FAQ Friday with Gregory Herrman & Christian M. December 22, 2017

to frequently asked questions Friday today what we're going to do is instead of doing frequently asked questions I'm gonna introduce one of our newer leaders here at the firm for people that don't know and we're going to talk a little bit about our scholarship which we just had so the scholarship not drawing but contest so this is a Christian menses he's new attorney you want tell us about yourself Christian I went to Michigan State Law School I was born in El Paso been in Corpus now for a total about three years and undergrad I graduated from UTEP and El Paso what would you why did you go to Michigan for the law school I wanted to get out of Texas try something different as well as honestly they gave me a really good scholarship something that I could not deny so when did you come back to Texas I graduated in May 2016 so yes that's when I came back and then I studied for the bar passed the bar in November 2016 and been practicing since okay and you was over your first job and started here at Herrmann in April this year 2017 and what did you want to get into personal injury law personal injury I myself was in a car accident back in 2009 I had an attorney who helped me out and I find that this is an area of law that sometimes people will need help with they're not able to deal with insurance companies on their own terms companies don't want to cover medical expenses and I give them anything for pain and suffering I found that this is a good way to help out as many people as possible and it's something that we need on a daily basis because we all drive cars okay so we had a annual scholarship and I'm gonna announce the winners today I'm not going to tell you what who's first second or third we'll save that for next week we're gonna do do something with that but I'm gonna tell you who the winners are in they're not in this order so I mixed the order up so just because you hear your name first or the last room in the middle doesn't mean you're first second third so one of the winners is Lauren skip more or more from Lexington Kentucky another winner is Micah Stewart from Indianapolis Indiana and the third winner again these are not and that particular order is actually from Beeville Texas Zachary merino so good job you guys everybody else that entered I'm sorry you didn't win but you can enter again for next year and you three stay tuned for next week and we're going to get a hold of you and we're gonna let you know who got first who they've got second and they've got third we're gonna present you with your money so anyway so Chris you know we can talk just a little bit about the scholarship contest it was basically he had to write a write an essay on autonomous driving vehicles how's that going to change change your life change society what's that going to mean for us and these folks all brought up some good points and so we thought we just go over a few of them and one of the points was I said hey man this is really can affect you guys it's personal injury lawyers because accidents may become hold on less frequent if you got you robots drive cars so Christian what's your opinion about them I think it is possible especially when the technology advances but I have actually seen one case that has to come up it was without one of the Tesla cars that's sort of autonomous it can keep within one lane and it was sort of it became a it came up to a blind spot where an 18-wheeler was across the highway and he didn't spot it so it just went straight on and it ended up causing actually a death but I think obviously as technology advances it might be possible that there will be a lot less accidents than there are now because it will start doing away with some human error so that I think it is a possibility yeah I would end and I think what you can just turn a lot of just regular personal education into products liability cases because now you're suing the you know the manufacturer of the vehicle yeah the question is gonna become who is liable now yeah and then also you know I think like I've got some stuff on my vehicle that like it same thing is supposed to stop in front of a car if it gets too close but it doesn't always work or you think it's supposed to work but I accidentally disengaged it when I wasn't when I didn't mean to so I think that could still be my error because I thought I had it's called Distronic so I thought had the Distronic on and I didn't I disengaged it and so you know I'm I'm cruising along and I'm not I'm not really paying that's good I think the cars gonna stop for me and it doesn't yeah so I think there may be a lot of host type of cases - yes which brings up another point that was made is somebody simple who's to blame in an accident if you have to if there's two autonomous vehicles and they do have an accident or if you have an autonomous vehicle and/or ones I promise ones not there an accident it would be to blame and that's in that kind of scenario yeah I guess um some people might start to try to blame at least the the company that developed this technology such as the car manufacturer or whoever they're usually for this technology but then again it's the driver themselves you're the one supposed to be driving the car so you need to be careful you need to be on the lookout you can't just be relying on the technology and then blame it when it fails all of it actually does fail you might have a case against the manufacturer of the vehicle or the software yes for malfunction could be a sensor fails or radar fails or something on there so you you know ever does that yeah I think it's definitely gonna be a new area of law a lot of interesting things are gonna come up in the next few years robot law ok another point was made was organs being donated they said hey if there's less actions unless people getting killed and there's less less organs to be donated which what's your thoughts there I think this is a big possibility obviously there's a lot of deaths from car accidents and a lot of them are organ donors but on the other hand I'm seeing with a new technology they're starting to develop organs with with them computers things like that so maybe that'll even now if in the end you gonna think they didn't grow certain organs now - with stem cells and stuff yes that'd be a wonderful they've just grown grow your own you know your kidneys fail just go a kidney in the lab and replaces okay then the other point was the price of cars will increase with the technology do you have an opinion there I think so especially during the first few years I think the first autonomous cars will be have a nice price tag coming with it but as the other manufacturer started to compete the prices will eventually even out so I think at first there will be a spike but um it will eventually even out and then once an Amazon comes in they'll force all the persons okay and then finally somebody said you know you think there's gonna be a slippery slope of human dependence humans dependent on technology that's a valid point they start becoming reliant on these things you just hop in your car maybe tell it to take you to work and you maybe even multi tasking during it so I think it definitely is um because new technology it's easier ways to do things you find ways to multitask things like that so I think that's a good buy the point yeah quite a couple of examples on the front of members but a couple years ago there was a Japanese Air flight crash going into San Francisco Airport and it just crashed just short of the runway and the kind of in the water half in the water half on the runway because that Airport sits on like a peninsula and the conclusion of the National Transportation Board that supervises that they decided that the pilots had gotten too dependent on what's called air pilot the pilot said the pilots again so depend on now pilot even to land the plane that when suddenly something went wrong with it they didn't know how to land that plane and it was really human error that caused crash because they weren't capable line in a plane because they've been so dependent on letting the plane land itself yes so I think that's a wrong example the other example is again back to me I notice I get kind of lazy in my car because I've got all these things like you know the Distronic that slows you down I've got Lane Assist I got alerts I got all this stuff that happens and like if I go to another town and I run a car you know I'm like why isn't the car slowing down why isn't alerting me that I'm switching lanes or why didn't alert me this means in my periphery and I move over and I forget you know oh yeah this car doesn't have all the stuff my car has and when I first start driving I'm kind of a disorder I'm kind of a hazard out there until I start to remember oh yeah yeah yeah you know this is this is olden days now yeah Drive no vehicles so anyway well Christian any additional thoughts or comments you want to make before we close things out here okay all right well I I did what everybody we're not going to be on next week and I'm not sure about the following Friday yet still other stuff on my schedule on you to do but hopefully for not on next week will be on the week after that if not and be the following for sure so thanks thanks for it again thanks for tuning in for how about Freaky Friday and I'm glad you got to meet Christian so thanks