As a personal injury attorney you see all kinds of cases, but by far the saddest and most difficult are those where the grievously injured party is a child. It was hard not to think about some of these cases when we stumbled over the report issued by the federal government and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta stating that the most common cause of death in children is unintentional accident.
Even if you're not employed with a personal injury law firm you can probably guess that the most common cause of these tragic deaths is traffic accidents. It's probably also not a surprise that the most frequent victims are boys between the ages of 15 and 19, the age when hormones tend to drive young males to engage in the most foolhardy behavior of their lifetime. If you're a personal injury attorney in Los Angeles especially, you see plenty of cases where either the defendant, the plaintiff, or both are teenage boys who are treating the family auto as the newest of toys.
While reading about this kind of study is hardly a happy thing, it is a good reminder. While most parents of younger children are quite vigilant, it is easy to forget about ordinary hazards that present little danger to adults. And when our kids start to look very grown-up, it's easy to forget that they are actually in some ways at their most vulnerable. While we there's no way to be 100% sure our kids, especially our boys, won't engage in such dangerous behaviors as racing or driving while intoxicated or even simply failing to wear seat belts, but kids do respond to the right kind of attention.
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