Fort Lauderdale Car Accident Attorney Blog
If you got into a serious car accident, would emergency responders know who to contact? Well, now they might be able to. It’s the Emergency Contact Information (ECI) program through the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles (DHSMV). It allows drivers to register up to two people who they would want to be contacted in the event of an emergency. This information is only available to emergency responders when needed.
Currently, there are close to 17 million people who hold a driver’s license or an identification card in the state of Florida. Unfortunately, only about 6 million of them have their emergency contact information on file with the department. To get more people in Florida to join, officials are holding “Register Your Emergency Contact Information Week.” It’s going on through the first week of October.
Our Davie car accident lawyers are urging residents to get involved and to get their emergency contact information on file. If you’re not participating in this program, there’s a chance that it could be hours before your loved ones are notified of an accident, like in the case of Tiffany Olson who the program was named after. She was involved in an accident back in 2005 and it took officials six hours to contact her mother because this information was not readily available. Following the accident, Tiffany’s mother, Christine, and State Representative Bill Galvano worked to create this database.
Unfortunately, not every car accident is a fender bender. There are times in which these accidents leave a motorist incapacitated and unable to help emergency personnel contact family. That’s where the program comes in. It takes a lot of the guess work out of determining who needs to know about your condition.
It’s such a beneficial program that it has been nationally recognized. We were the first state to put this kind of system in place, although many other states have since follwed. Back in March of 2009, the program was recognized as one of the 50 most innovative government programs.
If you would like to join the program and register your information, all you have to do is visit a driver’s license office. You can also do it online.
“Our troopers and other law enforcement agencies handle more than 200,000 crashes per year. A portion of those involve fatalities and serious injuries,” says Julie L. Jones with the DHSMV.
In 2010, there was an average of 650 car accidents in the state of Florida each and every day. In these accidents, there were close to 2,500 people who died. That’s the families of 2,500 people who needed to be contacted after the accident. There were also more than 195,000 people who were injured, some of them seriously injured. Make sure officers and other emergency responders know who you would want contacted in the event of a serious accident. Register your information today!
If you or a family member has been involved in a car accident, contact the injury lawyers of Freeman, Mallard, Sharp & Gonzalez, LLC for a free consultation to discuss your case. Call 1-800-561-7777 today!
More Blog Entries:
Child Passenger Safety Week Kicks Off, Parents Listen Up!, Fort Lauderdale Car Accident Attorney Blog, September 19, 2012
Driving on the Job: South Florida Car Accidents and You!, Fort Lauderdale Car Accident Attorney Blog, September 18, 2012