Declarations

Neck Deep

“He was driving in almost neck-deep water and trying to control the bus while it was floating.”

—Rhonda Ho, operations manager for Canyon Coach Lines, said a tour bus owned by the Las Vegas-based company was being driven by Joseph Razon, who saw a car right in front of him go through a section of the highway covered by some water. Flash flood waters swept the bus with 33 people aboard hundreds of yards down a wash in northwestern Arizona on July 28 and the vehicle flipped on its side, but no one was injured.

Online Shopping

“The Internet provides consumers easy and quick access to many websites that offer to save them money on auto insurance.”

—New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance Commissioner Ken Kobylowski’s comment on shopping for auto insurance online. But he cautioned that while some of these sites are legitimate, others can be fake websites, scams or firms that are offering inadequate coverage or very limited benefits. He advised consumers to take precautions and be careful in providing personal information online.

Dangerous Month

“The good news is many of these injuries are avoidable, and business owners can take advantage of risk management tools that help them build effective safety strategies in the workplace.”

—Kim Bittle, regional vice president of Travelers Insurance, which reports that August is the most dangerous month of the year when it comes to on-the-job injuries in Texas. According to an analysis of Travelers’ claims data from the past two years, Texas employers filed more workers’ compensation claims in August than any other month, and most are from injuries that may be avoided, including strains, sprains, lacerations and contusions.

False Alarms

“The bad thing about false alarms is it can tend to make officers complacent. … That’s a dangerous situation if you think it’s going to be false but it turns out to be a good alarm where someone’s broken into a residence or a business.”

—West Des Moines, Iowa, Police Lt. Jim Barrett comments on the danger to police officers of false burglar alarms. Des Moines started charging for false burglar alarms in 2008 and collected $138,000 for nearly 2,397 billable false alarms last year. Of the 3,806 burglar alarms that Des Moines police responded to in 2012, 90 percent were false.