Are you a Victim of Car Accident? Know Your Rights
Car accidents usually cause a lot of physical as well as emotional damage to a victim. There are many people who suffer injuries, vehicle damage, and many other losses due to the negligence of another driver. In case you or anyone in your family or group of friends meets with a car accident, it is crucial to know your rights. This will help you to claim all the damages you are entitled to. These claims further help you pay for medical bills, vehicle repairs, and loss of wages. It also offers compensation for the emotional distress, pain and suffering that the car accident has inflicted upon you.
Every personal injury victim has the right to deny giving any statement to the other party’s insurance company. The insurance company might ask for your recorded statement in order to process the claims. However, it is advisable that you seek a car accident attorney’s advice prior to signing any document or issuing a statement. Keep in mind that any part of your statement can be used against you. So, it is always better to appoint a car accident attorney who would work to protect your interests and help you get the compensation you are entitled to.
Every car accident victim must seek damages for the physical, emotional and financial loss that they have suffered due to another driver’s carelessness or negligence. Every car accident victim should know that they can seek damages for physical injuries, disability, mental distress, medical treatment, and nursing care, loss of earning ability, damage to property, loss of earnings, inconvenience, hospitalization expenditure, pain and suffering, and mental agony. This will help them to quantify these damages and ask for claims. This step is difficult, especially in cases where bills cannot be produced, as in the case of pain and suffering. A car accident attorney is an ideal person who can give you legal representation. He or she can help you get the damages that you deserve.
The victims of car accidents need to know that they cannot only sue the driver. However, other parties, who could have been fully or partly responsible for the accident, can also be sued. For instance, if your car was smashed by a truck, then you can file a suit against both the erring driver and the trucking company for their negligence in hiring the driver.
The truth is that the legal recourse in case of car accident goes much beyond just suing the driver. You can even sue third parties like road contractors and Government agencies for their negligence. In case an intersection is incorrectly designed or constructed, and causes frequent car accidents, you can seek claims from the state agencies because they could have been prevented by the accidents, but failed to do so. You can also sue the manufacturers of equipment for a faulty design or construction that caused the accident.
In case the car accident is caused by an uninsured victim, you have the right to seek damages from your own insurance company. But getting such claims is often a difficult task since the insurance company might try to delay or deny the claims. Only a specialized car accident attorney can help you in these situations.
Compensation usually varies from case to case. Every accident, injury, and victim is unique. So, the value of your personal injury claim is a matter that should be handled personally by an experienced attorney.
Economic Damages
All the financial damages that resulted directly from an accident and injury usually come under this category. These damages may include past and future medical expenses, lost work wages and future earning, funeral costs, and other necessary financial expenses.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are those damages that do not equate to monetary sums in usual. These non-economic damages victims and families may be eligible to recover. These damages include compensation for pain and suffering, mental anguish, loss of enjoyment or quality of life, and the emotional injuries families suffer as the result of losing a loved one in a fatal accident.
Punitive Damages
In certain car accident cases, victims and their families may also be awarded exemplary damages. Punitive damages are reserved for cases involving serious acts of negligence or misconduct. This includes drunken driving accidents.
Traffic accidents comprise of car accidents, truck accidents, and motorcycle accidents. These accidents continue to rank among the leading causes of injury and death in Florida. When victims are injured in motor vehicle accidents that they did not cause, they have legal rights to pursue a recovery of their damages by filing a personal injury claim.
Situations in which victims can file these claims include many types of accidents. These accidents might be caused by another driver’s negligence, carelessness, or wrongful act, drunk drivers and drivers impaired by controlled substances, defective auto parts, including tires, brakes, and airbags, defective roadways, signs, or traffic signals etc.
Irrespective of the precise cause of your auto accident, a car accident lawyer usually has the experience and expertise to respond immediately to your call for assistance. They are well equipped with vast experience and considerable insight gained from working in many cases of similar nature before. Thus, he or she is able to effectively fight back against insurance corporations that attempt to pay victims as little as possible, with these smart skills.
However, there are certain times when persistence and professionalism do not work. In case you reckon an adjuster is deliberately making the payment of your claim delayed, do not hesitate to get an attorney involved. The involvement of an experienced attorney and the implied threat of a lawsuit can knock adjusters out of their pattern of delay. Usually, the money paid to an attorney could be money smartly spent from the long term perspective. This is specifically if you are looking at long-term medical care or extensive wage loss.
Keep in mind that dealing with insurance professionals requires a good deal of patience. When you genuinely want to maximize your settlement amount, it is important for you to stay on the insurance adjuster or claims attorney’s good side.
