Was the Driver that Caused Your Accident Negligent?

06 Mar Was the Driver that Caused Your Accident Negligent?

When people sue drivers for having caused an accident, the crux of the lawsuit is usually negligence. If you understand the basics of negligence, you have an idea of whether or not a driver who caused you to get into an accident was guilty of this. Negligence is not hard to understand, though it does take a good attorney to successfully argue a lawsuit in court. Here are some basics about negligence.

Normal Expectations

When you’re out on the road, nobody expects you to drive like a professional racecar driver, a police officer or another individual who has advanced training in driving. They do have a right, however, to expect you to drive in a way that a reasonable, intelligent person would drive. This means following the rules of the road and exercising sensible judgment when dealing with other drivers.

Negligence sometimes means that a driver failed to live up to these reasonable expectations. They may have failed to stop at a stop sign and run somebody over or they may have stopped in the middle of the road and caused a rear end crash.

Not Taking an Action

Not taking action can also be construed as negligence in some cases. For example, if somebody could have been expected to have applied their brakes and allowed someone to make a right turn but ended up slamming into them from behind instead, that person who caused the accident may be guilty of negligence. Your attorney will be able to look at these instances and determine whether or not a driver that hit you was guilty of some sort of negligent behavior.

Even though your attorney may believe that the driver that struck you was negligent, that may not be enough to convince a jury. Your attorney will have to argue your case in front of the jury and convince the jury to give you an award. If your attorney puts together a particularly strong case, you may also be offered a settlement by the other party so that they can avoid the costs of going to court when there is good reason to believe that they’re going to lose, anyway.

A good auto accident attorney can give you more personal injury information to determine whether or not filing a lawsuit is a good option for you. It’s not always an option but, when it is, you’ll sometimes find that the compensation you could receive makes it well worth the effort.