A recent announcement that insurance giant Allstate is buying the Esurance and Answer Financial brands from the smaller, less well-known, White Mountains Insurance Group raises several troubling questions. According to an Associated Press article, Allstate expects to pay about $1 billion for the two brands. The acquisition will allow Allstate…
After a year marked by bad news – fatal crashes; official reports indicating that safety needs to be improved – it is refreshing to encounter a story about Tri-Met that makes you feel good. According to The Oregonian, a Tri-Met train driver’s quick thinking saved the life of a woman…
A recent profile in The Oregonian details the struggles, and mutual support, of Portland burn victims, offering a reminder of how devastating this kind of injury can be. The article focuses on Portland Burn Survivors, Inc. and a related group, Burn Concern. The latter is organized by Legacy Emanuel Medical…
An article just published by the online magazine Slate raises an intriguing question: is it safer to drive head-first into a parking spot, the way most Americans do? Or to back into it? The question is relevant because if there is strong data suggesting that backing into parking spaces is,…
A case headed for California’s courts offers a pointed reminder that there is more to ‘distracted driving’ than cellphones. According to the Orange County Register, a man in southern California has been charged with vehicular manslaughter for causing a baby’s death because he “was distracted by a laptop sliding off…
Two serious Portland pedestrian accidents only hours apart – one of them fatal – highlight the danger pedestrians continue to face here in northern Oregon, despite a renewed public focus on the issue in recent months. The first accident took place last Monday on Southeast 82nd Avenue where a 27-year…
Yamaha’s Rhino off-road vehicle is emerging as a target of significant personal injury lawsuits here in Oregon and elsewhere around the country, according to a recent article in The Oregonian. The paper notes that the Rhino, first introduced in 2003, is the subject of “about 700 injury and wrongful death…
Have you ever been to a carnival, or even a child’s birthday party and wondered just how safe those moonwalks, bouncy castles and other portable ‘rides’ are? According to a recent article in the Wichita Eagle, a Kansas court case looks set to bring those issues into focus. According to…
Media reports over the last ten days have noted the strange case of nearly 20 Oregon high school football players taken ill after practice with a rare muscle disorder. According to the Associated Press three of the teens needed surgery “and 16 others were treated after suffering muscle damage following…
A new study from Tufts University, published last week in The New England Journal of Medicine, has found what appears to be a link between the chronic pain disorder fibromyalgia and Tai Chi, a Chinese martial art that is most often practiced here in the United States for its health…