Minneapolis Personal Injury Blog

A Minnesota Department of Public Safety report confirms that four bicyclists were killed in Minnesota in 2011, which is the lowest number of deaths since 2007.  During the years of 2008-2010, there were reports of thirty two bicyclist killed and 2,836 suffering personal injuries.

Among other findings in the DPS report is that most bicycle collisions happened during the afternoon rush hours and that more than one half of the crashes involved bicyclists under the age of twenty five years old.

The Law Offices of Howard Sussman practices in the area of personal injury and represents injured bicyclists in collisions.  Our law offices are located in Minneapolis, Plymouth, Burnsville and St. Paul Minnesota.

IntoxBox, a touch-screen machine that contains a breathalyzer is now available to use in six Twin Cities bars for customer use. Locations include Fabulous Fern’s Bar and Grill and Shamrock’s in St. Pul, Cowboy Jack’s and Senser’s in Bloomington, the Park Tavern in St. Louis Park and the Cabooze Bar in Minneapolis.

Intoxbox is produced by the Eden Prarie based Walden Innovative Resources.  The machine is intended to allow customers pay two dollars to breathe into a disposable straw and provides them a result of their blood alcohol concentration.  According to Ryan Walden, the inventor of the Intoxobox, is to make customers aware of what their blood alcohol concentration is before they drive home.  In a recent interview Walden stated that, “You have a speedometer in your car to help you obey the speed limit, yet we’re expected to obey the drinking and driving laws without access to a tool that is supposed to help us obey the law.”

The April, 2011 death of Audrey Hull who was riding her bicycle near the intersection of 15th Avenue SE and 4th Street SE when she was struck by a dump truck has helped lead to bike lane changes along a two block length from 15th Avenue, which connects the University of Minnesota’s East campus with Dinkytown.  The City of Minneapolis estimates that this area averages approximately 3500 bicycle rides and 12,000 car and truck trips daily.  The bike lanes in this area are now marked green in the middle of the intersections.  The goal of the colored lanes in the middle of the intersection is to make drivers turning at the corners to be more vigilant of bicycle traffic and to make bikers have a better idea where to ride.

Jeremiah Wall of Albertville, Minnesota was killed on July 10, 2011 while fleeing from a Hennepin County Sheriff on a DWI stop.  It was unclear as to whether the Hennepin County Sheriff who was involved in the initial traffic stop was chasing Wall at the time he sped through a red light at the intersection of 93rd Avenue North in Maple Grove and struck another vehicle on the driver’s door, killing the unidentified driver of the victim vehicle.

A study release on October 21, 2010 by the Centers for Disease Control (http//www.cdc.gov/mmwr/PDR/wk/mm594.pdf) reports that fatal motor vehicle crashes in the United States involving 16 and 17 year old drivers decreased by 36 percent from 2004 to 2008.  In Minnesota the percentage change was even greater in that the decrease was 53 percent; 47 fatalities in 2004 compared to 22 in 2008.  Authorities believe that changing social attitudes and education emphasizing the dangers of drinking alcohol and driving as well as the importance of wearing seat belts are significant factors behind the reduction in fatal car accidents.

A recent Minnesota State Patrol survey determined that 58 percent of teen drivers involved in fatal vehicle accidents were not wearing seat belts and 66 percent of teen passengers killed in car accidents were not wearing seat belts.

The CDC study was published in conjunction with National Teen Driver Safety Week (October 17-23).   The CDC emphasizes that continuing youth education needs to be emphasized because one out of every three teen deaths involves motor vehicle accidents.  The “Parents Are the Key” campaign (http://www.cdc.gov/parentsarethekey) points to the role that parents play in protecting their children.

A recent study by the Highway Loss Data Institute (HCDI) based on comparisons from states that banned driver texting with patterns of claims in other states show that ban has not reduced the number of car accidents.  This conclusion was based on analysis from four states that have recently banned driver texting-California (January 2009), Louisiana (July 2008), Minneosta (August 2008), and Washington (January 2008).  The most unexpected conclusion of the study is probably that the number of car crashes actually increased in three of the four states that enacted the ban with Minnesota having the highest increase with nine percent.

Studies have shown that approximately 48 percent of drivers text in states that do not ban driver texting.  Survey studies indicate that drivers in the age group o 18-24 year olds that 45 percent reported continue to text in states that have the ban.  Adrian Lund, president of the HLDI states that “If drivers were disregarding the bans, then the crash patterns should have remained steady.  So clearly drivers did respond the the bans somehow, and what they might have been dong was moving their phones down and out of sight when they texted, in recognition that what they were doing was illegal  This would exacerbate the risk of texting by taking drivers’ eyes further from the road and for a longer time.”

Pointing to new DNA evidence, a lawyer is asking Stearns County in Minnesota to dismiss charges against a man accused in a deadly drunk driving car accident because tests now appear to show the passenger in his vehicle was driving the GMC Hummer SUV that killed a 19-year old last summer.

Timothy Rausch, 30, told authorities at the scene of the the deadly car crash that he swerved on County Road 17 to avoid a deer before hitting and killing Ryan DeZurik on August 16, 2009.  Rausch, and his passenger, Eugene Rivetts, were outside of the GMC Hummer before the investigating police officers arrived to investigate.

Rausch, who had no previous criminal record, had a blood alcohol level of .346 and was charged with vehicular homicide.   Rivetts has a lenghty criminal history and the Hummer was registered to this wife.

Rausch’s lawyer, Tim Beito, stated that blood and human tissue samples from the deployed airbag show that Rivetts was driving the Hummer at the time of the collision.  Rivetts has not been charged, but Assistant Stearns County Attorney Will Brost said that “We are engaged in conversations to get this resolved.”

According to Beito’s motion, a detective who obtained a search warrant “reveals that his own belief is that Eugene Rivetts, not Timothy Rausch, was the actual driver of the vehicle.”

Ryan DeZurik was driving home from his grocery store job in St. Cloud, just a few minutes from his home in Holdingford, when the Hummer rand over his 1990 Toyota Corolla and was instantly killed him. His mother, Sherrie DeZurik, said that she believed all along that Rivetts was driving.

“We’re willing to be patient and this confirms what we’ve already suspected,” she said.

Dimitrious Biller of Pacific Palisades, the former litigation manager for Toyota Sales USA, Inc. has filed a lawsuit in United States District Court claiming that Toyota forced him to hide damaging information to Toyota in court cases and made him quit his position with the company in September 2007.

In the lawsuit dated July 24, 2009, filed in Los Angeles, Biller alleges that Toyota destroyed data showing that their vehicles had substandard roofs in over 300 accidents.  Other documents supposedly illegally withheld included emails and other computer saved information.

Biller worked for Toyota from 2003 to 2007 in a position that included defending the company in personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits involving sport utility vehicles and trucks involved in rollover accidents.  Victims of these accidents believed that the problem was Toyota’s weak roof design and construction.  Since Biller’s lawsuit has been filed, Toyota has tried to keep the Complaint from public exposure because the allegations supposedly included confidential information that Biller agreed not to publish as part of his 2007 severance agreement.

Biller states in his lawsuit that he was harassed by Toyota employees both before and after he left his legal position at Toyota.  At the time he left Toyota, he received a severance payment of 3.7 million dollars and he agreed to not discuss internal Toyota information.  Toyota is claiming that Biller has violated this condition of his severance agreement and that his lawsuit is merely the baseless allegations of a disgruntled ex-employee.

Legal experts agree that if Toyota loses the Biller lawsuit, that it could result in past cases being re-opened that Toyota won or settled over the last two decades.

Keith Heimer, 56, of Golden Valley, Minnesota was killed on June 22, 2009, in an one-car accident near Squaw Lake in Itasca County. Keith Heimer was a passenger in a car driving by Mark Heimer of White Bear Lake, Minnesota at which time their vehicle crossed over the northbound lane of Highway 46, landed in a ditch and struck trees. Both Mark Heimer and another passenger, Rhett Witschen of Eagan, Minnesota were treated for injuries, including cuts and bruises. The Minnesota State Patrol investigated this one car collision and reported that the cause of the car crash was the driver falling asleep.

Margaret Kuehn, 79, died near her home on James Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota on Saturday, June 20, 2009. Ms. Kuehn was walking in the alley immediately behind her house when she was struck by an ambulance that was reversing in the alley. The ambulance was responding to an earlier accident where an elderly woman lost control of her vehicle in a nearby parking lot, crashing through a fence and ending up in the alley area. The driver in the initial accident didn’t need transportation to the hospital and the ambulance was backing when the fatal accident involving Ms. Kuehn occurred. The fatal collision is now being investigated by the Minnesota State Patrol to determine whether the alarm that should sound when the ambulance is put into reverse was operating at the time of the fatal accident.