Car crashes leave victims with massive expenses and serious injuries. Car accidents can cause traumatic brain injuries, spinal cord injuries, and even broken bones, all of which could take months or even years to heal properly – if healing is possible. Even in cases with smaller injuries, victims often face expensive medical bills, repair bills, lost earnings, and pain and suffering.
Our attorneys fight to help injury victims and their families get all the compensation they need. This can pay you back for expenses, plus missed wages and pain, emotional distress, and other effects of the accident.
For your free case assessment with our car accident lawyers, call The Reiff Law Firm today at (215) 709-6940.
Common Causes of Car Accidents
Car accidents happen in all kinds of ways, with some case types having the propensity for much more serious injuries. The following are all car accident causes our car accident attorneys can help with, fighting to hold the drivers who make these mistakes responsible:
Drunk and Distracted Driving Accidents
Drunk driving numbers have been on the decline, with drivers aware of how serious and dangerous DUI violations are. However, distracted driving from making calls or sending texts behind the wheel is on the rise, with drivers failing to realize that distracted driving can be just as dangerous as drunk driving.
In both situations, drivers are less able to make good decisions and properly control their vehicles. Drivers are also slower to react to dangers and can cause crashes before they even understand what happened. This often makes crashes happen at higher speeds, without a chance to brake or slow down.
Speeding
Speed is a factor in most crashes. Scientifically speaking, speed has the biggest effect on momentum, and high momentum causes more damage. Whether speed was the main reason for the crash or just a contributing factor, drivers should be held responsible for the harm their speed causes.
Improper Lookout/Inattention
Failing to check blind spots, not watching for cyclists or pedestrians, not looking around before backing out of a space, failing to look both ways before pulling out of a stop sign – all of these are common causes of crashes.
These dangers are separate from the inattention caused by distractions. Instead, one of the most common causes of crashes is simply drivers failing to watch where they are going or failing to account for others on the road.
While this often violates specific laws, it might also be an example of patently unsafe driving. Either way, it can constitute negligence for a lawsuit.
Tailgating
Cars often crash into the cars in front of them when drivers follow too closely. Aggressive tailgating means drivers have less room to stop or swerve to avoid crashing during emergencies. When the front driver needs to stop quickly, everyone is less safe because of the rear driver’s decisions.
Rear-end accidents from tailgating are one of the most common causes of whiplash and low-back injuries. These injuries can be surprisingly serious and last for a long time, even if the accident is not too severe overall.
Fault is often complex when the crash instead comes from a reckless decision to “brake check” a driver behind you. While tailgating might be negligent, slamming on the brakes to scare the driver behind you is often reckless and can make the front driver at fault, even if the rear driver was also being dangerous by tailgating.
Damages for Injured Drivers and Passengers in Wilkes-Barre
When you are involved in a crash, you usually face damages that break down into “economic” and “non-economic” damages. Economic damages, as the name implies, pay you back for monetary expenses and lost income you faced, while non-economic damages reimburse you for negative experiences.
Economic Damages
Any expenses you face because of the accident should be considered the defendant’s fault. This means not only the vehicle repair bills and the medical bills but also other expenses down the line.
For example, if you missed work or your injury disabled you, your lost earnings stem from the accident as well. Similarly, if you paid for household services you cannot do while recovering or a babysitter during doctor’s appointments, that is also from the accident. These should all be covered in a lawsuit.
Most of these damages are proven through receipts and bills stating how much you had to pay to repair the harm or replace items/services. Others stem from financial calculations showing what money you missed and how those losses will continue into the future.
Sometimes, cases require financial experts to analyze your future lost earning potential and the future cost of expenses. Our lawyers can hire financial and medical experts to give the court reports on these issues.
Non-Economic Damages
Non-economic damages are generally labeled “pain and suffering” and account for a wide range of issues. From physical pain to mental anguish to difficulty with everyday tasks, non-economic damages can include many negative experiences.
Although non-economic harms are not based in money, they can still be reimbursed though monetary payments. In fact, they often make up the majority of damages in a car accident lawsuit.
Given their name, it is clear non-economic damages have no financial statements or receipts proving their values. Instead, our lawyers rely on trusted calculation methods. These methods either apply a multiplier to the other damages in your case, chosen based on the overall severity of your injuries, or they assign a per-day value to your emotional distress, pain and suffering, and other harm.
Non-economic damages can also include damages for your family called “loss of consortium.” This, allows your spouse to get monetary damages for the fact that you cannot be intimate or provide household services you used to provide, for example.
Call Our Wilkes-Barre Car Accident Lawyers
Call (215) 709-6940 for a free case evaluation with The Rieff Law Firm’s car accident lawyers today.
