Pedestrians are at a disadvantage when walking on or near a road. Depending on the weather, traffic, and other circumstances, they may be hard for vehicle drivers to see.
Pedestrians don’t have any of the safety features that protect people in cars, such as seatbelts and airbags, or even the helmets that motorcyclists and bicyclists wear. A car colliding with a person on foot at relatively low speeds can devastate the pedestrian.
If the driver is speeding, the pedestrian is at even higher risk of severe injury or death.
If you or a loved one have been hit by a car, you may be struggling to recover from painful injuries while receiving multiple medical bills for everything your health insurance didn’t cover (which is often a significant sum). Meanwhile, your injuries may prevent you from working, your paid time off might only last a few weeks, and you still have all your usual bills to pay.
How Can a Dekalb County Pedestrian Accident Attorney Help?
The last thing you want to do while recovering from your injuries is argue with an insurance company. It’s also the last thing you should do because talking to the driver’s insurance adjuster can be treacherous.
The adjuster will most likely record your conversation, review everything you said, and look for any comment they can interpret to mean you were somehow at fault. We highly recommend you don’t speak to the insurance company before you have a chance to consult with a pedestrian accident lawyer.
Our team will review your accident’s details, seek out further evidence if necessary, answer your questions, and lay out your options for pursuing compensation. We will then help with the following steps, depending on where you are in the process:
- Filing an insurance claim. If you have not yet filed a claim for your accident, we can help you prepare and file one. We’ll gather as much evidence as possible to support your claim, show the driver was at fault, and make it more challenging for the insurance adjuster to reject the claim.
- Fighting a claim rejection. If you’ve already filed a claim and the insurance company rejected it, we may still be able to help. Don’t contact the insurance adjuster and try to work things out, this is more likely to worsen things. Instead, call a pedestrian accident attorney immediately. We’ll review your claim and the insurance company’s reasons for the denial, which are often related to disagreements about fault. If this is the issue, we’ll assign our investigators to retrieve every piece of evidence available so we can build a strategy to win your case. Depending on the situation, we may resubmit your claim or file a lawsuit.
- Establishing the value of your claim. Another potential difficulty with pedestrian accident cases is the undervalued claim. In some situations, the insurance adjuster accepts that blaming you for the accident is unlikely to be successful, so they try another tactic: Making you an offer. The problem is, it’s not likely to be a good offer. In many situations, the insurance company’s initial overture is for an amount much smaller than what your claim is really worth. We’ll talk through your injuries and other damages and help you arrive at a fair estimation of your case’s value, then we’ll work to obtain that amount from the insurance carrier.
- Reviewing existing offers. If you’ve already received an offer from the insurance carrier, the next important step is to review it with an attorney before accepting to ensure all your damages are properly addressed.
- Negotiating with the insurance carrier. Insurance companies frequently make several offers before agreeing to a fair settlement. We will review each offer with you, identify deficiencies, and answer your questions. If the proposed amount doesn’t meet your needs, we’ll negotiate with the insurance company for a better deal. In most cases, we eventually reach an equitable resolution for the client.
- Representing you in court. Sometimes, filing a lawsuit is necessary, although that doesn’t necessarily mean your case will go to trial. We can also negotiate with the other party during the early stages of a court case, and again, most claims are ultimately settled out of court. However, in the rare cases where the insurance company refuses to provide a reasonable settlement, we can and will fight for your rights in court.
What if the Driver Says You Were at Fault?
Frequently, drivers don’t want to accept responsibility for a pedestrian accident, but in many cases, they are at fault. In Georgia, it’s also possible for both parties in an accident to share a portion of the responsibility, which can complicate your case.
Modified comparative negligence is a system that allows an injured party to collect damages even if they had some percentage of fault, so long as that percentage is less than 50 percent. If you were 10 percent at fault, for example, you could recover 90 percent of your damages.
The challenge is that you, the other driver, and their insurance company may all have different ideas about those percentages. In a court case, a jury would be asked to assign a percentage of blame to each party, but as we discussed earlier, most of these claims are decided in negotiation with the insurance company rather than in a court case.
Let’s look at an example of how shared fault might be argued in a pedestrian case. We’ll say that you were crossing the street at a crosswalk (the safest option if one is available).
Pedestrians generally have the right of way in crosswalks, but you must obey the walk/don’t walk signals. However, motorists are responsible for driving carefully through intersections and being prepared to stop if someone crosses against the light or is crossing slowly when the light changes.
Maybe you remember having the green light when you started crossing, but the driver insists they had the right of way. If there are no witnesses, it could be your word against theirs.
The responding police officer will take both your statements and write a report containing the facts and their opinion of what happened. It’s possible the report will be inconclusive because the officer didn’t have enough evidence to make a determination about fault.
Alternatively, they might believe the driver’s story. As a pedestrian who was just hit by a car, you might have been in pain and had trouble giving a coherent statement to the police.
In any event, the officer’s opinion is just that, an opinion, and can be challenged in court if we find evidence that you did indeed have the light. Our investigators will search the crime scene for additional evidence, including photos or videos of the accident.
We can often recover video from nearby doorbells or security cameras. We may also find witnesses who saw what happened but weren’t interviewed, and we’ll review data from the car’s event data recorder or EDR to learn more about what they were doing when the accident occurred.
Once we have enough evidence, we will create a strategy to win your case. It’s important to understand that some types of evidence, such as doorbell videos, are quickly lost, so please contact us immediately after your accident.
What if You Were Actually at Fault?
It’s wise not to make this decision on your own or to speculate about fault at the accident scene. Some people assume they were at fault incorrectly, or you may have had a small percentage of fault, which should not prevent you from recovering most of your damages.
If the insurance adjuster tries to argue that your share of fault is much higher, we will present a strong case showing that your contributions were relatively minor. If you think you were at fault, please speak with a lawyer before mentioning your theory to anyone else.
Of course, you should answer the responding officer’s questions honestly at the accident scene, but you don’t have to give an opinion about fault.
How Can You Get Assistance From a Dekalb County Pedestrian Accident Law Firm?
If you or a loved one have experienced a pedestrian accident, please contact the CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm for a free consultation. If we take your case, there is no fee until we win or settle it, so you never have to worry about paying upfront charges.
The CEO Lawyer Personal Injury Law Firm was established by attorney Ali Awad, who expanded it into one of the fastest-growing law firms in the country. With the help of his experienced team, he has recovered millions of dollars in compensation for injured people and their families.
When he’s not fighting for clients in the boardroom or the courtroom, you can find Mr. Awad on social media, where he posts educational yet entertaining videos about legal topics for over a million followers. Work with our personal injury attorneys today by calling (470) 323-8779.
