If someone gets injured as the result of an accident, legal authorities have one way of establishing the identity of the person at fault. Yet the decision made by those legal authorities does not always match with the one made by an insurance company. Insurance companies take a different approach, when deciding who should be named at fault. The challenges associated with fault-finding become even greater, if the accident in question took place on a street and involved a pedestrian. At such a time, an insurance company will ask several questions.
What the insurer will want to know
Was the pedestrian crossing the street? Did the pedestrian use a cross-walk?
Did the pedestrian wear attire that could make him or her more visible to a driver? Did the pedestrian wear clothing that posed a larger than expected challenge to the driver’s task of staying alert and aware of others in the roadway?
If the pedestrian had been an adult, did he or she avoid making any sudden moves, the sort of move to which the driver would not have had time to react? If the pedestrian had been a child, the insurance company would anticipate some sudden and unanticipated movements. Sometimes a driver makes an effort to avoid hitting a pedestrian. It might sound like such moves would help to eliminate the need for any questions that concerned where the fault might be placed. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.
It could be that while attempting to avoid a pedestrian, a certain driver hit another vehicle. Then the insurance company must decide who should be named at fault for that relatively minor accident. That is why consulting with an injury lawyer in Mississauga becomes important.
Factors that insurance company will want to consider
• What was the position of the vehicle that got hit? Maybe the driver of that vehicle had taken it into an area where it did not belong.
• Was either driver distracted at the time of the accident? Maybe the driver that got hit had stopped his or her vehicle in the middle of the street, in order to use a cell phone.
• Did either vehicle have a mechanical problem that needed correction? Perhaps the accident happened at night and the vehicle that got hit did not have a functioning rear light. That fact could be pointed to as a reason for the driver’s confusion.
Pedestrians and witnesses
Even if a pedestrian suffers just a minor injury, that same person should speak with any witnesses to the incident. It could be that the driver broke the law, and drove into a spot that was not supposed to have any traffic at that particular time. That spot might be an intersection with a red light.
