Putting on a seat belt should be second nature when getting in a car. Despite this, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration reports that around 27 million Americans still drive or ride without their seatbelts.

Research clearly shows that seat belts reduce and prevent serious injuries. In the event of a car accident, you will never regret having an added layer of safety and protection.

For the third year in a row, Schweickert Ganassin Krzak Rundio, LLP is honored to be nominated for the 2022 Best of North Central Illinois award in the Service: Personal Injury Attorney category. Our firm is proud to have won this award both in 2020 and 2021, and is grateful to the citizens of North Central Illinois who used their votes to support the work we do here at Schweickert Ganassin Krzak Rundio, LLP.

Because of its reputation as a minor injury, some people have a tendency to be dismissive of the serious effects of whiplash. It’s not uncommon for patients to try to ignore the pain and “push through,” thinking the symptoms they are experiencing shouldn’t impact their daily routine. But the neck injury known as whiplash has been known to cause complications that can persist for months or even years. As with any injury, every case is unique. And this is especially true for a condition prominent medical institutions across the country refer to as “poorly understood” and “not well understood.”

While the prognosis for whiplash is generally good, there are some cases in which patients suffer lasting pain and damage. Let’s look more closely at the nature, causes, and symptoms of whiplash, along with its potential long-term effects.

Sharing the road with tractor trailers can be complicated. Even when you’re all driving safely and following the rules of the road, there’s still the potential for a collision to happen at any moment. The idea of accidents is scary enough on its own, but when a commercial truck is involved, the crash instantly has even more potential to be devastating.

The reason truck accidents can be so damaging and cause serious injuries is mainly because of the size difference when the collision is between a regular vehicle and a tractor trailer. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), large trucks can weigh up to 30 times more than passenger vehicles. This means that when they collide, the passengers of regular sized cars can suffer from far more severe or deadly injuries.

Drunk driving is illegal. Unfortunately, people still decide to get behind the wheel while intoxicated every day. It’s not only dangerous to them—it’s dangerous and deadly for everyone else on the road as well. Their reckless decision could be the difference between life and death for another person.

Helping the community is one of our greatest ventures at Schweickert Ganassin Krzak Rundio, LLP. One of the ways we gave back to the community recently is through a donation to the Bureau County Food Pantry. During the Fall Food Haul, we promised to match donations, and now we’re donating $1,000 to the Bureau County Food Pantry to help community members in need.

Careful drivers in Illinois are aware that there are many uninsured and underinsured motorists on the roads of our state. If one of those uninsured or underinsured drivers causes an accident that injures someone, there is no safety net in place to cover the victim’s losses. When a driver violates our state’s minimum insurance requirements, every person who shares the road with them is at risk. And in many cases, the bare minimum for insurance coverage is insufficient to cover the immense medical bills and property damage expenses that may be incurred in a collision.

At the turn of every year, you might be focusing on resolutions, seeing family, and starting a new year as fresh as possible. One thing that you should keep in your yearly routine is looking into law changes coming into effect in 2022. If you don’t have time or the bandwidth to scroll through law changes, then our law firm is here to help.

In some scenarios, you might not have your own car to drive, and your friend lets you borrow theirs. Whether yours is in the shop, you’re in between owning vehicles, or you just don’t have one in general, it’s extremely generous of a friend or family member to allow you to borrow their car. You’re already feeling thankful that they trust you with their vehicle, so what happens if you get into an accident while driving their car?

Collisions of any kind can be serious and cause injuries and other damages. When it comes to accidents caused by semi trucks, those injuries could be even more dangerous, and could be deadly for those in a passenger vehicle if they’re involved in the collision as well.