Car accidents are on the rise all over the world. Statistics show that approximately 115 people die every day in traffic accidents. Car crashes also cost $43 billion each year in lost wages, medical bills and property damage.

Below is an overview of personal injury law, when to hire a personal injury lawyer, and how it can help accident victims obtain compensation.

Statute Of Limitations On Personal Injury Cases

Each area of residence has their own guidelines when it comes to personal injury cases. So, how long after the car accident can you claim injury? This depends on where you live. Many places have a 2 year statute of limitations, while others may have 3 years or more.

Common Car Accident Causes

While there are many different ways car accidents occur, some are more common than others. The most common causes of car accidents include:

1. Driving While Texting Or Talking On A Cell Phone
2. Being Distracted By Vehicle Occupants
3. Driving Under The Influence Of Drugs Or Alcohol
4. Speeding
5. Road Rage
6. Tailgaiting
7. Aggressive Driving

Typical Accident Injuries

People can sustain many different types of injuries after an accident. The most commonly reported accident injuries resulting from car crashes are:

1. Broken Bones
2. Crush Injuries
3. Internal Organ Damage
4. Spinal Cord Injuries
5. Brain Injuries
6. Neck And Back Injuries
7. Facial Fractures

Proving Negligence

Obtaining a settlement for injuries sustained in a car accident personal injury claim depend on your ability to prove that another driver was negligent and caused you to be hurt. Negligence means the other driver did not take reasonable steps to avoid the accident and your injuries are the direct result of his negligence.

How Much Is My Claim Worth?

Just how much your claim is worth depends on the severity of your injuries and whether or not you are disabled due to the accident. You will be awarded more money if you cannot return to work or cannot perform the same job due to your injuries. Personal injury lawyers use a car accident claim calculator to determine just how much you should seek in a lawsuit. For this reason, it is important to hire an attorney who has extensive experience in calculating medical bills, lost wages and expenses in these types of cases so you are awarded a fair settlement.

See Also: What To Look For In A Good Health Insurance Plan 

Expenses And Damages

You may be awarded a monetary settlement for certain types of expenses and damages after a car accident. Some examples of these damages and expenses include:

1. Ambulance Costs
2. Emergency Room Fees
3. Hospital Bills
4. Cost Of Alternative Transportation
5. Doctor Fees
6. Cost Of Occupational, Physical And Speech Therapy
7. Price Of Mental Health Counseling

If your injuries are extensive, you may also be awarded damages for emotional distress or pain and suffering.

See Also: 5 Financial Emergencies Everyone Must Be Prepared For 

What A Personal Injury Attorney Can Do For You

If you are considering filing a car crash injury claim, it may benefit you to hire an experienced personal injury attorney. These claims are very complex and must be handled with care to be successful.

You can be helped with the following items:

1. Hire Accident Investigators To Prove Your Case
2. Recreate The Accident Scene
3. Obtain Police Reports Pertaining To The Accident
4. Speak With Medical Experts And Doctors About Your Injuries
5. Negotiate With The At-Fault Driver’s Insurance Company
6. File Your Case In Court
7. Attend Hearings
8. Represent You During A Trial

If you have been involved in an accident and sustained injuries, contact a personal injury attorney for advice. After speaking with you, an attorney will let you know if you have a valid case and how to proceed. Retaining legal counsel may also reduce the stress that is always a part of accident cases, which may allow you to focus on your recovery.

 

The post Personal Injury Claims After A Car Accident appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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Valentine’s day is just around the corner and if you are a man who hasn’t figured out the best Valentine’s gift for her yet, now is probably the right time to narrow down your choices. Deciding on the last minute isn’t only stressful but it can also put you at risk of buying the wrong gift. For Valentine’s Day, you want your partner to feel as special as possible.

To make sure you impress your loved one, here are 6 awesome Valentine’s gift ideas you should consider this year.

If you’re still dating…

Camera

If your girlfriend likes keeping memories, a good instant camera won’t fail you. Polaroid-style instant print cameras make a great choice since they have a vintage feel and they’re very portable. She can easily take her camera with her during trips. She can even take pictures of your special day together.

In case your girlfriend is into photography, you can give her something fancy, like a complete camera bundle. You can buy the items separately and just bundle them on your own or you can pick a store that sells camera-related products in packages.

Make sure that there’s an SD Card, tripod, extra battery and a case apart from the camera.

New makeup

Girls can’t resist makeup. Whether it’s another bottle of her favorite foundation or a set of limited edition lipsticks, you won’t have a hard time making her smile this Valentine’s Day.

When choosing makeup, make sure you know what your girlfriend’s skin type is. The right shade counts, too. These things are very important to consider, especially if you are planning to buy a face makeup. The last thing you want to happen is to buy an expensive foundation that’s several shades off.

For a safer choice, stick with an eye shadow pallet. Most pallets come with several shades she can use for work, special events and date nights. There are also lipstick pallets that go on sale during Valentine’s Day.

Pro-Tip: Ask her sister or friend to help you choose the right brand or shades if you’re unsure.

If you’re newly married…

Jewelry

Diamonds are women’s best friend. This, however, doesn’t mean that any kind of jewelry won’t make a good pal. Women like jewelry because they can add style and spice even to a plain and simple outfit.

Pearl jewelry, for example, makes a good choice since it reflects innocence. It can complete a woman’s classic look and may even produce a calming effect. The nice thing about pearls is that they come in a variety of colors and even sizes. Pick one that can reflect your partner’s unique personality.

Heart-shaped jewelry is also a good valentine’s gift. You can pick out the right metal and stone depending on her preference or personality. As for the base, find one that fits your budget. Gold is more durable and long-lasting but it tends to be expensive. Silver looks stylish and it’s more affordable.

A romantic getaway

Just because you’ve already tied the knot doesn’t mean that you can skip the romantic trips you used to take back then when you were still dating. The nice thing about being married when you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day is that it gives you more time to spend with your loved one. You should know her a little bit more, too.

You can go hiking, or book a vacation outside of the city or even out of the country. Imagine yourself sitting in a tropical beach on a warm and balmy day.

There are tons of packages available during Valentine’s Day so you won’t have a hard time finding one. The problem, however, is that a lot of people tend to book on the same season. To save yourself from the stress, decide early on the trip you want to take and book right away.

Apart from booking the trip, it’s a good idea to add in a few surprises, too. You can plan a romantic dinner or pack her favorite bottle of wine. You can call for room service and bring her breakfast in bed.

If you are already married for several years…

A planner

Whether your partner works a 9-to-5 job or she’s a full-time wife/mom, a planner would surely be a great help. It can help her keep track of important things, like your kids’ school play, meetings or due payments.

Apart from helping her remember things and plan her time better, a planner can also decrease her stress level. She can use it as a journal for venting out feelings. Planners are great for keeping memories as well. She can use it to track habits, too.

To make a simple planner more romantic this Valentine’s Day, sneak in a few surprises before you actually hand her the gift. You can block out specific dates in the calendar and plan something special for those days. You can write sweet notes on it, too.

At-home spa

If taking your wife on a spa getaway isn’t feasible, you can try recreating the same experience at home. A foot massage is the ultimate way to pamper her, and the Electronic Foot File with Diamond Crystals from Amopé makes it easy to give her a spa quality foot treatment in the privacy of your own home.

Add some candles and lotion and you have everything you need for a romantic night in. And the best part? This gift lasts long after roses have died and will become a staple in her beauty routine.

In preparing her home spa experience, make her as comfortable as possible by setting the right temperature. Don’t forget to put out warm fluffy towels, a clean robe and pair of slippers, too. Spritz some lavender scent in the air. You can even add some rose petals to make her feel that she is really in a spa salon.

This special day, make your beloved feel pampered, special, and loved. Remember… Happy wife, happy life.

Good luck and may your Valentine’s Day celebration be memorable and unforgettable.

 

The post 6 Best Valentine’s Gifts For Her This 2017 appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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I have a good friend who recently received some bad news concerning his health. A couple of days later, this same friend bumped into a co-worker in the hallway at his office.

When my buddy asked his colleague how his day was going, the guy replied, “It’s OK, but I sure can’t wait until this week is over!”

My friend just nodded and walked back to his cubicle with tears in his eyes. He recognized himself in that sentiment and couldn’t count the number of times he’d wished his days away, just waiting for something better to come along.

What he wouldn’t give, he told me, if he could go back in time and really squeeze the most out of each day and drink in all it had to offer.

Every day is full of the opportunity to make yourself happy right where you are if you’ll only put forth the effort. And, by enabling yourself to enjoy the journey, you might be surprised by how much more productive you become in the process.

With that in mind, here are four ways you can make today a joy for yourself and for those around while also getting more done than you have in years.

Engage

Do you like meetings? If you do, you’re in the definite minority and may be already more contented at work than the average American.

Truth is, most people dread meetings like the tax man, and usually for good reason. Meetings often are boring, and they don’t do much to help you get your job done.

But there’s a little trick you can use to turn every meeting into a stimulating and enriching experience: actively engage.

That might sound corny and idealistic, but it’s a practical tactic that you can put to good use with just a few simple steps:

• Review the meeting agenda ahead of time. If the organizer doesn’t send an agenda, email him to ask for one or politely decline the meeting invite.
• Leave your electronic gadgets in your office. Do you really think you’re so important the world can’t survive an hour without your email replies?
• Arrive early and review the agenda again.
• Greet each meeting participant as they arrive.
• Watch each participant as they speak and try to get a read on their body language as they express their points. How engaged and passionate are they?
• Take notes.
• Add your two cents when you have something valuable to say.

Taken together, these steps won’t eat much more of your day than that hated meeting already would have, but they will make that time much more productive for you. You’ll come away with a better understanding of the issues discussed, you’ll feel like part of the process again, and you’ll strengthen connections with your co-workers.

This advice doesn’t apply to just meetings, either.

If you want to be happy where you are and when you are, make an honest effort to engage in what you’re doing throughout your day, both at home and at work.

See Also: 6 Ways Happiness Can Help You Be Better At Work 

Have a Goal

One of the best ways to engage your situation is to always have a goal for what you’re doing.

In that hypothetical meeting we discussed above, maybe your goal is to ask enough questions that your boss finally explains what he means by “failure is not an option.”

If you’re stuck doing yard work on a beautiful spring weekend, your goal might be to finish cleaning the flower gardens by Sunday afternoon so that next weekend is free.

Once you have a target in front of your face, work tends to go much faster. Even better, it’s infinitely more enjoyable to tackle a challenge in your job or at home than it is to just punch the clock and wait for the bell to save you.

Consider these two scenarios:

You come to work, sit down at your desk, check your email, maybe peck away at a few memos you need to write. If you’re lucky, you can waste enough time to get you to your 10-o’-clock coffee break and then maybe play solitaire until lunchtime.

OR

You come to work, sit down at your desk, and pull up your list of daily goals. The first one is to complete a memo to your boss about a big case you’re working on. You give yourself a deadline of Noon for finishing the report and then dive in to pull together the information you need and start writing

Now, which of the two mornings will make you feel more engaged in your job? Which will leave you with a feeling of accomplishment? And which do you think will go faster?

In almost every case, it’s the second scenario when you’re working toward a clear goal.

Whatever you’re doing, and whenever you’re doing it, set a goal of some sort. Even if you’re “just” mowing the lawn or reading a book, make sure you have a target or you’re just going through the motions.

And that’s a sure road to a gloomy disposition and wasted time.

Solve a Problem

Sometimes our jobs and our home life don’t present clear goals to us. In those cases, you might have to get creative.

For instance, some programming jobs I’ve had are cyclical in nature. The team might work on a project 60 hours a week for six months and then have a two-month stretch when we’re basically just minding the store.

There will be occasional break-fixes during this period, but no heavy-duty development is happening.

How do you stay engaged and set goals during this kind fo “down time”?

Easy … solve a problem!

No matter how bored you think you are or how convinced you are that all of your work is done, there is always a problem — somewhere — that needs your attention. They’re often insidious, too, because we find ways to work around them rather than address them, and that just lets them fester and grow.

For instance …

How about tackling that drippy faucet in your bathroom sink before it stains the basin any further?

Or maybe you could fix that funky display error you noticed on your company’s website a while back but that, for some reason, no one has reported — yet.

Or how about something bigger? You know how your teenage son seems to have grown moodier and very quiet in recent weeks? Maybe you should take him out for a run or to play some catch and see if you can break through that shell to find out what’s going on.

Problems come in all shapes and sizes, so you can start small if you’re intimidated. But actively working on the troubles in your life, whatever they may be, will engage you in the day like nothing else and help you build a happier, healthier future.

Be Grateful

Think back to the story of my friend at the beginning of this piece, and about how he wishes he could go back in time and drink in all the experiences that his job and his life afforded him rather than watching the clock tick away his life.

He wants to fix some of the things he’s done wrong in the past, sure, but he also just wants to the chance to relish the moments that he let slip by.

What he wishes more than anything, though, is that he would have been more grateful for the life he’s lived over these last several decades.

More grateful for his family.

More grateful for his job.

More grateful for his camping trips.

Even more grateful for the Saturday mornings when his wife dragged him into her volunteer activities.

He wishes for this chance at gratitude because he knows now that he won’t always have these things, that they could be gone tomorrow.

But you and I are in a better position than my friend. We have his experience to guide us, and we can learn the lesson from him that he wasn’t able to teach himself until it was, maybe, too late.

Just take a few minutes each day, perhaps in the morning when you rise or at night before you go to bed, to think about all the really good things in your life.

Your family, your job, your house, even your car and your iPad and crisp winter air on a cold January morning.

Make your gratitude more concrete by writing these things down. You can use a Google Doc or a spiral notebook or a cocktail napkin, but just the act of jotting down your blessings will make them more real to you.

Now, after you remind yourself how great it is to have a job in a safe, warm environment with interesting people and steady work, don’t you think it will be easier to enjoy your time in the office? Don’t you think you’ll get more done?

I sure do.

See Also: 9 Baby Steps To Happiness For The Naturally Gloomy 

It’s Later Than You Think

You’re going to die someday and when you do, it will be too late to fix any of the broken pieces you left behind.

It’s easy to get caught up in feeling the impositions of a demanding world and wish for the weekend to hurry up and get here. Or for school to finally be out. Or for the kids to go back to school after Christmas break.

But you don’t have to live this way, and wishing away your life won’t make you happier and it won’t make you more productive.

If you choose to engage in the here and now and relish the opportunities that each day presents, you can enjoy your life — the one you have right now — while moving toward a brighter future.

Don’t wake up one day and wish you had enjoyed the blessings you held in your fingers but were too busy complaining to notice.

 

The post 4 Ways to Enjoy Each Day and Do More With Your Life appeared first on Dumb Little Man.

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