Dr. Gulitz To Lead Panel Discussion on “The Ins and Outs of Personal Injury”

As many of my avid blog followers are already aware I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with two clinics in Baltimore City. My clinics focus on treating and rehabilitating acute musculoskeletal injuries, such as those typically experienced in Baltimore auto accidents and Baltimore work-related injuries. We also treat patients without acute injuries. Our patients typically present with a myriad of symptoms that include but are not limited to: headaches, neck pain, back pain, radicular neck pain, and radicular lower back pain, etc. Having been a practicing Chiropractor since December of 2008, I have directly participated in the diagnosis and treatment of thousands of personal injury/auto accident patients both in Las Vegas, Nevada and Baltimore, MD. I suppose that makes me somewhat of an expert on the “ins and outs” of personal injury.

The Maryland Chiropractic Association, in an effort to provide more value and support to its constituent chiropractors, started a program called MCA University. This program is meant to attract younger chiropractors in Maryland to attend a series of two hour lectures on a variety of subjects that they may not have a lot of knowledge about, in hopes of supporting them early in their careers as chiropractors in Maryland. The purpose is also to allow for some degree of mentorship – where younger less experienced chiropractors can reach out to colleagues with tons of experience to help them avoid mistakes and pitfalls early in their careers. It is also meant to drive membership in the MCA. I wish this program was available when I was originally licensed in Maryland!

The MCA University courses started a few weeks back with a course in physical therapy. The remaining courses focus on personal injury, med-legal issues in practice, practice building, and billing. Next Thursday I will be leading a panel discussion on the “Ins and Outs of Personal Injury” alongside personal injury attorneys Ross Albers (The Law Office of Ross Albers) and Adam Smallow (The Law Office of Adam M. Smallow). We will discuss personal injury from the perspective of the treating provider as well as personal injury from the perspective of the attorney representing the injured party. It is our hope that lecture attendees will leave with a very clear understanding of how to appropriate diagnose, treat, document and manage injuries typically seen in cases of Baltimore personal injury auto accidents.

Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic is proud to have Dr. Gulitz represent the clinic during this brief lecture series. We are glad that he is being recognized as an up-and-coming leader in the profession in Maryland.

New iOS11 Feature “Do Not Disturb While Driving”

As my avid blog readers are already aware I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with two Baltimore chiropractic clinics in Baltimore. We treat patients primarily with headaches, neck and back pain. Sometimes these patients just wake up with stiff necks and stiff backs, other times they are injured playing sports, and even more commonly we see Baltimore auto accident injury patients with these symptoms. Lately we’ve seen an uptick in the number of Baltimore car accident patients that we have been treating in my clinics. I suspect that is due to “relaxed” summer work schedules, vacations, and people wanting to get out and enjoy the nice weather we’ve been experiencing.

I came across an article on the internet that I thought was appropriate for the blog. It deals with the release of iOS11, apples soon-to-be-released next operating system. As people with iPhones already know- as soon as the next iphone gets released with the most up-to-date operating system, older versions of the phone are eligible to update their software as well. Typically there are minor improvements over past updates but once in a while major changes come to the phones worth noting.

When iOS11 rolls it it will have a new feature enabled called “Do Not Disturb While Driving.” Simply put, it is a feature that will sense through blue tooth if you are in a vehicle and it will purposely prevent notifications from reaching you in a car. These notifications appear to be only related to app updates, text messages, and social media updates. I believe phone calls can still come through (to be answered over blue tooth). The purpose of the new feature, as you can imagine, is to keep drivers eyes on the roads and focused on driving rather than staring at a screen.

Apple further notes that even if a phones blue tooth is not engaged it can tell how fast you are moving and it will automatically engage the feature over a certain speed (some estimates are approximately 13 mph). Sure, many people could argue that most traffic in Baltimore never seems to move faster than 13 mph, but I am sure Apple will have a work around for that.

For passengers on a bus or other motor vehicle that are not driving there is an option to press an “I’m not driving button” to disable the feature. That way your designated Pokemon catchers and text message relayers can continue what they were doing despite the fact that the car is in motion.

Apple had recently come under fire for not doing enough to prevent distracted driving. This appears to be their attempt at limiting how many messages can get through to drivers while operating motor vehicles. It’s important to note that this feature is not a “total lockout” of distracted driving. Any contact that is text messaging the driver can use the word “urgent” and it will bypass the feature and alert the driver. Additionally, any contact listed under a “favorite” can bypass the block as well.

At the end of the day, we all share these streets and we owe it to ourselves and our fellow motor vehicle drivers to pay attention and keep our eyes on the road. I appreciate that apple is making this easier for us (I too, have glanced at my phone while driving) but it will come down to the end user to determine if this feature has its desired benefit of limiting Baltimore auto accidents due to distracted driving.

If you, or someone you know, has been injured as a results of a Baltimore car accident, and require treatment for your injuries, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to get your back to feeling like yourself again!

Dr. Gulitz

Baltimore Amongst Least-Safest Driving Cities in America

As a Baltimore Chiropractor with two chiropractic clinics in Baltimore, MD we see more than our fair share of musculoskeletal complaints. We treat patients with headaches, neck pain, and back pain. In many instances these are our friends and neighbors who play weekend sports and suffer back pain from sports injuries. In many other cases these are our friends and neighbors sitting at a red light in traffic before they get unexpectedly rear-ended by the vehicle behind them driven by a distracted driver. No matter the proximate cause of neck and back pain in Baltimore, Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic has emerged as one of the leaders in Baltimore City and Baltimore county in diagnosing and treating acute neck and back pain injuries.

Each year All-State releases a report of “America’s Best Drivers”. It lists 200 cities in America from safest to least safe in terms of: average years between claims, relative likelihood of claim compared to national average, number of “hard-braking events”, and it ranks all of these cities relative to population density and while accounting for climate conditions.

Before we get to the cities who fared the poorest, lets talk about the winners.

The top 5 safest cities in America are:
1. Kansas City, KS – with an average of 1 crash per 14.9 years
2. Brownsville, TX
3. Madison, WI
4. Huntsville, AL
5. Cape Coral, FL

Now for our “not top 5”, or “Worst Driver’s In America”:
5. Springfield, MA
4. Washington, DC
3. Worcester, MA
2. Baltimore, MD
1. Boston, MA – with an average of 1 crash every 3.6 years

So what does this data tells us?

It appears that the worst cities in America to drive in are in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. Baltimore and D.C., the two major metropolitan regions we serve here, are amongst the worst cities to drive in in the country. I have written similar blog posts in the past regarding the previous years All-State save driving reports. These previous reports seem to indicate the same reasons why, over and over, the same cities appear to have higher crash rates and an increased likelihood of motor vehicle collision.

1. City infrastructure – Anyone who lives in an older city is aware of the tight city streets designed more for horse and buggies than for cars. Additionally, if these other top 5 worst cities are anything like Baltimore they have crumbling city infrastructure with tons of pot holes and that can lead to swerving and poor driving practices.

2. Population density – As the baby boomers and millenials each move to cities in droves population spikes quickly without the resources to account for increased motor vehicle congestion on the roads. If you think parking in Canton after 5 pm is bad, try parking in Boston around Fenway during a Red Sox game.

3. Distracted driving – When was the last time you pulled up to an intersection, glanced over at another car, and didn’t see the other drive glancing down to look at their phones? I see it all the time. A famous online though leader Gary Vaynerchuck recently opined that billboards are or will soon be obsolete because something like 60 percent of drivers are texting and driving. I don’t know if that statistic is true but it wouldn’t surprise me. This also would account for people driving with a cell phone in their hand – which is illegal in Maryland.

4. Poorly planned or executed mass transit – I suspect that NYC would have faired far worse on this list but for its well developed mass transit infrastructure. Although I think the Baltimore LINK bus improvements will help with congestion and traffic, an underground rail would alleviate some of these problems. I don’t know how feasible this mass transit solution would be in older cities such as Baltimore and D.C., but the point is where there are people in cars there are crashes. And where there are crashes, there are injuries.

That’s why the team at Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic is here to help. We treat injuries from motor vehicle collisions and car accidents all day every day. If you, or someone you know, has been injured in a car accident in Baltimore, and has suffered headaches, neck pain, or back pain from a car accident please contact us at (443) 842-5500. We will do our best to get you seen today. We provide on-site digital x-rays and we work closely with local medical physicians if you require a referral for medical care.

So put your phone down and drive safe!

Dr. Gulitz

Changing Bus Routes For Our Patients

As a Baltimore Chiropractor with two Baltimore Chiropractic clinics I pride myself in having easily accessible clinics so that patients can get the care they need quickly and go on with their lives. I’ve never been a proponent of long waits to see our providers. One of the most important considerations when I chose both of my clinic locations was accessibility to public transportation. That is, I wanted to be in highly visible densely populated areas that could serve the masses. In doing so, I made sure that both of my clinics were located on major bus routes. For years, The Fells Point location was served by the #10, #30, and the #13. For the four months that the Park Heights location has been open we were serving the #54, #18, #44, and #53. As time went on certain routes became discontinued and as of 2015 Governor Larry Hogan proposed a major overhaul of the entire MTA system in Baltimore and the surrounding communities, creating Baltimore Link. The goal was to get rid of antiquated and outdated routes and to decrease the congestion especially downtown during peak transit hours.

Baltimore Link went live on Sunday June 18th. That means that all of the familiar routes as listed above no longer exist. Instead, they have been replaced by other new Baltimore Link routes that are supposed to be faster and run more frequently. I have not yet received much feedback from our patients about how they are liking the new routes. I have, however, received a lot of questions about which bus routes will now provide access to the clinics.

I went to http://mta.maryland.gov/baltimorelink to learn more about the Baltimore link project and I found a handy tool called “what happened to my route?”By clicking on it it provides hyperlinks to each individually numbered route and the new Baltimore link route that replaces it. I am going to list out the new routes that serve our offices, but just know that you can do the same for any route if you are curious. Also, you can type in a starting address and ending address and it will integrate with google maps to tell you exactly which routes to take, and where to change, to get there the fastest.

So in no particular order here are the new routes that serve my Baltimore Clinics:

Fells Point Office

#10 – Will be replaced with City Link Navy (NV) (Eastern Ave.)
#13 – Will be replaced with City Link Gold (GD) (Washington St.)

Park Heights Office

#54 – Will be replaced by Local Link #85 (Park Heights Ave.)
#18 – Will be replaced by Local Link #92 (Park Heights Ave.)
#43 – Discontinued
#53 – Will be preplaced by Local Link #83 (Reisterstown Road) – This route used to run on Fallstaff Road but will no longer be running on Fallstaff Road.

While these bus route changes can be confusing to regular riders, the MTA has pledged to have hired extra help to explain the new routes to passengers over the next few weeks as they get accustomed to the changes. Hopefully the routes will indeed be faster and will lead to less congestion. Only time will tell I suppose. But one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to being accessible to our patients.

If you, or someone you know, is in need of chiropractic care in Baltimore City or Baltimore county please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to tell you which bus routes you can take to get to our offices quickly.

Dr. Gulitz

PIP – The Medical Benefit With No Copay And No Deductible

As many of my blog followers are aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with two offices in Baltimore City. We treat a lot of patients with headaches, neck pain, and back pain. In about half of our patients, these headaches, neck pain, and back pain symptoms result from whiplash due to an auto accident. Typically these patients are sitting at a red light when their vehicle suddenly gets rear-ended. Alternatively, some are driving through intersections with green lights allowing them to do so when their vehicles get violently T-boned by other motor vehicles that fail to yield the right of way. The symptoms of each patient differ depending on their human metrics (age, male vs. female, fit vs. unhealthy, etc), preparedness and awareness of the impending crash, and their vehicle metrics (small vs. large car, etc).

One thing that most of our whiplash patients have in common is their ability to pay for their care with PIP insurance. I have spoken about this insurance benefit several times in my past blog posts. PIP stands for Personal Injury Protection. It is an insurance benefit that you pay for every month if you elect to have PIP coverage in Maryland. Typically PIP is written in amounts of $2,500, $5,000 or $10,000. The PIP benefits are meant for all reasonable, customary, and usual fees associated with auto accident injuries. This includes, but is not limited to, hospital visits, ambulance rides, x-rays and other forms of advanced imaging, chiropractic care, physical therapy, and orthopedic evaluation. It also covers up to 80% of lost wages following an accident if an injured party is placed on temporary work disability. The lost wages payment component is one reason why professionals should care more than the legal minimum amount of coverage on their policy. (How would your finances be impacted if you didn’t work and receive wages for two weeks?)

While these benefits of PIP are well known, the most important part of PIP is that it is a medical benefit with no copay and no deductible in the State of Maryland. My last blog post featured a situation in which a prospective new chiropractic patient asked if we could summarily waive his copay. He said that if we did (his old chiropractor in another state would do it all the time) then he would choose our office for chiropractic care and that if we didn’t he would go elsewhere. I told him that it was illegal for us to waive his copay unless he could prove financial hardship. Needless to say this individual took his business elsewhere. And I understand that. That’s his business and I’m not particularly interested in committing fraud or violating my health insurance contract for a stranger.

If you’ve been injured in a Baltimore auto accident injury and you have PIP, these same issues of copays and deductibles DO NOT APPLY to you. That is, from visit one, you owe no money out of pocket and you have no copay and no deductible for these benefits. These PIP benefits kick in day one with no additional cost to you. (I say no additional cost because if you’ve paid for PIP benefits you’ve already paid for these benefits).

Let me repeat that – in a complex health insurance world where there are rising deductibles and copays and coinsurances there exists only one medical benefit that I can think of that doesn’t require to you to participate financially in paying for your medical care while you are recovering from your injuries and seeking chiropractic care and/or physical therapy. And that is PIP (Ok, technically MEDPAY would also allow for no out of pocket expense in the case of an auto accident injury, but that’s a discussion for another blog post). Every month when you pay for your auto insurance, provided you’ve elected to pay for PIP coverage, you are paying for this benefit. If and when you are injured you can “withdraw” from this fund up to the fund limits, typically $2,500.

The premiums for PIP are very reasonable. I personally carry $10,000 in PIP benefits on my policy and I pay about $100 a YEAR for these benefits. I strong suggest that anyone driving on the roads in the Baltimore City/Baltimore County metropolitan area consider reviewing their policy to determine if they have PIP coverage. It’s only a matter of time until you might need it. And as the saying goes with insurance – its only expensive if you need it and don’t have it.

If you, or someone you know, has been injured as a result of a Baltimore auto accident, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We will be able to tell you what PIP benefits may be available to you to help pay for your care while you treat for your injuries. We would be happy to provide this auto insurance policy evaluation service to you free of charge.

Dr. Gulitz

Can You Waive My Copay?

As my avid blog readers are already aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor with two offices in Baltimore City. Both of my offices focus on providing the best Chiropractic care in Baltimore City and the surrounding Baltimore County. We are happy to treat anyone with headaches, neck pain and back pain. Most of the time my providers and I are able to reduce or eliminate the symptoms of pain and suffering in our patients. When we can not, or if a patient has a condition that is outside the scope of our practice to treat, we refer these patients to other qualified healthcare professionals.

One of the questions that gets asked a lot in my clinics is a question surrounding co-pays. Copays, or co-payments, are the payments that a patient has to make at the time of service so that the provider can see them. Depending on the health insurance plan that a patient has, these copays can range from $10 to $50 per visit. So if we end up seeing a patient 2-3x/week for an acute injury the out of pocket cost for this patient can be anywhere from $20-100 or more per week. I am aware that given the high premiums that we all already pay for health insurance that an ADDITIONAL $20-$100 per week can be a large burden for a patient who just wants to have their pain eliminated so that they can go back to their normal activities of daily living. That is why we seek to eliminate pain and restore function in our patients as quickly as possible – time and money are both limited and we do our best to save our patients both.

What patients of our Baltimore chiropractic offices likely do not know or understand is that a copay is not determined by the chiropractic or doctors office that is collecting it. Instead, a copay is determined by the health insurance company. That is, we as providers have no control on what your copay is, or for that matter, whether or not we can collect it.

When a patient signs up for health insurance (whether it be through a group plan at work, or on the individual market), they sign a contract that details everything that the health insurance company will pay for and everything that it will not pay for. In the fine print it also says what the copay and deductibles for any given plan will be. As healthcare providers who provide care for these patients and then bill these third party insurances, we ALSO have a signed contract with these same health care plans. Our contracts FORBID us from routinely waiving copays on behalf of their insureds. That is because they want patients to have a financial stake in the game when it comes to receiving health care benefits. It stands to reason that the patients will be more selective about spending money for health insurance purposes if they have “skin in the game” and have to pay a copay on each visit.

There are circumstances around which we can waive a copay- but these are largely financially based and the office would have to have the patient fill out a “financial hardship” waiver. We have done that from time and time and are happy to do so when the situation arises. However, we can not simply waive a copay because a patient wishes to not pay for it. Nor can we waive a copay because you are a pleasant patient who has been receiving treatment on and off in our facility for years. Doing so would harm the insurance company and would potentially put the healthcare provider at risk for losing its contract with a health insurance provider. That is not something that I feel comfortable with.

While I can appreciate patients, or for that matter, prospective patients who tell me that “their chiropractor out of state” would routinely waive their copay, I usually tell them the same thing. I explain as I did above that we are legally obligated to collect the copay from the patient at the time of service. I also explain that if they can’t afford it, I would be happy to have them fill out a “financial hardship waiver.” I further explain that if having my office collect their copay makes it unappealing for them to present for care then I do not wish to see them as a patient, and I wish them luck seeing treatment elsewhere.

If you have health insurance it is relatively easy to find out if you would owe a copay for chiropractic services in Baltimore City and Baltimore County. You can even call the front desk staff at each of my offices and ask them to check for you. They would be happy to do so. However, if it is determined that you owe a copay my staff and I can not just waive it for your because you ask nicely. Doing so is a violation of a health insurance contract and could be met with fines for the office. We would be more than willing to take great care of you, but only if you meet your end of the bargain and pay your copay.

If you have questions about copays and whether or not you would have to pay a copay at the time of your Chiropractic evaluation in Baltimore, please call my front desk at 443-842-5500. The staff would be happy to answer any questions that you have.

Dr. Gulitz

Lyrica No Better Than Placebo For Low Back Pain With Sciatica

A recent study out of the New England Journal of Medicine on March 22, 2017 indicates that a widely prescribed drug used against sciatica may be no more effective than placebo. The study found that the amount of improvement that sciatica patients felt was the same whether they were given Lyrica (pregabalin) or a placebo for their back and leg pain. You can read about the study here.

In my Baltimore chiropractic clinics we routinely treat patients that have sciatica. Often these patients are being co-treated by their primary care physicians, pain management specialists, and/or orthopedists for their lower back and sciatic pain. While I am in no way suggesting that patients taking these medications discontinue their use (as Chiropractors we can not advise our patients on the use of medications), I do suggest that in light of these findings sciatic patients should discuss these findings with their medical providers and determine if the continued use of these medications is appropriate.

Sciatica refers to inflammation of the sciatic nerve – a large nerve that runs down the back of the leg. Everyone has two sciatic nerves, one of the left side and one on the right. In some instances patients with sciatica have only pain down the back of their legs. In others, they also present with numbness, tingling, or weakness down their leg in addition to pain. There are many different causes of sciatica, with the most common being irritation of the sciatic nerve such as by a bulging or herniated lower back intervertebral disc.

After studying more than 200 sciatica patients who were randomly assigned Lyrica or a placebo and were followed up over a course of up to eight weeks, the study’s author concludes “we do not recommend the use of pregabalin in people with sciatica.” Patients originally included in the study rated their sciatic pain at around a 6/10. Following the eight week study, whether participants were given Lyrica or a placebo the average pain score at the end of the study was down between 3 and 3.7 regardless of which pill was taken. It is important to note, however, that those participants that were given Lyrica did report more side effects compared with the placebo group.

These findings are interesting to me and my associate Baltimore chiropractors since we routinely treat patients with sciatica. I typically suggest that patients should try a short course of chiropractic care (2-4 weeks) followed by referral to other specialists for further evaluation and intervention. Corticosteroid injections and/or advanced imaging may be appropriate down the line if a short course of chiropractic care does not help with the sciatica.

If you are experiencing sciatica and would like to try some non-drug and non-surgical efforts to improve or eliminate your sciatic pain please call Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to help!

Dr. Gulitz

NSAIDs and Ibuprofen Have No Significant Effect on Back Pain

As a Baltimore Chiropractor that spends his clinical time treating patients with headaches, neck pain, and back pain, I have nearly 9 years worth of experience treating patients with back pain. Although as a chiropractor I can not and do not recommend the use of medication to treat mechanical lower back pain, I routinely discuss with patients the alternatives to medication for their acute lower back pain. We discuss stretches, exercise, moist heat, yoga, swimming, and of course, chiropractic manipulation therapy. Baltimore is a blue collar town with lots of my patients working in construction, as police officers, or in restaurants as back of the house staff. Routinely I am told by these patients that even though chiropractic care feels great on their necks and backs, they often have to depend on NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs) such as ibuprofen to get through a shift and make it through the day.

Recent research indicates that the NSAIDs and ibuprofen that they take just to get through the day offer little, if any, clinical pain relief for these patients. Research conducted by Professor Manuel Ferreira from the University of Sydney seem to suggest that not only do these drugs offer only very limited short term relief of pain that is “arguably not of any clinical significance” but “when you factor in the side effects which are very common, it becomes clear that these drugs are not the answer to providing pain relief to the man millions who suffer from this debilitating condition every year.” You can read the article here.

In spite of this research, it will take time for clinical guidelines recommending NSAIDs to change. Currently guidelines recommend paracetamol, followed by NSAIDs, followed by opioids.

Given the risks associated with NSAID ingestion, such as stomach ulcers and bleeding, it is important to note that back pain sufferers have choices besides pills to help with back pain.

If you, or someone you know, is suffering from back pain and have been taking NSAIDs and you want to try a safer, non medicinal approach to back pain relief, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We will discuss what options are available for neck and back pain relief without the side effects. We would be happy to help!

Dr. Gulitz

I-83 Pepsi Sign Continues to Contribute to Baltimore Auto Accident Injuries

As a Baltimore Chiropractor, I spend the majority of my clinic time treating patients with headaches, neck pain, and back pain. About half of the patients that we treat have been injured in Baltimore auto accidents. Typically these patients were running errands or commuting to and from work on seemingly normal days when their lives were changed forever as a result of an auto accident.

As part of our intake process we try to determine what it is that brings a patient into the office (i.e. Baltimore auto accident, Baltimore worker’s compensation injury, sports related injury, over-exertion, etc). When we evaluate a new Baltimore auto accident injury patient, we ask more questions and we typically try to determine where the patient was driving prior to their crash. For nearly 4.5 years now I have been seeing an alarming trend where many of our patients are being injured on I-83 “near the Pepsi sign” in Hamden. Many daily commuters know that stretch of the elevated highway, where the road bends ever so slightly and speed limits are only 50 mph. Now that we are a few weeks away from opening our second clinic location in Baltimore (6810 Park Heights Avenue Suite C4, Baltimore, MD 21215) I routinely take I-83 to drive between the two clinics. Nearly each day I see either near miss crashes on this stretch of the highway, or I see an actual crash with paramedics racing to the scene to help injured parties.

I read an article in the Baltimore Sun this past week that addressed the topic of auto accidents on I-83 near the Pepsi Sign. It is estimated that there are between 250-300 crashes on I-83 each year. Over the course of the year it averages out to nearly one per day. The JFX is thought to accommodate over 100,000 driver’s daily. State officials have become increasingly concerned with the number of Baltimore auto accidents that occur on this stretch of highway. As a result they have commissioned a $65,000 study to determine problem areas over the highway and to develop some solutions to these problems.

While it is thought that less than favorable geometry, tight curves and high traffic volume are thought to be the major contributors to the sheer number of crashes on the highway, no formal study has yet been conducted to conclude if these are the reasons for the crash. Further, state officials suspect that most people driving on I-83 are traveling faster than the posted speed limit of 50 mph because they are used to traveling faster on the 695 Beltway. Additionally, as I noted in previous blog posts, elevated roadways can freeze before surface roads, which leads to more icy crashes in temperatures at or near 32 degrees.

City officials are trying to have Maryland State Police extend their jurisdiction to I-83, whereas right now it falls under Baltimore City Police jurisdiction. City officials want the Baltimore city police to focus on more pressing issues such as crime and drugs and feel that the Baltimore city police are spread to thin having to responds to I-83 Baltimore auto accidents. However Maryland State Troopers reportedly oversee over 200 miles of highway and are strained as it is.

Whether you are a city resident and use I-83 for your daily commute or just someone who comes to the city on weekends for the great entertainment and night life, we all need to do our part to obey the posted speed limit of 50 mph on the JFX. The old infrastructure and winding roads lead to an abundance of Baltimore auto accidents and we all need to do our part to slow down and help our commutes move along smoothly.

If you, or someone you know, has been injured as a result of a Baltimore auto accident injury, please call Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to help!

Dr. Gulitz

Meet China’s TEB-1, is it a cure for road congestion and will it help to decrease auto accident injuries?

As all of my avid blog readers are aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor that spends the majority of my clinic time diagnosing and treating ailments of the head, neck, and back primarily. Although I am not limited to diagnosing and treating injuries just within the spine, these are the types of injuries that we typically see, especially given the high number of Baltimore auto accident injury patients that come through the doors every day. Since I focus my clinical practice on injuries associated with Baltimore car accidents, I try and stay up on news both locally and globally about how we can cut down on road congestion and how we can decrease or eliminate injuries resulting from auto accidents.

A few months ago I came across an idea out of China that I found interesting. A Chinese company created a “flying bus” in what is being called TEB-1, or Transit Elevated Bus-1. In many ways it is more like a tram than a bus, since it is affixed to a track below. The TEB-1 stands at about 16 feet tall and can straddle two entire lanes of traffic, while still clearing the roadway below by approximately seven feet. The passenger compartment is said to be roomy as it is approximately 72 feet long and 26 feet wide and capable of holding in excess of 300 passengers at a time. It has been stated that as many as 4 of these TEB-1s can be combined together almost like a train and they can hold over 1000 passengers at a time in that configuration.

While it is certainly something to behold visually, the question remains whether or not it can work in very congested cities in China. And furthermore, the question is whether or not major metropolitan areas in the U.S. would accept it as a means to decreasing road congestion and resulting injuries.

There are just a few problems remaining with the TEB-1 that need to be overcome before we can expect to see it in our neck of the woods

1. Clearance – At just over seven feet of street clearance, this device is just too short to traverse our roads with so many trucks and SUVs. It seems like an easy fix to raise it up another few feet, though.

2. Designated lanes – It would potentially be very costly to rework the framework of most major American cities to install the tram that the TEB needs to roll on. And how to we designate which lanes the TEB will operate in and where motorists can drive in or out of the lanes? That, in addition to the fact that it allegedly can not make 90 degree turns makes this bus seem more like a distant possibility than a short term reality.

3. Power – The TEB is an electric vehicle. While great for the world given its small hydrocarbon footprint, there will be some problems surrounding how to keep it charged enough to make its rounds each day. There has been some discussion about whether or not outfitting the TEB with solar panels will help ease its electricity demand, but some engineers suspect that it will have to be recharged at each stop in order to make all of its rounds on a given day. Who knows, maybe Elon Musk can engineer its batteries?

4. Cost – The estimated cost to construct at TEB is approximately 4.5 million dollars. That’s considered pretty expensive given that its approaching the cost of 11 emissions free buses that can ride around off of a designated track. That is, it may be a solution that is not currently better than what we are already accustomed to using.

I, for one, enjoy engineering marvels and I hope that we can see improvements in mass transit in major cities such as Baltimore. I would support any technological development that decreases road congestion and the likelihood of Baltimore auto accident injuries.

If you want to see some videos of the TEB in action click here or here.

In the meanwhile, if you, or someone you know, has been injured in a Baltimore auto accident and have headaches, neck pain or back pain, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to help!

Dr. Gulitz

Rolling Barrier System Sets Out to Reduce Car Accident Injuries

As my avid blog followers are already aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor and I spend the majority of my clinic time treating patients injured in Baltimore auto accidents. Typically I see patients that were rear-ended and are experiencing post-traumatic headaches, neck pain, and back pain related to their Baltimore car accidents. I enjoy following news trends around vehicle safety as it impacts my practice on a daily basis. In the last blog post I discussed the deadly crash in Baltimore that started with a gas truck falling from I-95 after striking the retaining wall after hitting a patch of ice. I found myself wondering if higher retaining walls would have done more to protect the driver and payload from plummeting to their deaths onto the train tracks below.

While I don’t have an answer for that question, a Korean company has unveiled a product that I believe might have helped that driver and the other 67 drivers that were involved in subsequent crashes last saturday. The company called ETI (Evolution in Traffic Innovation) created a “rolling barrier system” that they hope will help to cut down on the approximate 1.25 million people who die as a result of an automobile accident injury each year on the roads.

The idea behind the new product is simple – it is set to replace all of the hard metal guard rails that exist across every major roadway. The hard metal guard rails that can be seen anywhere attempt to stop a car or truck from crossing a median and slow them down instantly. What that means for the passenger is that the deceleration forces on the body get transferred to the occupants (the passengers), often resulting in more severe injuries, and in some cases, death to the occupants. It also helps to guide the crashing car forward and out of the way of the damage behind it, thus preventing fewer rebound crashes.

The rolling barrier system would replace the existing hard metal guard rails. They would help the occupants to “ride down” the crash by continuing to roll the vehicle forward and decelerate over a longer period of time, thus decreasing the forces on the body, and hopefully, decreasing the likelihood for injury or death as a result of these crashes. Its an idea that’s so simple I find myself wondering why I never thought about it first!

The rotating cylinders of the rolling barrier system are made out EVA, which is said to have better flexibility and elasticity compared to other polyethylene resins and has many features similar to rubber. These characteristics make it extremely durable and hard to damage even with a crash. Further, each individual roller is relatively simple to replace following a crash.

So far the Korean company has crashed small cars, large cars, and buses into the rolling barrier and they have been able to do so successfully without the vehicles ripping the rolling barrier system out of the ground and without going through or over the rolling barriers.

I suspect a lot more work needs to be done to test these rolling barriers, but the idea is novel and it appears to work. Given their ability to reduce injury due to automobile accidents and their ability to reflect headlights at night, I would welcome them onto the roads that I routinely travel. Check out some cool crash videos demonstrating the rolling barrier system here.

If you, or someone you know, has been involved in a Baltimore auto accident injury and require help to recover from your injuries, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to help!

Dr. Gulitz

Winter Storm Causes Deadly 67-Vehicle Car Accident In Baltimore

As all of my avid blog followers already are aware, I am a Baltimore Chiropractor that spends the majoirty of my clinic time treating acutely injured Baltimore car accident patients. Typically these patients present with axial spine pain (headaches, neck pain, and back pain) from acute whiplash injuries as a result of Baltimore car accidents. This week was fairly normal for us in the clinic, as we saw about another dozen new Baltimore auto accident injury patients. The weatherman was calling for snow and freezing rain Friday night into Saturday, and I predicted that the adverse road conditions would likely cause there to be more crashes. Unfortunately for the citizens of Baltimore (where I also reside) I was correct, as we saw the first major storm of the season cause a 67 vehicle pile up on I-95 Northbound near Washington Boulevard in Southwest Baltimore. Several people even lost their lives due to the horrific conditions.

By now we have all seen the cell phone video capturing the moment the gas tankard hit the retaining wall on I-95 and fell below the elevated highway to the train tracks below, exploding into a fireball almost instantaneously. While it looked like the action out of a Hollywood blockbuster, it was unfortunately real.

What happened after that was a domino effect as other vehicles, traveling too quickly under icy road conditions continued to crash around that turn. By the time the dust settled nearly 67 vehicles were involved in a chain-reaction crash that unfortunately took at least two lives. Even for hours after the event it became clear just how difficult it would be for emergency vehicles and police to get to the scene to help the injured and the stranded.

As a result of these horrible Baltimore auto accident collisions I thought it would be a good idea to explain what causes roads to be icy and how best to drive on those conditions in order to maximize safety.

Firstly, icing on roads is a condition that occurs when we have ambient temperatures at or near freezing. If you have a phone or car that alerts you to the outside temperature, always be cautious when the temperature is approaching freezing, since it is possible for ice to appear on bridges and elevated roadways without ice being visible on your car. In order for ice to form and stay on roads, the roads need to be at or below freezing temperature. So while there may not be frozen ice on your driveway or on your city commute on surface streets, it is still possible for bridges and elevated roadways (such as I-95) to get icy before the main roads do. This is because cold air impacts both surfaces (above and below) elevated bridges and roadways and as a result they freeze much faster than do roadways on the ground. I strongly suspect that drivers on I-95 had a false sense of security while driving on the road since they did not realize there would be ice on the highway. I have driven that stretch of I-95 hundreds of times and I am not sure if there are any signs indicating that it is an elevated highway. I will have to look the next time I’m over there.

Here are some tips on how to drive on icy roads if it can not be avoided:

1. Avoid it all costs – I know this is not much of a tip, but when the meteorologists tell you to stay home unless it is absolutely necessary, you should heed the warning. We want to be able to give city crews time to ice the roads and we also want to give emergency crews plenty of space to work to help those who have become injured or stranded.

2. Slow down! – Most people I know travel faster than the speed limit. But remember, the speed limit is for optimal driving conditions. If it is raining, sleeting, or icy, it is imperative that we slow down to below the speed limit to help prevent us from carrying too much speed from which we can not slow down or stop.

3. Get your vehicle checked out – Prior to impending snow storms, make sure your vehicle is in the best shape possible. Make sure your traction control is functioning properly, your antilock braking mechanism is in working order, and that you have snow tires available if you really must travel.

4. Wear your seat belt – Even if you are obeying these rules of the roads, that does not mean that all drivers are. As a result you should be wearing your safety belt at all times to help restrain you in case of an impending Baltimore auto accident. Besides, its the law and you should be wearing it under all driving circumstances.

5. Don’t stop to help those that are stranded – This one seems counterintuitive. We all want to be good neighbors and help those in need. The problem with stopping to help someone stranded due to icy or snowy conditions is that you may inadvertently cause a rubbernecking issue which can then lead to more vehicles crashing. It is best to simply call 911 and have emergency crews block the road and help the stranded motorist themselves, as they are trained in how to do so safely.

6. Avoid hills when possible – Despite your best efforts, when gravity takes over no amount of braking can stop “what goes up” from “coming down.” This is why it is best to avoid the roads altogether if you know or suspect that it may be very icy or snowy.

This 67 car crash is a terrible event and unfortunately many people were injured and some were even killed. My condolences go out to the friends and families of those who were killed. We all must do our part to obey the rules of the road in order to help lessen or eliminate unnecessary risk while driving.

With that being said, if you or someone you know, has been injured as a result of the 67-car pile up in Baltimore on Saturday, please contact Mid-Atlantic Spinal Rehab & Chiropractic at (443) 842-5500. We would be happy to help you on the road to recovery.

Dr. Gulitz