The Vehicle Code in the State of California requires all the drivers including their passengers to wear their respective seatbelts every time they travel. No one is exempted from such rule that aims to prevent or at least lessen the occurrence of serious and fatal injuries in case a car collision happens. All of those who will be caught violating this law will be subjected to an offense.
The California government believes that seatbelts indeed, save lives. This is the main reason why sufficient signs and billboards have been situated on our roads and highways, allowing the motorists to understand the value of seatbelts. Their slogan “Click it or Ticket” makes a lot of sense and creates a slight decrease in the number of injuries and fatalities caused by vehicular accidents.
In spite of this, traffic accident occurrences seem to be unstoppable. Thousands of people are still involved in various car mishaps everyday. Due to this, the victims in order to seek justice and recover suitable damages for their injuries or loss of a loved one are filing numerous car accident claims in courts.
Under the law, the failure to wear seatbelts in traveling may jeopardize or limit a victim’s right to recover damages from the liable party after a road collision. This is because the law believes that the victims might not have incurred much damage if only they were able to buckle-up.
The law maintains that whosoever individual who has been neglectful in exercising due prudence, which can brought about risks to other people, should be accountable for the harm that resulted. A person’s failure to wear seatbelt constitutes negligence on his part. Thus, this carelessness may be considered as a ground that forbids him to recover damages from the other party, no matter the degree of his fault in the accident.
Many defense lawyers utilize the same rationale especially if their clients accepted their fault in the accident. They thoroughly determine whether the plaintiff has committed any violation in order to nullify the case. If they were able to prove the comparative fault of the victims, the courts would most likely repeal the case filed against their clients.
Nonetheless, any personal injury action will have better probability of gaining a positive result if the plaintiff are assured that he has not been neglectful in exercising due care in his dealings – that he has not committed any offense.
By: Rainier Policarpio
Posts Tagged ‘Car Collision’
Failure to Wear Seatbelts Prevents Car Accident Recoveries
February 6th, 2010When Should You File a Lawsuit After a Car Accident?
January 22nd, 2010
An experienced lawyer knows the importance of timing when it comes to settling car accident injury claims. But before getting into the details of when to file and the tactics used by some insurance companies, a quick look at car accident statistics in Compton, California may help.
Car Accidents in Compton Cause Daily Tragedies
Statistics compiled by the California Highway Patrol’s Statewide Integrated Traffic Records System (SWITRS) showed that in 2006, nine people lost their lives and 359 people were injured in Compton car crashes. Three pedestrians were killed and 27 were injured in motor vehicle mishaps. And bicycle accidents injured 18. In addition, motorcycle accidents killed one and injured 20 people. Those who insisted on drinking and driving caused four deaths and 38 injuries. During 2007, eight car accidents resulted in as many fatalities. The following year, nine car collisions caused nine deaths.
Timing is Key when Settling Car Accident Injury Claims
Successful Compton car collision lawyers know that timing can mean the difference between a fair compensation settlement, an unfair one, or none at all. While you certainly want to make sure that your injuries are thoroughly diagnosed and treated, you don’t want to let the statute of limitations – two years in California – expire. Do that and you lose your rights and an insurance adjuster will tell you that the insurance company won’t have to pay you for your injuries or your losses.
Waiting too long for filing your lawsuit leaves you open for another tactic employed by insurance companies–the insurance adjuster becomes hard nosed and/or hard to reach during the last 90 days before the statute of limitations runs out. What they’re counting on is your eagerness to settle at this point, and that you’ll accept a much lower settlement sum. As the filing deadline nears, they hope that you’ll lose the patience and personal fortitude to even file a lawsuit.
This tactic is most often used when dealing with clients who are not represented by a car accident lawyer or with law firms that rarely go to trial. Adjusters are fully aware of law firms that simply settle out of court and they suddenly become hard to reach and even tougher to bargain with.
By: J. Bisnar
Noteworthy Pieces of Evidence in Car Collision Accidents
January 12th, 2010
Every morning before going to work, while taking out your car, you hope not to become involved in a very inconvenient traffic problem or worse, an accident with other cars or vehicles.
Unfortunately, once you are out on the road, you only have control of your car and not anything else happening in the highway, especially not the other drivers. Thus, accidents, even if you pray hard not to happen, are quite unpredictable.
With this in mind, it also pays that you should know what to do when you indeed become involved in an accident.
If you happen to become involved in a car accident like car collisions or crashes with other vehicles, the details of which somehow found its way into newspaper and television reports, you have to take advantage of this opportunity of having qualified evidence taken by professionals.
Unless you have a degree of liability or fault in the accident, you have all the right to file for car accident claims and recover for the damages you suffer. Thus, you can use these live pieces of evidence to show the damages you have sustained. As we all know, you have to gather as much information as you can regarding the accident. Having this featured on print media and TV is a decided advantage in your favor in order that you gain more information about your accident.
Here is what you can do:
• Scour local and national newspapers and check out if their articles gave a detailed and accurate account of the car collision / crash.
Clip the articles that have details of the incident.
Locate other articles that feature events related to the day you had your car collision accident. You might get some articles that mentioned something about the weather on that day. Check out those articles that came out specifically on the day of your accident. You can also clip some information related to what you think had caused the accident, like road works or construction.
Once you cut out any articles from newspapers, make sure that you do not forget cutting, pasting it together with the date, page, and name of the newspaper. You can also note such information at the top article of the newspaper.
• Pictures are very good evidence. If you failed to take pictures of the scene where the accident occurred, it is a good idea that you find photos of it along with scouring for articles. Furthermore, look out for pictures about the crash.
It is possible that there are accompanying pictures in the articles about the accident. If you do not find anything at all, you might also try contacting the newspaper offices for pictures they have taken but was unable to use.
If it turns out that they do have unpublished photographs, make it a point to request permission to visit their office and pick up some copies.
• Look out for TV coverage of your car accident. Some accidents are quite spectacular for the media that the incident could have major television news or TV traffic report coverage.
If your car collision accident happens to get TV coverage, exert some effort to have it taped. You might be given a new perspective on what happened due to the angle on how the video shot was taken.
These are but some of the valuable and valid information that could immensely help in building up your car collision accident case. Make sure to give copies to your car collision lawyer too.
By: Carla C. Ballatan