The Common Sense Deficit

A news story caught our attention this week relating to a topic that's all too familiar to any personal injury attorney. That was deaths and injuries from traffic accidents. Specifically, the story was noting an increase over last year in Los Angeles area traffic fatalities over the New Year's holiday.

Personal injury lawyers know more than most people how unbearably tragic such accidents really are. However, what caught our eye in this particular story was that a notable number of the deaths and serious injuries in our very large city were the result of people failing to use seat belts.

You would think, by now, that the message would have gone out to the vast majority of us. Still, despite plenty of expert evidence indicating just how effective seat belts really are in making the difference between walking away from an accident or a permanently disabling injury or death, people don't listen. Despite common sense -- we're not birds and clearly not made to fly through the air safely without assistance -- people don't seem to listen. I guess it's no surprise then, that if fear of death or disability isn't enough to make people wear seat belts, then laws mandating their use and relatively modest fines aren't going to get people to use them. (DUIs, on the other hand, are dropping -- no doubt partially due to appropriately huge cash penalties.)

For all the talk about the financial deficit in Washington, D.C., we're personally a bit more concerned about the common sense deficit around the world. On the other hand, this same deficit probably ensures that any personal injury lawyer doesn't have to worry about ever being without plenty of work, so there's that. Still, we'd rather people be safe. In other words: please, wear your seat belts, okay?