Steven A. Bagen | December 2, 2024 | Pedestrian Accidents
Serious pedestrian accident injuries and fatalities occur when motorists collide with a person. These injuries are often catastrophic and life-altering because they have nothing to protect themselves from absorbing the full impact of the crash. Pedestrian accidents often result in permanent impairment and disability.
If you or a loved one have suffered severe injury or wrongful death, contact a pedestrian accident attorney right away. You’ll want to explore your legal options for financial compensation.
What Are Common Pedestrian Accident Injuries?
Pedestrian accident injuries are a growing public health threat worldwide. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports the global economic burden of motor vehicle crashes and pedestrian accident injuries totals $500 billion. Common pedestrian accidents involve:
- Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs)—concussions, contusions, and skull fractures
- Spinal Cord Injuries—permanent impairments and paralysis
- Soft Tissue Injuries—sprains, strains, tears in muscles, tendons, and ligaments
- Neck Injuries—whiplash, herniated disc, and pinched nerve
- Fractured and Broken Bones—injury commonly experienced in ribs and limbs
- Loss of Limbs—involuntary amputation of hand, foot, arm, and leg
Another significant pedestrian accident injury that is often overlooked is the psychological trauma that injured parties sometimes succumb to after a collision. Psychological trauma encompasses generalized anxiety, post-accident depression, development of phobias, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Types of Pedestrian Accidents
Three primary types of pedestrian accidents exist: motor-vehicle-pedestrian, bicycle-pedestrian, and motorcycle-pedestrian collisions.
- Motor Vehicle-Pedestrian Accidents: The most common type of pedestrian accident. These collisions generally cause the most severe injuries and damages.
- Bicycle-Pedestrian Collisions: Bicycle-pedestrian accidents are less common and usually result in fewer life-altering injuries. These accidents occur in shared areas, such as sidewalks and bicycle paths.
- Motorcycle-Pedestrian Crashes: Motorcycle-pedestrian accidents are the least common of the three. However, they can result in catastrophic injuries due to the lack of barriers protecting the pedestrian or motorcyclist.
If you have been injured or lost a loved one in a pedestrian collision, you must contact an attorney immediately. You’ll want to determine your legal recourse before filing deadlines—and other local statutes of limitations say it’s too late.
Common Causes of Pedestrian Accidents
Pedestrian accidents often occur in crosswalks and parking lots when drivers don’t see them, resulting in collisions. The most common causes of pedestrian accidents include:
- Drunk driving (49 percent of fatal pedestrian crashes involve alcohol)
- Drowsy driving
- Impaired driving (illicit drugs, cannabis, over-the-counter, and prescription meds)
- Distracted driving (texting, talking, scrolling, adjusting controls)
- Aggressive driving (speeding, driving in bicycle lanes)
- Failure to observe traffic laws
- Failure to yield
- Poor visibility
- Road construction
- Street racing
The severity of pedestrian accident injuries also leads to many drivers committing hit-and-runs, which are criminal pedestrian accidents that involve additional steps after securing compensation. If you’re a victim of a hit-and-run pedestrian accident, contact an attorney immediately.
What to Do After a Pedestrian Accident
Injured parties involved in pedestrian accidents must follow an after-accident protocol to ensure health, recovery, and protection of their legal rights. This protocol includes undergoing a medical evaluation, following a treatment plan, documenting everything, and hiring a pedestrian accident injury lawyer.
Undergo a Complete Medical Evaluation
Getting a complete medical evaluation is critical following a pedestrian accident. A healthcare professional will examine you for signs of injuries by:
- Looking for visible injuries like bruising, swelling, and lacerations
- Checking your vital signs for abnormalities indicating injury
- Evaluating your neurological function
- Checking your range of motion
During your examination, the doctor assesses potential internal injuries by applying pressure to sensitive areas to detect tenderness, pain, or deformities. Depending on what they determine during your evaluation, they may order diagnostics and imaging, such as X-rays, MRIs, and CT scans, to diagnose or rule out suspected injury.
Follow Your Treatment Plan
After being evaluated, you will be discharged with an aftercare treatment plan. This plan is vital for ensuring adequate recovery and preventing the worsening of injuries. If your physician limits or restricts your work or daily activities, always follow their instruction.
If you’re prescribed physical therapy, you must do the exercises they give you at home. Pedestrian accident injury claims have a statute of limitations that varies by state. Don’t delay treatment and recovery.
Document Everything
Documenting the details of your accident, injuries, and losses is crucial for proving economic and non-economic damages. The best way to do this is by keeping a post-accident injury journal. Keep detailed entries that describe:
- Your pain levels on a scale of one to ten
- Type of pain (achy, dull, throbbing, sharp)
- Location of pain
- Duration of pain
- Chronic pain
- Activities that make pain worse
- Limitations on daily activities
- Disturbances in your sleep
- Changes in your eating habits
- Emotional distress
- Symptoms of psychological trauma
- Development of substance misuse issues due to prescribed pain management
Injured parties should also document medical and rehabilitation treatments, travel time to and from appointments, and all out-of-pocket expenses. Remember to date your entries and be consistent.
A well-maintained journal documenting damages may help recover substantial compensation for your losses, especially with pain and suffering. However, sporadic entries with little info won’t be as convincing and may hurt your chances of securing a settlement.
Hire a Pedestrian Accident Lawyer
An experienced pedestrian accident lawyer is your best chance at securing a fair settlement for your injuries and subsequent damages. Moreover, it allows you to focus on your medical treatments and recovery. Recovering from your injuries should be your top priority. You don’t have to navigate the complex legal system alone.
How a Pedestrian Accident Attorney Can Help
An experienced pedestrian lawyer will provide peace of mind while you focus on your recovery. That should be your number one priority. Trying to figure out how to handle the claims process on top of recovery can only add stress and overwhelm injured parties. Trusting your injury claim with a legal professional who frequently handles claims like yours, knows the system, and is skilled at negotiations can only benefit your case.
Additionally, they will collect and preserve evidence, work with accident reconstruction specialists, consult experts, calculate your damages, and demand and negotiate compensation. Your attorney can represent your case in court if your pedestrian accident injury claim does not settle in negotiations.
Contingency Fee-Based Representation
One of the most significant benefits of retaining a lawyer who handles common pedestrian accident injuries is their contingency fee-based arrangements. Working for contingency means they do not require upfront fees and only get paid if you do.
Not having to worry about how you’ll pay your attorney should be a substantial stress reliever and help affirm peace of mind. Your lawyer will clearly define their contingency fee during the initial consultation before you officially employ their services.
Evidence Collection and Preservation
Gathering and preserving evidence is a key goal of your attorney’s investigation. This must happen quickly before it disappears or is lost forever, as it is critical for proving negligence and liability. Standard evidence involved in pedestrian accidents is as follows:
- Police reports, including citations for traffic violations
- Eyewitness statements describing the sequence of events
- Video footage from witness cell phones
- Traffic and dashcam footage of the collision
- Photos of the accident scene, including vehicle position, skid marks, and signage
- Paint transfer from the motor vehicle to the pedestrian’s clothing
- Medical records and bills
- Financial documents proving economic losses, such as receipts and lost income statements
If you have gathered evidence, such as the at-fault driver’s insurance information, pictures or video of the accident scene, photos of your injuries, or anything else, bring it to your free consultation with a pedestrian accident injury lawyer.
Your post-accident injury journal is also viable evidence your attorney will eventually retrieve for calculating and proving economic and non-economic damages in your case. Remember, the more detailed, the better.
Accident Reconstruction
Accident reconstruction is invaluable to determining potential causes of the collision. Accident reconstruction specialists will work with evidence from the crash site, including road conditions, skid marks, and vehicle position and damage.
Using scientific principles to analyze the data, they recreate the events leading up to the pedestrian accident. Accident reconstruction experts utilize computer simulations and 3D models to demonstrate visually how the collision occurred. Using mathematics, physics, and engineering, they can determine critical factors, such as vehicle speed and impact angles.
Expert Consultations
Another valuable asset of pedestrian accident lawyers is their extensive network of experts. These experts help verify your injuries’ severity and maximize your claim’s damages with expert testimony. Depending on the nature of your claim, your attorney may consult:
- Medical Experts—surgeons, emergency room physicians, orthopedic surgeons, neurologists, anesthesiologists, OB/GYN, cardiologists, internists, pediatricians, general practitioners, nurses, and other healthcare professionals.
- Rehab Experts—physical therapists, chiropractors, vocational rehabilitation, occupational, speech, and language therapists.
- Mental Health Experts—psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, licensed mental health counselors, and social workers.
- Engineering Experts—automotive, truck, mechanical, civil, chemical, environmental, highway design, and structural engineering experts.
Pedestrian accident injury attorneys also work with economic experts to determine damages in your claim. Individuals needing job modifications or career changes due to injuries may consult vocational experts.
Finally, significantly injured parties who have long-term care needs require the assistance of life care planner experts. Life care planners evaluate the long-term needs of injured parties, such as assistive technology requirements and medical, rehab, and disability expenses.
Calculate Damages
Calculating losses and determining damages involves taking an exhaustive look at all areas where you’ve experienced loss due to the accident. Standard economic and non-economic damages include:
- Medical and rehabilitation expenses
- Disability costs
- Income losses
- Household services
- Pain and suffering
- Loss of consortium
- Psychological trauma
- Shortened life expectancy
Wrongful death has additional damages your attorney may pursue if you’ve lost a loved one due to another person’s negligence. These damages can include final arrangement costs, final medical expenses, loss of financial support, loss of consortium, and loss of inheritance.
Settlement Demands and Negotiations
After thoroughly investigating and evaluating your claim damages, your lawyer will draft and send a demand letter to all liable parties. Generally, the liable parties are the insurance companies of the at-fault motorist, bicyclist, or motorcyclist. The demand letter is the starting point for negotiations.
Most insurers won’t issue a check for the amount demanded without entering rounds of negotiations to minimize their payment. However, experienced attorneys are skilled negotiators and will demand fair compensation for your injuries and damages.
All offers presented will be discussed with you. While the decision is yours on whether or not to accept or deny a settlement offer, your attorney will advise you.
Court Representation
If negotiations to settle your pedestrian accident injuries claim prove unsuccessful, initiating further litigation may become necessary. This process involves filing a lawsuit and taking your case to court. The litigation process includes these general steps:
- Discovery Phase—exchanging evidence and depositions from both sides
- Pre-Trial Motions —legal tactics intended to resolve certain aspects before trial
- Trial Proceedings—opening statement, witness testimony, evidence presentation, closing arguments
- Verdict—the judge or jury will consider the evidence and issue a decision to award or withhold damages
While legal representation in court is an invaluable service provided by pedestrian accident attorneys, it’s uncommon for these cases to go to court. Most claims are settled outside of court to minimize time and money. This practice greatly benefits injured accident victims.
Schedule a Free Consultation With a Pedestrian Accident Attorney
Schedule a free consultation with a local lawyer with experience handling common pedestrian accident injuries—claims and lawsuits. Remember to have a list of questions ready for your meeting, as you want to hear answers before you hire an attorney. Examples of questions you might ask include:
- Do you work on contingency?
- What are your fees, and how are they structured?
- Will I owe any money if you do not win my case?
- How likely is it that my pedestrian accident will go to trial?
- Do you have experience handling cases like mine?
- What are my cases’ strengths and weaknesses?
- What is your proposed strategy for my case?
- How long do you think it will take to settle my injury claim?
- What is my role in the process?
- What should I do to avoid jeopardizing my claim?
You should never face your pedestrian accident injury claim alone. Contact a personal injury law firm in Gainesville, FL, to represent you right away.