When Injured Drivers Are Partially At Fault
If you have recently been injured while driving your car, truck, or another vehicle, it is important to explore your options even if you believe that you may have been partially to blame for the harm that you suffered as a result of the accident. Every state employs its own approach to how injured motorists who have been injured should be treated when it comes to compensation for their harm. Some states don’t generally allow injury victims to recover compensation beyond a certain amount if they were partially to blame for what happened to them. Other states allow injury victims to pursue compensation from parties responsible for causing them harm as long as those victims were not more than 50% to blame for their crash. Finally, some states allow victims to pursue compensation even if they were 99% responsible for their wreck.
By reviewing your unique circumstances with a lawyer, you can better ensure that you receive compensation if you are rightfully entitled to collect any. By contrast, if you make the assumption that you are not entitled to compensation and you are wrong in that assumption, you’ll not only miss out on money that is rightfully yours, you may always wonder if you should have taken the time to at least ask an attorney if you were in a strong position to pursue justice on your own behalf.
Determining Fault
As an experienced car accident lawyer can confirm, it is rarely easy to know who is to blame for an accident (and to what degree) in the immediate aftermath of a crash. All too often, the true causes of an accident and the identity of the parties responsible for that accident are only revealed after a thorough and objective investigation of the crash has been initiated.
For example, you may be under the impression that you were to blame for your accident because you looked back at your toddler, who was screaming, right before impact. Upon investigation, we may discover that the other driver involved in the crash was asleep at the wheel and was driving a vehicle outfitted by faulty brakes. In this scenario, you would likely be tagged with some of the responsibility for your accident but you would also likely be entitled to significant compensation from the drowsy driver.