Understanding Fault in Left-Turn Accidents
Left-turn accidents are usually fatal in most countries as these incidents often lead to interference of health, legal and financial compensation cover, visions all or prolonged disputes about legal crops. It is a common habit to apportion blame in left turning collisions primarily on the motorists making the left turn.
However, appreciation of the dynamics of these occurrences is necessary in that blame doesn’t reside only in left-turning vehicles and sometimes can be with outgoing vehicles as well. In accident cases resulting from a left-turn accident, you must contact a New York City Personal Injury Lawyer to determine your next steps. Seek professional legal representation that provides free legal advice on how best to pursue your personal injury case claims after the accident, especially if the claim is high.
Why Left-Turn Accidents Are Particularly Dangerous?
Making a left turn is more dangerous when compared to performing a right turn or other safe machine movements. There are quite a number of reasons for such increased risk.
- Traffic Flow Disruption: One of the most non-aggressive and forward positioned moves into a dangerous intersection is a left turn. A left turn means interruption of the oncoming traffic flow. This leads to accident confusion, especially when other users are not informed about the intentions of turning the vehicle.
- Lack of Turn Signals: Sometimes, conclusion of such sequences does not involve full observance of obligatory turning signal use rules. Some drivers who want to make such a left hand turn would sometimes fail to remember to activate their turn signals, leaving any cars that are approaching oncoming unexpectedly therefore making it hard for such traffic.
- Impatience and Misjudgment: Some drivers apparently assert that they will take a left turn only if all oncoming and coming vehicles are at some distance so that the turn may be completed without causing any infringement to oncoming vehicles. Such thinking can be quite dangerous and may result in bad decision making sub causally.
- Distractions: It is well known that when the driver is occupied with their phones, passengers, or any other activities. Each of these situations makes the chances of a left-turning accident higher.
- Impaired Drivers: There has been evidence that a driver must be in his normal senses, with respect to his mind’s health, for a left turn to be safely executed. In fact, studies have found that alcohol and other drug use can significantly decrease a driver’s concentration level as well as the time taken to respond to moving objects, and therefore make turns more dangerous than ever.
- Environmental Factors: Almost all vehicle accidents result from human and lifestyle factors; however, the weather also plays an important role. Adverse weather conditions, especially rain and fog, can limit visibility and change the driving conditions thus increasing the chances of an accident.
Common Scenarios Leading to Left-Turn Accidents
Though there are no two left-turn car accident cases found that are exactly identical, there are cases that through regular occurrence of events several situations tend to end up with crashes:
- Running a Red Light: A car coming from the opposite direction runs a red light and hits the car that is making a left turn.
- Speeding Another car above the speed limit approaches head on traffic and in the activity of turning left hits the opposing traffic car leading to the driver of the left turning car getting serious injuries.
- Driving Under The Influence: In fact, studies have shown that alcohol use can lead to drunk driving which may result in reckless actions.
- Distraction: Every quarter of such crashes happens because the driver was phone or text distracted while driving or the passengers were orally distracted to news or plays etc.
- Avoidance Maneuver: An effort to avoid an animal or any other object leads the driver to make an abrupt turn causing a left hand turn accident.
- Weather Conditions: There are cases of bad weather such as rain, snow or ice which are real risk factors to driving and therefore can lead to a left turn accident.
Assessing Liability in Left Turn Crashes
Regarding fault in a turning left accident, an experienced attorney is likely to make an improved investigation which is most likely to include the following:
- Document Review: This possibly entails going through police reports, statements from witnesses, insurance documentation, and medical documents in order to get more information on the event in question.
- Collecting Proof: Items such as photographs of the site including vehicle damage, film, and pieces of wreckage can give further insight into the events leading to the accident.
- Weather and Roads: It is also important to analyze the weather and road at the time of the collision as this may help determine other events responsible for the accident.
It is important to note that liability laws are not uniform across all states.
Need Legal Support? Contact a lawyer
It is very difficult to heal after suffering a major trauma, especially when handling the financial burden in terms of subsequent healthcare, insurance, and the psychological stress associated with the whole event. It can be helpful to bring on board a personal injury law firm to help in the management of these issues.
You should know that it is important to consider some factors before settling on a legal counsel. One of these factors will surely be the experience and competence of the injury lawyer who has been retained and particularly how many cases of that nature they have handled. If you do this, you will be in a position to get appropriate compensation for the injuries and losses you incur as a result of the accident.
Accidents involving a car that is making a left turn are some of the accidents which require the determination of the fault and liability through thorough investigation. If you are fully aware of the causes and the risk factors involved in such accidents, as well as the necessity for an experienced lawyer, you are already steps ahead in asserting your rights. In this way, you will be able to cope with the post-accident situation more effectively and seek appropriate relief so that you are reimbursed for the loss that was caused.