone who has driving through Kansas’s wheat fields alone I-70 can tell you.  To avoid the risk of drowsiness and driving fatigue, schedule stops along your trip, whether in terms of a specific number of hours or miles.  Whether you decide that you will stop every two hours or 200 miles, take that time to stop your vehicle, get out of the car, stretch your legs, take a bathroom break, re-caffeinate.  Example your level of alertness honestly, and if you feel sleepy, take a short nap before continuing.
• Plan for kid entertainment.  A driver of a vehicle cannot entertain passengers, and that is particularly true of young children whose minds may be able to understand that your family is “not there yet,” but now how long it may be until you are.  If your vehicle is not equipped with a DVD player, you may consider obtaining one with headphones for your trip.  For those brave enough, turning over your iPhone may do in a pinch.  You may also want to make sure that you have plenty of snacks and hydration for the trip, even if you do plan to stop frequently.  For a child who wants water “now,” the 198 miles to the next scheduled stop may become excruciating if you have a child with nothing more to think about than the green Bug Juice.
• Don’t rush it.   Everyone wants to be on time for Thanksgiving dinner.  Even those who may be hosting the festivities want for all guests to arrive on time.  No one, however, wants to receive a call from the police to learn that a family member or friend has been hurt because the idea of arriving on time became paramount to arrive safely, albeit late.  If you will be driving this holiday season, don’t rush it.  Allow extra time for traveling.  Leave a couple of hours early to allow time for unforeseen delays.  Your loved ones, more likely than not, will not complain that you arrived early – as long as you arrive safely.  If possible, you may even want to leave on Tuesday and return on Saturday, to avoid the heaviest travelled days surrounding the holiday weekend.

Thanksgiving is a time for families, football, food, and fun, for most of us.  For some, the holidays end in tragedy as the result of motor vehicle accidents.  Although there are no guarantees, it is the fervent hope of The Brad Hendricks Law Firm that those on the road this weekend will not only hit the road with safety in mind, but that all who travel will arrive at their destinations safe.  Happy Thanksgiving to all of you from The Brad Hendricks Law Firm.

Arkansas State Police have reported that driver Joshua Probst, 28, a resident of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, was killed in that accident.  Erin N. Powell, 24, and Paisley F. Powell, 3 months, both of Sallisaw, Oklahoma, were passengers in Mr. Probst’s vehicle.

Preliminary reports indicate that Mr. Probst was traveling westbound on I-40 in a 2008 Chrysler minivan when he crossed the median and crashed head on into the 2008 Dodge Caliber driven by Jamie C. Boyd, 39, of Vilonia.    Michael A. Boyd, 24, also of Vilonia, Arkansas, was the passenger.

The vehicle driven by Mr. Boyd was then pushed into the path of a 1999 Toyota Camry driven by Michael J. Daugherty, 30, of Conway, Arkansas.

Those injured by this collision were transported to Arkansas Children’s Hospital and UAMS in Little Rock for treatment.

From all of us at The Brad Hendricks Law Firm, we send our condolences to the family of Mr. Probst and our hope for speedy recoveries to all those affected by this collision.

According to an early news report, a westbound Chrysler minivan crossed the median and hit another car head on.  Another car then struck both vehicles. 

Motorists can expect delays while the police work the accident.

The name of the victim has not yet been released, but The Brad Hendricks Law Firm will provide an update when that information has been published.

Ms. Jackson had been cited for driving while intoxicated by drugs, reckless driving, and disobeying a traffic control device.  Because a child was in the vehicle with Ms. Jackson, she was also charged with child endangerment. 

Now, Fayetteville police officer Sgt. Chip Stout has indicated that the prosecutor must now decide whether to charge Ms. Jackson in Mr. Luper’s death. 

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, “[d]rugged driving is a public health concern because it puts not only the driver at risk but also passengers and others who share the road.”  Drugs alter the driver’s perception, balance, coordination, reaction time, and other critical skills necessary to safely operate a vehicle. 

We at the Brad Hendricks Law Firm send our thoughts and sincerest condolences to Mr. Luper’s family during this difficult time.

According to the driver, she did not see the workers, because the sun was in her eyes.  The woman drove over construction cones before hitting two of the workers and clipping the third.  Two of the workers were in serious condition after being transported to Washington Regional Medical Center.  The condition of the third worker was not known at the time the story was reported by 5 News.

I  don’t know about you, but on June 20, I could have sworn I heard an odd sound emanating from Bentonville, although it very well may have been coming from all of corporate America.

I think it was the sound of bells ringing and CEOs cheering as the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that basically told the American people that some companies are just too big to be held accountable. The court ruled that size matters. The very first sentence of Justice Antonin Scalia’s 26-page single-spaced opinion was: "We are presented with one of the most expansive class actions ever."

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m referring to last week’s decision by the Supreme Court to turn away a class-action lawsuit brought by more than 1 million women against the nation’s largest employer, Wal-Mart. And while it was certainly a blow to those women, the implications are disastrous for anyone in this country attempting to hold a large, powerful corporation accountable in a court of law.

In the Wal-Mart case, female employees claimed that the company had systematically discriminated against them by promoting men more often than women for managerial positions. However, the court held that "[m]erely showing that Wal-Mart’s policy of discretion has produced an overall sex-based disparity does not suffice." Remember the old saying "numbers don’t lie"? Well, they apparently do to this court, because the justices handed down their ruling in defiance of the statistical evidence.

An easy way to describe what happened in this ruling is to use a baseball analogy. If this case were a baseball game, with one team being the plaintiffs and the other the defendants, the batting team, in this case the female employees, would have just been told they could not step to the plate to take their swing. We don’t know how well they would’ve played because they weren’t given the chance to do so. Oh yeah, and it also sent the message that any future batters need not step to the plate.

What many people don’t realize is that class-action lawsuits are one of the most important tools that individuals have when challenging major corporate interests, e.g., Wal-Mart. An individual claim of discrimination or wrongdoing may have little or no impact on a billion-dollar company’s bottom line and consequently its behavior. However, if you take that individual case and combine it with hundreds, thousands – or in the case of the Wal-Mart lawsuit, more than a million – then you are going to get that company’s attention.  

Class-action lawsuits (and lawsuits in general) are about responsibility and holding wrongdoers accountable for their actions. If someone were to walk up to your house and throw a brick through the window, you would expect that person to be held accountable for his actions. You’d want him to pay for what he did and want to ensure that he did not do it to anyone else.

Now imagine how you would feel if someone told you that you were out of luck because that brick thrower was a billionaire and simply couldn’t be bothered with being held accountable. You’d feel angry, right? Well, in a way, last week’s ruling did just that for the million-plus women alleging discrimination. They were told that they could not join together in one powerful entity to stand up to the nation’s largest private employer (another observation by Justice Scalia) and would instead have to fight the company in small groups or as individuals.

So the question becomes this: How much of an impact will those individual employees have on the largest employer in the country? Probably very little. And that’s exactly what Wal-Mart wanted. And if you don’t believe me, just lean your ear toward northwest Arkansas, and I bet you can still hear those bells.          

June 27, 2011

Tré Kitchens, immediate past president of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association, is a lawyer with the Brad Hendricks Law Firm of Little Rock

Currently, all judges in Arkansas are elected by Arkansas voters through nonpartisan elections.  While there are many who support nonpartisan elections, claiming that such elections hold judges accountable to Arkansans, others criticize campaign spending and the potential that an elected judge may sacrifice impartiality because they feel beholden to special interest groups following a successful campaign.  Each invitee will be allotted 15 minutes to present their thoughts to the joint task force.