Accident Terms and Definitions

Years of Potential Life Lost (YPLL)
Calculated based on the following equation: YPLL = Fixed Age - Age at death. Usually the fixed age is 65 or 70, or the life expectancy of the group in question.

Accident
What auto insurance is designed to cover. Accidents may be considered either at fault or not at fault. If you have at fault accidents on your driving record, your rates will be higher.

Comparative negligence
Negligence of a plaintiff in a civil suit which decreases his recovery by his percentage of negligence compared to a defendant's negligence.

PT - Physical Therapy
the evaluation, assessment, and treatment of dysfunction caused by injuries to the soft tissue and muscles/skeleton . Treatment shall consist of therapeutic exercises, education and other modalities, such as the therapeutic use of heat, light, water, electricity, massage & more.

Advanced Frontal Airbags
Advanced frontal air bags are designed to meet the needs of the occupant in a variety of specific crash situations. Depending on design, advanced frontal air bag systems automatically determine if and with what level of power the driver frontal air bag and the passenger frontal air bag will inflate.

Cause of action
A legal claim. Certificate under penalty of perjury - A written statement, certified by the maker as being under penalty of perjury.

Arbitration
the hearing and settlement of a dispute between opposing parties by a third party whose decision the parties have agreed to accept.

Blood alcohol testing
At all levels of blood alcohol concentration, the risk of being involved in a crash is greater for young people than it is for older people (Mayhew 1986). In 2001, 25% of drivers ages 15 to 20 who died in motor vehicle crashes had been drinking alcohol (NHTSA 2002b).

Triangulation
Technique for scene documentation where items of evidence are located by measuring the distance between two (2) reference points.

Common law
Law which derives its authority solely from usage and customs of immemorial antiquity or from the judgments and decrees of courts. also called "case law."