The United States is covered by a vast wealth of highways, city roads, and country lanes, but the unfortunate truth is that sometimes, these roads are not entirely safe due to drunk driving and distracted drivers, and truck accidents and pedestrian accidents may happen as well. When this happens, a victim of a car accident can hire a personal injury lawyer to handle their legal case and get settlement money from the at-fault party’s insurance company, since this process can be tricky and difficult, if not outright impossible, without a personal injury lawyer lending his or her expertise. What to do after an accident? After a person’s health is stabilized, he or she can enlist the aid of a personal injury lawyer who works at an auto accident firm and begin litigation against the at-fault party.
Rates of Road Injury
Tragically, many Americans are injured or even killed on roads every year in various conditions, and motorists, bicycle riders, and pedestrians are all potential victims of these accidents. Around the world, over half of all road traffic fatalities happen to younger adults aged 15-44, although senior citizens in the United States may also come to harm. In the United States, in the year 2015, an estimated total of 32,166 fatal motor vehicle crashes took place, and many other people get injured every year due to drunk or distracted driving. Even motorcycle riders are not safe; motorcyclists made up 14% pf a;; traffic fatalities and 4% of all people injured due to traffic accidents in the year 2013, although rates have gone down; in the year 2015, 88,000 motorcyclists were injured on the road, down from 92,000 in the year before. What can cause these accidents? For one thing, a too-high blood alcohol content (BAC) will impair a driver significantly, while a less known but similarly deadly conditions is distracted driving. Personal call phones are a significant culprit, often where the user is sending text messages or talking in phone calls, although being occupied with the car’s dashboard features like the radio or CD player also constitute distracted driving. Even driving when exhausted can make a motorist dangerous, since they have slowed reflexes and a weakened attention span.
Personal Injury Attorneys at Work
There are a number of reasons for a car accident victim to find and hire a personal injury lawyer. For one thing, the victim is probably very angry and upset, and is impatient and not thinking rationally or clearly, while an attorney will act and think in a clear and objective manner necessary for any case to move forward productively. What is more, a personal injury knows the law and how to use it in a court case or other litigation against the at-fault party and their insurance company, and can maneuver past some obstacles that may come up. Sometimes, the at-fault party’s insurance company may act in bad faith and pay below the amount the victim calls for, or refuse to cooperate at all. This can stonewall a car crash victim acting alone, but an attorney can overcome it to get the desired results.
A car crash case may get more complicated if more than one party stands to be blamed or was hurt by the accident, and assigning blame for the accident and distributing compensation money can be complicated and difficult in this case, but personal injury lawyers will know how to handle it and make sure that their clients receive what they want. A victim, once they recover enough from their injuries, can search local law firms, especially those that deal with car accidents, and get consultations from the attorneys there (which may or may not involve a fee). The potential client can select a lawyer whose skills, experience, and educational background are satisfying to the client, and the two of them must trust each other and cooperate so their case can go forward.