Are Kentucky Roads More or Less Safe Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic?

A recent report in the Lexington Herald-Leader says one bright spot in the COVID-19 pandemic has been fewer fatal car accidents on Kentucky highways this year, due to the state’s three-month lockdown.

Kentucky highway fatalities this year are the lowest they have been in five years, according to the newspaper’s June 11 report. The 258 highway fatalities reported by Kentucky State Police this year reflected a 16 percent drop compared to the 306 recorded by the same date last year.

Traffic on Kentucky Roads During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear shut down businesses and public activities in March due to the spread of COVID-19, and highway traffic immediately fell.

“Similar to nationwide trends, traffic volumes decreased as Kentuckians followed state and national guidance by telecommuting, avoiding crowds and limiting trips to essential travel,” Chuck Wolfe, a spokesman for the state Transportation Cabinet, told the Herald-Leader. “The first recorded traffic count drop we saw began the week of March 8 and traffic counts have been lower each week since when compared with the counts from the corresponding weeks in 2019.”

Weekly traffic counts in Kentucky during the economic shutdown declined by a range of 18 to 41 percent.

As stay-at-home restrictions have begun to ease and some businesses have been re-opening, traffic has climbed. The state allowed some health care services and facilities to re-open April 27. For the week starting Sunday, April 26, traffic was down 33 percent compared to 2019. More businesses reopened May 11 and Kentucky’s highways got busier. The traffic volume count was down only 26 percent the week of May 17, according to the Herald Leader’s count.

Road Safety on the Nation’s Highways

Kentucky’s decrease in traffic deaths in early 2020 puts the Commonwealth ahead of the nation for the first third of the year.

Nationwide, deaths on the road are up an estimated 2 percent through the first three months of 2020 compared to last year, a National Safety Council (NSC) news release says.

The NSC calculates a 14 percent jump in fatality rates per miles driven in March across the U.S., in spite of an 8 percent drop in the total number of roadway deaths compared to March 2019.

“Disturbingly, we have open lanes of traffic and an apparent open season on reckless driving,” Lorraine M. Martin, NSC president and CEO, says in the release.

“Anecdotal reports indicate speeding, for example, has increased significantly since traffic diminished,” the NSC says. “Some states are also moving forward with ill-advised roadway tactics intended to address the COVID-19 pandemic … that could have far-reaching consequences. Among them are repealing requirements for teen drivers to pass road tests before acquiring licenses and relaxing hours-of-service rules for commercial vehicle (truck) drivers.”

Nationally, the transportation-data firm Inrix said travel had the largest rebound of the COVID-19 pandemic during the week of May 16 to 22. Personal travel was down 19 percent for the week compared to typical traffic vs. 25 percent below normal the week before.

At its worst fall-off nationwide, personal travel was down 48 percent the week of April 4 to 10.

As traffic increases, reckless driving is increasing. Data analytics company Zendrive titled a May report “Mobility Amidst Lockdown: Every Minute on the Road is Riskier.” From March 16 to April 19, Zendrive found a 27 percent increase in speeding, a 25 percent rise in hard braking and a 38 percent increase in cell phone use among drivers compared to the five weeks prior to the nation’s first stay-in-place order.

“With the decline in traffic, some drivers saw empty highways as an open invitation to speed while being distracted by their phones,” the Zendrive report says. “With the increased desire to stay informed about the evolving circumstances and the well-being of loved ones, people are interacting with their phones more than ever. As a result, phone usage while driving has increased dramatically.”

Exercising Caution on the Roads During the Coronavirus

To help ensure safer roads, the NSC urges motorists to:

• Follow state and local directives and stay off the roads if officials have directed you do to so. Many states continue to ask drivers to stay home except in emergency situations or for essential errands. Gov. Beshear’s “Ten Rules to Reopening” begin with 1) Continue telework where possible, and 2) Phased return to work.
• Obey speed limits, even if roads are clear and traffic is light.
• Be aware of increased pedestrian and bicycle traffic as people turn to walking and biking to get out of the house during the pandemic. Conversely, pedestrians and bicyclists should remember that reduced traffic does not mean no traffic and should use caution when crossing or walking in streets.
• Practice defensive driving: Buckle up, designate a sober driver or arrange alternative transportation, get plenty of sleep to avoid fatigue, and drive attentively, avoiding distractions – such as cell phones.

Contact a KY Car Accident Attorney

Increased traffic on the roads as Kentucky re-opens is bound to lead to more car accidents. If you are injured in a car accident caused by someone else’s negligence or recklessness, you have legal recourse. You may have a right to seek compensation for your medical bills and other losses, including your pain and suffering. A car accident attorney at Morgan, Collins, Yeast & Salyer in Kentucky can help you evaluate your legal options.

We’ll demand full compensation for your losses and stand by your side and fight for you to receive every penny you deserve. That’s Kentucky Courage.

Contact Morgan, Collins, Yeast & Salyer at (877) 809-5352 to set up a free legal consultation. Find out how Kentucky Courage can help you make yourself financially whole after a serious car accident. We have eight offices across Kentucky to serve you from. Call now.

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Kentucky Goes Further in Guaranteeing COVID-19 Workers’ Comp Claims

Kentucky is a leader among more than a dozen states that are guaranteeing workers’ compensation payments to certain workers who have contracted the COVID-19 coronavirus while on the job.

Gov. Andy Beshear issued an executive order on April 9 that paves the way for immediate temporary total disability payments (TTD) to covered employees “removed from work by a physician due to occupational exposure to COVID-19.” Typically, a worker must be out of work for eight days before being eligible for temporary disability benefits for each lost day of work afterward.

Claims Journal, an insurance industry publication, says at least 14 states have issued administrative orders or legislation requiring that workers who claim they were sickened by COVID-19 receive a fair hearing, if not an outright presumption in their favor when it comes to workers’ compensation claims for coronavirus.

While most orders refer to healthcare workers, emergency responders and certain other front-line workers, Claims Journal declares in a separate article that, “Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear pushed the envelope furthest” in making workers’ comp benefits available. He extended the presumption of eligibility for workers’ comp benefits related to Covid-19 to include workers in grocery stores, child care centers and domestic violence shelters and other occupations.

Under Beshear’s executive order, Kentucky’s workers’ compensation program will presume that a physician’s order that an employee not report for work is due to occupational exposure to COVID-19 if the employee is an:

• Employee of a healthcare entity
• First responder
• Corrections officer
• Grocery worker
• Postal Service worker
• Military service member
• Activated National Guard member
• Domestic violence shelter worker
• Child advocacy worker
• Rape crisis center staff member
• Department of Community Based Services worker
• Childcare worker permitted by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to work in a limited duration center during the coronavirus state of emergency.

Essentially, if you or a loved one work in one of these occupations in Kentucky, all you may need is a doctor’s note to qualify for immediate workers’ compensation benefits. Others are to receive benefits if there is a causal connection between the conditions under which the work is performed and COVID-19 and it naturally follows that exposure to coronavirus is a result of job duties.

If your employer or its insurance company balks at paying you workers’ comp benefits you qualify to receive, an experienced workers’ compensation lawyer at Morgan, Collins, Yeast & Salyer can help. Contact us today. We can give you the Kentucky Courage you need to fight employers and insurers who try to withhold benefits provided by law.

Understanding Workers’ Compensation And Illness Benefits

Workers’ compensation is state-mandated no-fault insurance coverage that most businesses in Kentucky are required to have to protect employed full- and part-time workers in Kentucky. The primary workers’ comp benefit for a worker who has become ill on the job is payment of all medical costs and partial replacement of lost wages. Workers’ comp pays a portion of lost wages and other benefits for specific disabling illnesses or injuries.

If you suffer from an occupational illness and are employed in Kentucky, under most cases you should never see a bill or make a co-pay for medical care related to that illness. All medical payments for work-related injuries and illnesses are the responsibility of your employer and will typically be paid by a workers’ compensation insurer.

Kentucky workers receiving workers’ compensation benefits also have the right to select a doctor to care for them without input from their employer. In many states, the employer chooses the employee’s doctor or offers several approved providers to choose from. But a Kentucky worker can choose their primary care provider, and that physician may also refer the employee to additional medical care providers, if necessary.

Some employees receive medical care through a managed care program offered by their employer’s healthcare insurance program. In these cases, an ill employee receiving workers’ comp would be required to choose an in-network physician as their primary care provider. However, the employee would still be allowed to seek a second opinion from an out-of-network doctor for major recommendations, such as surgery, and workers’ comp should pay for it.

How Do You Know If You Have A Legitimate Case For Workers’ Compensation?

If you work in certain occupations in Kentucky during the coronavirus pandemic and are told by a physician to stay out of work, you are to be presumed to be out of work because of an occupational exposure to COVID-19. This makes you immediately eligible for workers’ compensation benefits.

Guidance from the Kentucky Labor Cabinet says an employer can only deny payment of benefits if the employer has evidence “forming a good faith basis for denial.” For example, the guidance says, “if a grocery worker’s spouse tests positive for COVID-19 and the worker is removed from work solely due to that exposure, the employer may deny the claim since the evidence rebuts the presumption that the exposure was occupational.”

If you are employed in another occupation not listed above and have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or directed to self-quarantine by a physician due to exposure or potential exposure to COVID-19, you will need to demonstrate an occupational connection to the exposure to qualify for workers’ comp benefits. The employer or the workers’ comp insurer is supposed to promptly investigate the claim and may deny payment if there is a good faith basis for doing so. The Labor Cabinet’s example of a deniable claim is a physician’s order that lacks an explanation for occupational exposure.

Gov. Beshear’s order greatly reduces the burden for establishing occupational exposure by requiring only a “casual connection” between your work and a COVID-19 exposure that could naturally occur due to the nature of the work. An example might be additional diagnoses of COVID-19 among your co-workers or a client or customer who could be identified and whose proximity to you or your workstation could be established.

The KY Labor Cabinet applies the expansion of workers’ compensation rights retrospectively to April 9, 2020. It should be understood that any workers’ comp benefits for lost wages may be offset by unemployment benefits received during the same period or by any money received as paid leave under the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act.

Let Our Lexington, KY, Workers’ Comp Lawyers Help

Kentucky workers have certain rights to workers’ compensation benefits during the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. If your employer tries to deny the benefits that you are eligible to receive by law, an experienced workers’ compensation lawyer from Morgan, Collins, Yeast & Salyer can give you the Kentucky Courage you need to stand up and fight for the full benefits available by law.

Don’t fight alone. Contact us today to set up your free legal consultation. We will not charge you a legal fee if we do not recover money for you.

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