Identify Person At Fault In Pedestrian Accident

Regardless of how severely any one pedestrian might get injured by a driver in a motor vehicle, that same driver cannot be named responsible for the injuries, unless the injured victim can answer “yes” to one question. Here is that question: Can you prove that the driver was negligent?

Now the law does not allow an injured victim to claim that a given driver was negligent. Such victims need to come forward with some type of proof. Certain questions can help those same victims to unearth such proofs.

Questions that focus on driver’s duties

Did the driver have a duty to keep the pedestrian from being placed at risk?

Had the pedestrian already assumed a certain amount of risk? Maybe the person moving on foot had assumed certain risks by jaywalking. Perhaps he or she had been studying the text message displayed on the window of a hand-held device, rather than paying close attention to the traffic on the roadway.

The injury lawyer in Hamilton asks if the driver did have a duty of care towards the pedestrian, did he or she breach that same duty of care? Should the driver have been wearing sunglasses? Should the driver have slowed down a bit, while traveling over that one section of the street or highway?

Questions that seek to establish link between victim’s injury and the unfortunate accident

Is it possible that the victim sustained the injury before being hit by the driver being charged with negligence? For instance, could it be that the victim’s ankle got twisted when he or she stepped off of the curb. That action would have been taken before the oncoming vehicle actually hit the person that was proceeding across the road on foot.

Following any accident, any person that got harmed must prove that any injuries he or she has sustained resulted solely from the events associated with that accidental occurrence. A pedestrian that has been hit by a motored vehicle has not been granted relief from the need to present such proof.

The defense might study the pedestrian’s medical history and discover that he or she had a pre-existing condition. Then the lawyer for the defendant might argue that the plaintiff got injured because he or she already had a pre-existing condition. Lawyers realize that if a given injury cannot get linked to a specific accident, the seemingly responsible driver cannot be declared negligent.

If the driver cannot be declared negligent, the plaintiff does not have what a lawyer would view as a winning personal injury claim. In the absence of such a claim, the plaintiff’s hopes for a sizeable compensation will soon be no more than a memory. Unfortunately, it will not be a particularly pleasant memory.