Our nation’s roads have often proven dangerous for bicyclists in recent years. Each year, more than 900 bike riders are killed in tragic accidents, and with gas prices on the rise, bicycle traffic is only expected to increase this summer.

Bicyclists typically have fewer physical protections than motor vehicle occupants, and accidents involving a high-speed collision with a car or truck can have especially severe consequences. However, bicyclists do have legal rights in Illinois, including the right to pursue compensation if they are injured due to another person’s negligence.

Driver Negligence in Bicycle Accidents

In many serious bike crashes, fault lies primarily or entirely with the driver of a motor vehicle that collided with the bicyclist. Some driver behaviors that can constitute negligence include:

Accidents caused by drunk drivers injure and kill thousands of people every year. In many cases, the injuries from these accidents take months or even years to recover from, and some people will never fully recover. Under Illinois law, when you are injured because of someone else’s negligence, you may have a right to be compensated for your injuries, economic losses, and pain and suffering.

Blood Alcohol Level and Negligence

Anyone found to have a blood-alcohol level (BAC) of .08 or higher is legally intoxicated in Illinois. This means that a driver cannot defend against claims for damages by claiming he or she was not impaired. But, even if someone has a BAC of less than .08 they may still have been driving impaired and legally responsible for the accident.

Personal injury law requires that a person making a claim for damages be able to prove four things:

Medical malpractice is, unfortunately, not uncommon in the United States. According to leading medical experts, medical errors have become the third-leading cause of death in the U.S., right behind heart disease and cancer. Medical mistakes cause somewhere around 250,000 deaths each year - yet many of them are preventable. Medical malpractice can cause injuries that lead to lifelong disabilities or even death, though malpractice claims can be tricky to prove. Understanding how you must prove the negligence of a doctor is crucial to a successful medical malpractice lawsuit.

Three Elements of Medical Negligence

There are three things that you must prove when it comes to medical negligence in Illinois. First, you must prove that the standard of care that your physician owed to you was violated. Second, you must prove that an injury resulted from that violation, and third, you must prove that your injury had damaging consequences on your health. All three elements must be proven in order for your case to be considered legitimate.

A Violation of the Standard of Care

The first thing you must prove is that your doctor violated a standard of care. There are certain standards that all medical professionals are held to, such as using acceptable medical treatments for certain conditions. If your doctor failed to provide an adequate level of care, you can establish negligence.

Every year, thousands of people are severely injured or even killed in car accidents. Sometimes the cause of the injuries seems obvious. However, in some instances, a defect or malfunction in your car may have made your injuries worse than they otherwise would have been.

Discovering Automobile Defects

While some vehicles become notorious for their defects, other more routine defects pass through unknown to most people. For example, some SUVs are well known to have a higher risk of rollover rates or roof-crush injuries. It is much lesser-known, however, that there are thousands of components in a car that may not be working properly which could make injuries in a car accident much worse.

In many cases, such defects will not be discovered unless a crash reconstruction expert examines the evidence. The expert may find that a seatbelt or airbag failed to work as designed. It may become clear that your injuries were actually made worse caused by something inside your own car.

You may be surprised to learn that medical errors are the third leading cause of death in the United States. One Johns Hopkins study estimates that 250,000 and 440,000 people pass away every year due to medical mistakes across the country. When you or a loved one has an unexpected medical emergency, you may drive to the emergency room to get the medical care you need. Although the majority of hospital emergency rooms safely provide the life-saving care that patients need without error, emergency room mistakes do happen.

ER Errors Can Be Devastating to the Victim

When someone experiences a drastic change in their health, they might be inclined to go to the emergency room. Because emergency room doctors and other medical staff are often dealing with high-stakes, time-sensitive medical emergencies, they must use extreme caution and focus when attending to patients. Unfortunately, studies show that as many as 5-10 percent of all emergency room visits involve mistakes. Some of these mistakes will not make a notable difference in the patient’s condition, but others can be the difference between whether the patient lives or dies. Some of the most common emergency room mistakes include:

• Misdiagnosis and delayed diagnosis, including inappropriate response to signs and symptoms of strokes and heart attacks
• Medication errors, including overmedicating, under-medicating, or giving patients the wrong medication or dosage
• Failure to obtain proper patient medical history
• Misuse of a medical device
• Misinterpretation of laboratory test results
• Unhygienic conditions which lead to an infection
• Failure to provide appropriate medical treatment
• Administrative mistakes, including confusing patient files and mislabeled test results

Pursuing Compensation for Medical Mistakes

Victims of medical malpractice may be left with significant economic and non-economic damage, including enormous medical bills, a worsened medical condition, and significant pain and suffering. A mistake made in the emergency room could be the difference between recovering from a major health issue and not improving at all.