Distracted Driving Accident Lawyer: Know Your Rights & Next Steps

Road accidents claim more than 1.9 million lives each year. Sadly, most of these accidents are not accidents but avoidable crashes caused by distracted driving. Using phones, eating, talking, and zoning out. These are the common distractions nowadays that divert the attention of drivers from the road and cause life-threatening collisions.

If you are injured in a car accident caused by a distracted driver, you can get good compensation for your injuries and other losses by proving distracted driving. However, proving a driver guilty of distracted driving is not easy as there are rarely any eyewitnesses. So, before hiring a distracted driving accident lawyer, you need to be aware of your legal rights and the next steps in the lawsuits to make an informed decision.

Distracted Driving Accident Lawyer

In this article, we have outlined everything a victim needs to know about filing a lawsuit and maximizing their settlement. Let’s get started to learn more.

Understanding Your Legal Rights as a Distracted Driving Accident Victim

If you are injured in any distracted driving accident, you are entitled to some legal rights that protect you under your country’s law. The exact compensation may vary according to the severity of the accident and your local regulations but they do cover all your financial losses and emotional distress.

Before moving ahead to file your case, here are your legal rights as a US citizen that ensure that you proceed with a strong case and get the outcomes you deserve.

• Right to File a Claim: If the negligence of a driver has caused your accident, you have the right to file your personal injury claim against the insurance of the driver to get the appropriate settlement.
• Right to Sue: In some cases, the insurance coverage is insufficient to accommodate all your damages. So, you still have the right to sue the distracted driver by filing a lawsuit.
• Right to Get Legal Representation: Getting your compensation in a distracted driving accident case is overwhelming. Luckily, you don’t need to do it alone. You can hire a distracted driving accident lawyer to negotiate a fair settlement for your case.

How a Distracted Driving Accident Lawyer Can Help You with Your Case?

If you are going to file a lawsuit against the distracted driver, you need to collect enough evidence to strengthen your case. However, an ordinary person lacks knowledge and enough resources to gather proof against the at-fault driver. Therefore, you need to hire an expert distracted driving accident lawyer who has the expertise to thoroughly go through the case and present it before the court.

Here are the steps your legal representative will follow to prove liability.

1. Looking for Distracted Driving Red Flags

The case investigation begins with looking for the red flags that indicate distracted driving. The common signs include finding the food or makeup, and mobile phones near the driving seat that indicate that the driver was trying to multitask while driving. However, these signs are not always accurate, so the major focus is on the distracted driving red flags specified by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). They include:

• Abnormal turning of the car
• Delayed reaction time to traffic lights
• Inconsistent speed in a short period
• Poor lane control
• Ignoring the use of indicators before turning

If the accident witnesses and victims indicate any of these signs, the lawyer starts a careful investigation to collect further evidence.

2. Getting the Phone Records of the Driver

Using a phone behind the wheel is a serious offence and many states have strict regulations against it. However, no driver admits to using a phone while driving unless there is solid evidence which is not very difficult to get nowadays. Fortunately, mobile phones store all the electronic records that can be easily obtained by the regulatory authorities while investigating the case.

The common data collected for such cases include:

• Usage time for each mobile application
• Records of inbound and outbound calls
• Records and time stamps of text messages sent and received
• Pings from cell phone tower

If the records prove that the driver was using the phone during the accident period, the case goes directly in the favor of the victim.

3. Obtaining Data from the Driver’s Vehicle

As the regulatory bodies are stressing following the laws to prevent road accidents, car manufacturers are equipping the cars with safety features and record-keeping systems that help get the right data to catch the culprit. One of these systems is “Black boxes” that record the operations of the vehicles and indicate the driver’s standings in the case. Its data can include:

• Speed of the vehicle at a certain time
• Did the driver apply breaks to prevent the accident
• Records of pushing the accelerator before the accident
• Did the driver try to turn the car to prevent a collision?

Such information gives real-time data on the operations happening in the car before the crash. For instance, if the black box suggests over speeding, the driver would be found guilty and the case will proceed accordingly.

4. Getting Camera Footage

Camera footage is strong evidence that can decide the fate of the distracted driving lawsuit. However, your distracted driving accident lawyer has to be proactive to get the footage before it is destroyed to remove the evidence. In many cases we have encountered, the guilty party has tried to hide or destroy the camera footage. So, it is necessary to timely hire a professional who gets maximum proof in a short time.

The most reliable source for getting the footage is to check the security cameras of nearby businesses and residences as they are less likely to be tempered or deleted. Moreover, you can ask for the dashcam footage of the vehicle that records both the road situation ahead of the vehicle and the driver’s action. It will give you a better understanding of the situation before the accident and finding the guilty.

5. Careful Analysis of the Evidence

Collecting evidence sometimes is not enough. It needs a careful analysis of the collected information by the experts and a reconstruction of the accident circumstances to find out what really happened. An expert distracted driving accident lawyer works with a team of professionals from different areas like accident case reconstruction and traffic engineers to carefully examine the evidence.

During this period, many lawyers find critical information that can turn the tables and determine what circumstances caused the crash and if it was due to distracted driving. Once the data is analyzed and the lawyer has enough evidence in favor of the victims, the case is presented before the insurer or cord. Your lawyer stays with you in the entire process until you get the appropriate compensation for your damages.

Conclusion

A distracted driving accident victim is already going through severe physical and mental distress. Handling such cases is impossible on your own as it requires a careful investigation and evidence collection to prove your stance in the case. A distracted driving accident lawyer can help you get your compensation by following a quick investigation and processing of the cases by involving experts.

If you or a loved one is a victim in a distracted driving case, you must know your legal rights and hire a distracted driving accident lawyer to file your claims.