Accidents caused by a defective road, bridge, or tunnel design are rare, but when they happen, the results can be catastrophic. When incidents like these occur in Atlanta or elsewhere, they have proven to be headline-grabbing on a national scale.
Deaths and serious injuries are extremely likely. In some cases, the defect is allowed to persist for years before a government intervention forces the design or engineering of the roadway to change.
Fighting for compensation after an injury or death related to a defective roadway can be extremely challenging. In most cases, you will be up against a public agency, which has more legal protections and a claims process with much tighter deadlines than a typical injury case.
Hiring a defective road accident lawyer to help you build your claim and carry it toward completion can be an extremely prudent move.
The CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm has experience helping road accident victims seek the highest amount of compensation available for their medical bills and other damages. We work with you to develop a legal strategy with a high chance of success, and we use our knowledge of state, federal, and municipal government claims to ensure all paperwork is complete, accurate, and filed on a timely basis.
Let us help you manage your complex claim and seek the money you need to fully recover from your accident. Our Atlanta injury attorneys are available for free case reviews with no obligation.
Schedule your free consultation today when you call (404) 777-8800 or contact us online.
How Can an Atlanta Defective Road Accident Attorney Help My Case?
A case involving a defective roadway or structure is much more complicated than one involving a typical two-car accident.
One of the biggest concerns is that the average injury victim has little to no knowledge of structural engineering or the laws guiding bureaucratic road management. They generally aren’t equipped to point out how flaws or mistakes could have led to the accident that caused their injury.
Making matters worse, they may also lack the ability to put together all the needed evidence and paperwork showing proof of their losses in just a few months, potentially invalidating their ability to bring a claim against a public agency.
Defective road accident attorneys have the legal knowledge and the resources to spring into action, building your claim quickly and using the best available evidence. They can consult with experts in engineering, architecture, road maintenance, material science, and other disciplines to pinpoint the exact mistakes and defects that led to the accident.
They can also help you fully account for all of the damages you have suffered, including projecting the future costs of any care or reductions in earnings.
Consider that, in many cases involving the question of whether a roadway defect led to an injury or fatality, the government agency or corporate interests involved are likely to employ a large legal team. They will use every possible legal argument to their advantage while pointing out gaps in evidence or supposedly flawed scientific and legal reasoning.
The injured claimant is up against an extremely complex legal strategy, and the hope is often that they will be so overwhelmed that they will accept whatever small settlement they are offered.
We at the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm equip you to fight back against these tactics. We pledge to get to the bottom of how the accident occurred and what oversights or flaws led to the accident in the first place.
Through our efforts, we will seek to:
- Investigate the full circumstances behind your accident
- Identify all parties that may have contributed to liability
- Compile evidence supporting your claims of negligence, defects, or dangerous hazards
- Calculate damages in full
- Complete claim paperwork on time
- Respond to any requests for follow-up information or other correspondence
- Consult with leading experts to determine the exact mistakes involved in your accident
- Represent you throughout the claims process
- Prepare your case for a lawsuit or trial
What Types of Road Defects Can Lead to an Accident?
While we tend to take them for granted, roads are actually quite impressive feats of modern engineering. This is especially true when roads cut through areas where, without deep knowledge of engineering, a road would either be impossible to build or would likely last only a few months at best.
From bridges that span massive, frothing ocean bays to highways that cut right through the heart of marshy swampland, our roads are a testament to human ingenuity and perseverance.
At the same time, designing and maintaining roads puts a hefty amount of responsibility upon all involved. Without the right attention to detail and operational frameworks, roads depended upon by millions of vehicles each year could quickly turn an everyday convenience into a disaster.
Such was the case when a five-lane overpass section of I-85 collapsed near downtown Atlanta during peak rush hour in 2017. Luckily, no one was injured in the accident, but the policy of storing combustible materials under overpasses was quickly amended in light of the incident.
Others tangled up in accidents involving road structure failures weren’t so fortunate. Also occurring in 2017, a motorcyclist was hurt when a massive road buckle erupted along I-20, sending the operator flying.
The operator survived but was hospitalized and in critical condition for at least several days.
One common thread to both incidents was the way blame was traded among agencies and private companies.
Municipal and state agencies are quick to point out mistakes made on the part of contractors for utilities and highway construction. Others tried to blame the actions of individuals, including a homeless man whose role in the I-85 collapse still hasn’t been fully concluded.
The fact is that America’s infrastructure is in dire need of attention. A combination of lack of funds, lack of investment, lack of maintenance, and lack of available labor expertise means that many roadways are just hanging together on sheer luck.
Catastrophic failures can happen at any time. Some of the most common road defects that lead to serious accidents include:
- Architecture and engineering flaws, especially in load-bearing capacity
- Steep shoulder dropoffs
- Potholes and sinkholes
- Improper drainage
- Overgrowth of vegetation
- Uneven paving or road section joining
- Obstructions and hazards
- View obstructions
- Improper or inadequate signage
- Poor visibility
- Inadequate lighting
- Faded markings and other inadequate maintenance
- Inability to withstand storms, washouts, and other natural events
- Lack of maintenance and regular inspection
Who Is Liable After a Defective Road Causes an Accident?
Any number of parties could be responsible for the resulting damages when a road collapses or otherwise fails in a way that causes injury. Often, and as stated above, government and private entities will be at odds in their analysis of how and why such a road disaster occurred.
Multiple parties could hold joint liability for the resulting damages.
Generally, when a road structure fails and causes an injury, one or more of the following entities may hold responsibility:
- Surveyors
- Architecture and engineering firms
- Materials engineers and manufacturers
- Construction crews
- Utility companies, whose infrastructure may cross under or around the roadway
- Private property owners whose failure to maintain property leads to hazards and obstructions
- State and municipal government agencies responsible for setting standards, designing and implementing signage, and regularly monitoring roads for integrity
- Survey and repair crews
- Other private interests, such as trucking companies that overload vehicles
- Vehicle drivers, when their negligence leads to a fire or other disaster that triggers a collapse
How Common Are Road Defects?
One bit of solace is that fatalities related to defective roads are, fortunately, rare in the United States. An analysis of crashes from 2005 to 2007 by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)[1] found that just 2% of all accidents, or 52,000 of the total accidents studied, were related to environmental factors, including road defects.
These environmentally caused accidents were broken down further into different types of environmental factors, including the following, which may allude to possible road defects:
- View obstructions (11% of all environmental crashes)
- Sign/signal issues (3%)
- Road design issues (1%)
- Other highway-related conditions (9%)
In total, just 0.25% of all recorded accidents may have been related to road defects. Nevertheless, when these hazards present themselves, the potential for injury and death is high.
Further, an Atlanta personal injury attorney may be the key factor in proving that an injury or death was caused by a roadway defect, as opposed to some other reason. It can be presumed that many crashes examined in the study failed to fully account for the role of highway negligence and defects when drawing its final analysis.
As both government and private interests will seek to avoid this type of conclusion as much as possible, it can benefit injury victims immensely to work with an experienced attorney capable of tapping into engineering and roadway maintenance expertise.
Work With an Atlanta Defective Road Accident Law Firm
Your case deserves the highest chances of success in order to repay your medical bills, lost wages, vehicle repairs, and other costs — not to mention your personal pain and suffering. It can be challenging to prove how a road defect led to your car accident and how a public or private entity is responsible for that event, but we are here and ready to do everything we can to build the strongest case possible.
Our attorneys are available to answer your questions and help you determine what strategies might be most effective for retrieving all compensation available. Learn more about your options and what your case could be worth when you call (404) 777-8800 or contact us online to schedule your free case review.
[1] https://crashstats.nhtsa.dot.gov/Api/Public/Publication/812506
