Most car accidents have resulted from the negligent actions of a driver, a pedestrian, or the user of some wheeled vehicle. Still, not all negligent acts manage to cause an accident.
Some actions make it easy to see which party was negligent during the moments before a given accident.
A driver that has been charged with committing a DUI has exhibited negligence in one of 2 ways.
—Driving while under the influence of alcohol
—Driving while under the influence of drugs
The same driver could be held liable for the damages that resulted from the injury-linked incident. Personal injury lawyer in Niagara Falls knows that the driver’s negligence was a proximate cause for that particular incident. Still, it would not have to be the only cause. A court could rule that there was evidence of shared blame.
Distracted driving also illustrates the effect of a proximate cause.
The distracted driver displays the essential elements of negligence.
—Possession of a duty: The duty to keep his/her eye on the road.
—A distraction causes the driver’s eyes to look away from the road: A breach of duty.
—The resulting accident normally has a marked and measurable effect on the hit driver (or those in the same driver’s vehicle).
The person that has created the distraction could be seen as a remote cause.
A hit driver does not always have a legal claim against another driver.
The target of a driver’s legal claim could be a government agency, if an employee in that specific agency should be blamed for a given accident.
Whenever an accident’s cause appears linked to a problem with the driver’s vehicle, the driver might file a claim against any of the following
—Someone that helped to design the poor-performing vehicle
—Someone that helped with the manufacturing of the malfunctioning set-of-wheels
—A marketer or the operator of a dealership
The hit driver could not win such a claim, unless he/she had been injured during the course of the collision. Moreover that particular injury had to have caused measurable damages.
An insurance company looks at 2 aspects of an allegedly negligent action
Had the responsible party been careless or neglectful?
–A motorist speeding through a STOP sign is careless
—A car owner that has failed to fix a broken taillight has been neglectful.
Would a reasonable person have behaved differently in the same situation?
—Would a reasonable person have chosen to ride around without using a seat belt?
—Would a reasonable person have run into the street without first looking in both directions?
—Would a reasonable person run into the street from a decidedly hard-to-find spot, such as one that was located between 2 vehicles that had parked along the curb?
