Toms River, New Jersey, Personal Injury Blog

In the past decade, the number of ignition interlock devices installed on vehicles in New Jersey and across the U.S. has gone up from 133,000 to 350,000. Some 34 states require DUI offenders to install these in their vehicles, and as a result, these states see 15% fewer alcohol-related crash deaths than other states. The CDC says IIDs reduce repeat DUI offenses by 70%.

IIDs are basically breathalyzers that drivers must blow into before starting their vehicle. At regular intervals, drivers must take "rolling retests" to show that they are not drinking behind the wheel. If drivers do not take these retests, the device will set off an alert, which can consist of a honking of the horn, a flashing light or something else that does not interfere with the car's operation.

A type of medical bias may be placing New Jersey women at risk of increased damage and death following a heart attack or stroke. Emergency medical personnel and researchers alike tend to focus on the classic symptomology, which turns out to be the most common symptoms experienced by men. According to the Daily Nurse, women more commonly present from a set of symptoms that medical practitioners associate with anxiety and other conditions.

Almost everyone will be familiar with the most common symptoms of a heart attack. Chest pain is accompanied by pain that radiates down the left arm. However, the American Heart Association revealed in a study that more women than men present symptoms separate from chest pain. These can include back and stomach pain, nausea, shortness of breath and dizziness. A worsened medical condition can result from failure to diagnose and provide treatment.

New cars sold in New Jersey and around the country will one day come equipped with technology designed to prevent drunk driving if bills recently submitted to the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate reach President Trump's desk. The proposed legislation has received bipartisan support from lawmakers who hope that it could save as many as 7,000 lives each year. Drunk driving remains a thorny road safety issue in the United States, and accidents caused by intoxicated motorists claim about 30 lives each day.

If passed, the Reduce Impaired Driving for Everyone Act would not go into effect for at least two years. This would give carmakers time to develop systems capable of detecting alcohol. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is working with the auto sector to test and evaluate drunk driving technology, and money earmarked by the RIDE Act will be used to fund similar programs and run pilot schemes.

Preventable mistakes made by doctors and hospitals kill as many as 440,000 people each year in New Jersey and around the country, which makes health care the third most common cause of death in the United States. A recent report from the World Health Organization suggests that visiting a doctor or being admitted to a hospital is just as perilous in other countries. WHO researchers assessed the quality of the health care services available in 36 nations, and they concluded that about 40% of the patients treated in hospitals and as outpatients each year suffer harm at the hands of their doctors and nurses.

The WHO Patient Safety Fact File contains a worrying number of sobering statistics. The report suggests that about 50% of medical mistakes are preventable, and about one in three of them results in the patient's death. These figures are backed up by autopsy findings in the United States revealing that about 10% of the patients who die each year were either misdiagnosed or received their diagnosis late.