3 Pedestrian Accident Tips

If you are seriously injured as a pedestrian in Naperville or really anywhere, one of the things that you should do immediately is make sure that you call the police and get immediate medical attention. You want to hire a lawyer immediately, too. The reason why you want to hire a lawyer is because the longer the time goes by from the time you’re injured to you hire a lawyer, the more important evidence is lost. Witnesses disappear. It’s very important that you hire somebody that’s going to look out for your interest right away. If you have any questions about an auto pedestrian case, please give us a call. We’d love to answer them for you.

Sometimes clients call and tell us they were injured in an accident due to somebody else’s fault; either they forgot, they were in a hurry, or some people are just opposed to it still. What we tell those clients is you are able to receive compensation for injuries sustained in that car accident as long as the seat belt would not have prevented them. For example, if you’re struck from the side and you break your arm against the door, you have a valid claim for that injury. If by wearing a seat belt, however, you would not have struck your head on the steering wheel, for example, then you are not protected. It’s called the “seat belt” defense. What would happen is, although we would claim all of the injuries that were caused by the accident, the defendants are allowed to assert as a defense that because you weren’t wearing a seat belt those injuries should be either precluded or diminished because of your failure to wear that device.

We spoke to a woman last week who told us she had been hit by a car. She was crossing the intersection on foot. The gentleman that hit her, his insurance company had reached out to her and wanted to take a recorded statement from her. Could she do that? What we told her was that was a bad idea. You never want to give a recorded statement to an insurance company. The insurance company is taking the recorded statement so they can use it against you at a later date to defeat your case. If you have any questions about auto pedestrian cases or general questions about auto pedestrian claims, give us a call. We’d love to answer them for you.

There are a lot of similarities between an auto accident claim in Illinois and a pedestrian auto claim in Illinois. There are some important differences. One of the important differences is, as a pedestrian, a driver has a duty to pay attention to their surroundings, that includes not hitting pedestrians who are right in front of them. If you have any questions about auto pedestrian claim, please give us a call. We’d love to answer them for you.