I read about a driver from Northwood, Iowa accused of hitting a 7-year-old girl who was walking to a stopped school bus in rural Worth County. She later died from the injuries. The driver of the truck or car is alleged to have fled the scene and one man was later arrested. The Iowa State Patrol investigated the accident. The ISP report is no longer available so I can't really analyze what is in it. Mostly what I have to go on is the KCCI - Channel 8 news report. [See Driver Pleads Not Guilty In Death Of Iowa Girl, October 1, 2011, KCCI.] Of course this being an ongoing investigation and no one having either plead or being found guilty I'm not at liberty to say whether the man accused is the person who was driving the vehicle that killed the young girl, but we can discuss the investigation of this type of an accident.

These are interesting cases for an Iowa personal injury lawyer, because they provide a challenge that is very satisfying to accomplish. Being able to help parents bring a perpetrator to justice is a reason we stay in this business. Being able to prove drivers leave the scene because they've been drinking and driving and then proving what bar sold and served the booze to them is equally challenging. Drunk drivers run and hide because they need the booze level in their blood to decrease hoping the evidence will not allow them to be convicted of both vehicular homicide and civil wrongful death. Each carries significant penalties. Being able to put one of these cases together successfully is without question a welcomed and quite satisfying challenge. None of it is easy, but when it's done right the results can be quite satisfying.

• As lawyers having lived in the trenches of battle in an out of the courtroom we know the ins and outs of these cases and how difficult witnesses can be. They aren't easy to put together and many times the town bar crowd will not help us prove their friend and drinking buddy was drunk having just left the local tavern. 
• As tort-reform advocates the parents of children killed by drunk drivers quickly become schooled in the errors of their ways. 
• As voters we should always be mindful of the golden rule. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. If we can help, call us, and call us early. Many times if we can just see where the evidence is being gathered it can be preserved. Let it go cold and the case goes by the wayside. 
• As parents of children killed by the local town drunk here is the list of those who would take away your right to collect insurance money from the local tavern. 

ATRA: The American Tort Reform Association - A front for big corporations that will make more by you having fewer avenues to address wrongs. Do you realize this organization will not disclose who gives it money? If they've changed their policy of not telling us where their money comes from I'll withdraw this statement. Have you changed and become transparent?  Without that information I'm left to wonder if this organization receives money from Communist Chinese manufacturing interests that dump crappy products on this country. Products that poison our kids with lead paint. Poison those who drank milk products that poisoned Chinese infants with a chemical used in manufacturing to harden composites. And junk products that don't work as they were supposed to work and causing the user or other workers injuries. Why won't the ATRA release the names of those that fund its operations? What's so secret about who is backing them? Is it Iran, North Korea or Venezuela? Who knows maybe they received money from terrorists. After all the goal of most terrorist organizations is to bankrupt the USA. In my opinion the work of the ATRA is to bankrupt us morally.