DC Car Accident Lawyers
Auto accidents may include:
- Two passenger vehicles: These types of accidents occur when two vehicles collide, and cause an injury.
- A passenger vehicle and a commercial truck: This occurs when a commercial truck, meaning a business truck collides with a passenger vehicle.
- A car with another automotive vehicle (including trains, buses, semis, RVs, trailers that are towed by motorized vehicles, motorcycles, tractors/farm equipment, etc.): Sometimes car wrecks can occur when a vehicle collides with a train, a bus, or a different type of vehicle.
- A car and a pedestrian: In and throughout the DC region, cars and pedestrians collide frequently. This may occur outside of a crosswalk, or inside a crosswalk.
- A car and a bicyclist: Washington DC and the surrounding areas have lots of bicycles. Unfortunately, when a bicycle and vehicle collide, there can be catastrophic injuries.
- A car and a fixed object or structure: These are typically single car accidents.
What should I do after I’ve been in a car accident?
Car accidents sometimes occur through no fault of your own. They can involve:
- Rear end accidents
- Side swipe accidents
- Intersection accidents
The popularity of Lyft and other ride-sharing services has skyrocketed in the past few years. As a result, many consumers’ lives are easier and their travels are more convenient with the rise of Lyft, but there has also been a greater need for people to get help from a Lyft accident attorney, especially in the densely populated Metropolitan Washington DC area. Essentially, the more Lyft drivers in the DC area, the more Lyft auto accidents in Washington DC. Lyft and other ride-sharing services utilize new technology that connects people who need drivers to available drivers in the area, willing to give rides. This new technology has resulted in many questions surrounding legal areas governing commercial drivers and people who drive their own cars in the greater Washington DC area. If you’ve been involved in an Lyft auto accident, with a Lyft driver or during a Lyft ride, a well-informed and experienced Washington DC Lyft accident attorney may be able to help navigate through the potentially stressful and anxiety-inducing situation.
With the rise of Uber and other ride-sharing apps in the Washington DC area, people are in need more than ever for Uber auto accident lawyers. This issue can be quite complex since different states are in the process of passing, or have already passed, laws regarding the legality of ride-sharing services like Uber. The problem here is that because this is a relatively new technology and system, there is a lot of legal grey area. If you are driving in the Metropolitan Washington DC area and you are involved in an auto accident with an Uber driver or a driver of another ride-sharing app, the situation and legality can be complicated due to the insurance issues involving ride-sharing apps, their drivers, the ride-sharing app’s insurance and a driver’s private insurance. The jurisdictional issues in the Washington DC area can also further complicate the matter. Uber was sued previously and as a result, the ride-sharing app had to adjust its insurance policies regarding drivers. If you or a loved one were involved in an Uber accident in Washington DC or the surrounding areas, you may want to contact a knowledgeable Uber car crash lawyer to go over your specific case.
If you are getting into a taxi, you want to have a smooth ride. But that isn’t always the case. Sometimes things do not go as planned, and the taxi is involved in a car crash. Unfortunately for the passenger who has just gotten into a car crash (or even a driver who has a crash with a taxi), the laws governing taxi accidents differ from state to state and can be very complicated, especially in the Washington DC area and its surrounding states. A knowledgeable taxi accident attorney in Washington DC may be able to help you get compensation if you have been involved in a taxi crash around the DC area. You may be entitled to monetary compensation if you or someone you love has been involved in or has died in a taxi car accident. You may find it helps ease your stress, suffering, or anxiety by contacting an experienced taxi accident lawyer in Washington DC to discuss the loss of earnings, medical bills, and pain and suffering.
Car accidents are extremely stressful for a variety of factors. Those stresses can be compounded and complicated if any of the vehicles involved in the accident are rental cars. If you have been involved in a rental car accident, it can be very difficult to proceed with insurance claims due to the complex issue of determining liability, which can be taxing ordinarily but can be even harder to navigate with the added factors involving a rental car. If you get into an accident while driving a rental car or you get into an accident with someone who is driving a rental car, you may want to contact a rental car accident lawyer who has a vast knowledge of the laws for rental cars on the road in Washington DC. When a customer rents a rental car, he or she usually has to decide whether or not to purchase insurance on the vehicle being rented, even when a driver has his or her own insurance. If you are involved in an accident that can cause confusion because the coverage that rental car companies usually offer includes different types of coverage. It can be a complex issue because there is often more than one insurance company determining liability and coverage. Talking to an expert in the field of rental car accident lawyers can help.
A car accident in the Washington DC area can certainly be scary. Many of those accidents involve rear-ending collisions, especially nowadays, when so many people are distracted by cell phones. A car can get hit from behind in a variety of ways, including at slow or high speeds or when stopped at a traffic sign, traffic light, or traffic hazard. Unfortunately, the person who is hit in a rear-end collision can often be the driver who is paying attention to street signs and traffic laws, but the person behind them might not be paying attention to street signs and adhering to the rules of the road. Because of the laws of physics, if your car was either stopped or going slow while hit in a rear-end collision, you are likely going to receive the brunt of the impact. If you have been involved in a Washington DC rear-end collision, you may want to contact a DC injury lawyers who specialize in rear-end collisions. When a rear end occurs, if you are in the vehicle that was struck, you may be catapulted in different directions, and injured.
Far too often, hit and run accidents occur. One car strikes another, and then flees the scene. This can cause great distress. Failure to remain at the scene of a car accident in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington, D.C., can result in fines, jail time, and enough points to revoke a license. However, hit-and-run accidents are very common in metropolitan areas like Washington, D.C., a city in which there are massive amounts of motorists, pedestrians, and bikers. It is illegal to flee the scene of an accident in Washington, D.C. if one motorist causes another motorist injury or substantial property damage. What to do post-accident can be confusing as the areas surrounding DC have different laws. If there is an auto accident that results in an injury in Washington DC, the driver involved is required by law to contact the police and stay until the police arrive or leave their information with a coherent party. In Maryland, a driver is responsible for staying at the scene of the car accident if the other party is injured or has damaged property. Additionally, if the person caused the accident, that person is also responsible for attending to the injuries of the other person. In Virginia, any drivers involved in any traffic accident are required by law to wait at the scene of the car accident for police. To arrive. However, if both drivers are injured, the parties can legally drive straight to the hospital but must provide their information to each other in a timely manner. Because different states have different laws, you may want to contact a hit-and-run accident lawyer if you were involved in a hit-and-run in the Washington DC area.
Drunk driving in the Washington DC area is a serious issue that often leads to serious injury or death and can require the aid of a lawyer who is knowledgeable in drunk driving cases. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), someone is injured in an accident involving a drunk driver every ninety seconds. In Maryland, a driver is considered driving under the influence of alcohol when his or her blood alcohol content is 0.04% or higher. Maryland has an additional separate charge if the driver has a BAC of over 0.08%. This is called driving while intoxicated or DWI, which is the heaviest infraction. In Virginia, a driver is under the influence if his or her blood alcohol content is 0.08% or higher if the driver is 21 or over. If the driver is under 21, he or she is considered under the influence if his or her BAC is 0.02%. If the driver has a commercial driver’s license, then having a 0.04% BAC or higher is considered under the influence. In Washington, D.C., the legal driving limit is 0.08% for adults 21 and over, 0.04% for adults 21 and older with a commercial driver’s license, and 0.00% for people under 21, as there is a “zero tolerance” policy in D.C. There are steps you should take if the person that struck you was intoxicated — such as preserving evidence, taking photos, and the like.
Car accidents are often a result of distracted driving while doing something that takes your eyes off of the road and/or your attention away from driving. These days that something is often a distracted driver who is using a cell phone. Cell phone accidents in the DC area can be tricky because laws governing cell phone use differ from state to state. If you do not know who is at fault in an accident where a driver is using or on a cell phone, it may help you to speak to a top-rated cell phone accident lawyer in the Washington DC area. You may be entitled to compensation if you suffered injuries.
Although it can happen with any vehicle, rollover accidents are most commonly associated with SUVs and large trailer trucks. A roll-over accident can occur when a driver turns his or her vehicle too quickly and the center of the vehicle’s gravity shifts suddenly, causing the vehicle to roll over, flip or turn over. Roll-over accidents can be very dangerous. An SUV’s frame and height make the SUV’s center of gravity higher from the ground than many other more compact and modestly sized vehicles, which makes them more susceptible to flipping over or rolling. An SUV’s roof can be crushed during a roll-over accident because an SUV’s roof has not been built to withstand the impact of rolling over, and can cause massive injuries and death. If you or a loved one has been involved in a roll-over accident, speaking to an expert roll-over accident lawyer may help you to determine if you are owed compensation for any injuries or suffering. Rollover accidents, as they are known, can be horrific and cause sever injuries, like broken bones and paralysis.
The damage done in a side impact collision can be substantial. Often times cars can be totaled and there may be severe physical injury to the driver and even death. Side-impact collisions cause thousands of deaths per year. Sometimes damage to a car may seem minimal at first, but in fact, a car’s frame can be permanently damaged and unrepairable. Other times the damage to a vehicle involved in a side impact collision is quite obvious at the time of the accident that the car is a total loss. You may want to contact an experienced side-impact collision lawyer in either of these instances. There tend to be two types of major side-impact collisions. One is a sideswipe, which typically happens when two cars are driving in the same direction. The driver’s side of one vehicle crashes into the passenger side of the other vehicle. Another type of common side impact collision is a T-bone or right-angle collision, which occurs when the front of one vehicle hits the side of another vehicle. These kinds of side-impact collisions can be extremely damaging. If you or someone you love has been injured or has died, as a result of a side-impact collision in Maryland, Virginia, and or Washington DC, you may want to speak with an experienced side-impact collision lawyer.
Compared to other types of accidents, head-on collisions are rare, which is a good thing because they can cause serious injury or death. They happen most often in rural areas and less so in urban ones. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, head-on crashes cause 13 percent of all rural fatal accidents. However, less than 7 percent of deadly wrecks in urban areas are a result of head-on collisions. The magnitude of the forces involved in head-on collisions can often cause physical injuries like broken bones, brain injuries, head injuries, spinal cord injuries, and internal organ damage. As a result, the person or people involved in a head-on collision may need medical attention and therefore may have to deal with medical bills, loss of car or income, depending if the injury involved temporarily or permanently prohibits them from working. If you or someone you care about has been injured in a head-on collision in the Washington DC area, help yourself by speaking with a knowledgeable head-on collision attorney with a successful history of getting the maximum amount of compensation for their clients.
Any auto accident anywhere is scary but accidents on a highway can be particularly terrifying given the high speeds that the motorists are going. The severity of a highway accident is why so many drivers in the Washington DC area reach out to highway accidents attorney in Washington DC. Highway accidents often result in fatal injuries and death because of the high speeds of the impact. In addition to cars, trucks and SUVs traveling at high speeds, highways also have large trucks, semi-trucks, commercial vehicles, semi-tractors, and motorcycles, which can cause accidents that result in tremendous injury and/or loss of life. It is a simple fact that larger vehicles require more time to stop, they can’t make quick or sharp turns and can’t quickly avoid dangers on the road due to their size, especially at higher speeds, which is why there are so many devastating accidents involving trucks. The damage that can occur as a result of a highway accident with a truck or large vehicle can be massive. If you or someone you love think you might need a good highway accidents attorney to help you with an accident involving a car, large truck, or commercial vehicle, you may want to talk to the car accident lawyer DC who has a successful history of getting clients compensation they’re entitled to. Highway accidents are particularly difficult because the vehicles are traveling at a high rate of speed. Thus, the damages tend to be greater.
Icy roads in the Washington DC area can often lead to an icy road accident, which can potentially end in loss of life. Driving can be dangerous even in the best of circumstances but when there is inclement weather that affects the roads, driving can be an even more high risk. Winter weather increases the risk of accidents, especially in Washington DC, and the East Coast. If you’ve ever hit a patch of ice on a road, you know how scary that can be and how easy it is to lose control of your vehicle. Drivers may need to adjust the speed of their vehicle while driving on treacherous roads or during severe weather conditions. If you or someone you love in the Washington DC area has been injured in an auto accident in icy conditions, you may want to speak with an experienced icy roads accident attorney to help you get the compensation you deserve after a crash in inclement weather.
The reality is that with advancements in science, medicine, diet, and improved lifestyles, people are living longer than ever before. This means that older people are living more active lifestyles, which tends to result in more elderly drivers, and as a result: more elderly driver accidents. With increased age comes a decrease in cognitive abilities, reflexes, hearing, vision, and energy levels change—and that can have a serious impact on a driver’s ability to drive. Some elderly people don’t feel comfortable driving at night or on the freeways. In the year 2015, 14 million Americans were involved in accidents with senior drivers, aged 65 or older. If you have been involved in an accident with an elderly person aged 65 or older, or if you are an elderly driver aged 65 or older and have been involved in a car accident in Maryland, Virginia, and or Washington DC, there is a good chance that you could benefit from experienced elderly driver accidents lawyer Washington DC. Sadly, many severe injuries can occur when elderly drivers are behind the wheel.
Failure-to-yield accidents are very common in the Washington DC area, where drivers can often have little to no regard for the laws of yielding. A failure-to-yield accident happens when one or more vehicles fail to follow yield laws and causes a car crash. A failure-to-yield accident may occur for a variety of reasons, including if a driver does not yield by slowing down and proceeding with caution at a flashing yellow light, failing to come to a complete stop before proceeding through an intersection at a flashing red light, failing to yield to oncoming traffic during a left turn or failing to yield by aggressively trying to merge onto a highway. There are many other examples of failure-to-yield accidents, so if you were involved in a failure-to-yield accident in Maryland, Virginia and or Washington DC and you have questions about it, you may want to get in touch with a well-versed failure-to-yield accidents lawyer Washington DC. You may be entitled to compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and your loss.
Cell phones have certainly made many aspects of life easier to navigate, the roads are not one of those things. The number of accidents has skyrocketed due to cell phones. Driving while texting is one major cause of many accidents on the road. Cell phone usage while driving laws differ from state to state, however, most states do have laws prohibiting texting while driving and outlawing the use of electronic devices for teenage and beginner drivers. Some states prohibit the use of hand-held cell phones. A driver can be ticketed if that person is not using a hands-free device while driving. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, distracted driving is one of the main causes of preventable auto accidents. One of the main causes of distracted driving is texting while driving. In 2016, there were 3,450 people killed in motor vehicle crashes involving distracted drivers, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Nine percent of fatal car crashes in 2016 were reported as distraction-affected crashes. If you were involved in a texting while driving-accident in the Washington DC area, you may be confused because the laws differ from state to state. If you are not sure of the laws in the state the accident occurred in, you may want to contact a highly rated texting while-driving accident attorney in Washington DC. At Cohen & Cohen, we hope that drivers never text and drive, because of the devastating injuries we see. And remember, if you’ve been in this type of accident, you may want to preserve evidence such as the other driver’s phone.
Tow trucks usually call up the image of a vehicle that will help or assist another driver, however, tow truck accidents are a very real thing. A tow truck accident may cause significant damage to any vehicles involved and/or serious injury to people involved given the size and weight of a tow truck. A tow truck that isn’t towing a car is still heavy as is and is not able to accelerate or maneuver very well. Tow trucks have many extraneous parts, which can cause problems to other drivers on the road. If a tow truck is towing a vehicle, large or small, that will significantly increase a tow truck’s hazards. If a driver has an accident with a tow truck that isn’t towing a car, towing a small car, or towing a large vehicle, another driver may still experience severe injury or damage. Larger and longer vehicles can also increase the potential for risk of an accident, and also increase the number of damages that occur because of a car crash. If you and other people in your car have been injured as the result of a tow truck accident in Washington DC, you may want the help of an experienced tow truck accident attorney.
No one starts out as a good driver. Driving is something you have to practice in order to get good at it, which is why teens, who have little experience driving, are so prone to car accidents. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, motor vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death for U.S. teens in 2017. In 2015, 2,333 teens in the United States aged 16-19 were killed in motor vehicle crashes. In 2014, 221,313 teens were treated in emergency rooms for injuries suffered as a result of motor vehicle crashes. This translates to the reality that six teens die every day from motor vehicle injuries. The cold hard truth is that many teens are involved in car accidents, likely due to a variety of factors, namely inexperience. If you or someone you love has been injured in an accident involving a teen driver, or if someone in your family was killed as a result of an accident with a teen driver, you may be entitled to compensation for your suffering or loss. If you had a car accident with a teen driver and have concerns about medical bills, lost wages, and future earnings, and are in pain and/or are grieving, you may want to talk to a knowledgeable teen accident attorney to alleviate some of the stress and fear that comes with the aftermath of an accident.
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Washington DC Car Accident Law FAQs
What Are the Most Common Car Accident Injuries?
As a Washington, DC automobile accident attorney can confirm, car accidents can result in many types of injuries. Some of them are fairly minor while others are life-threatening. Common injuries may include traumatic brain injuries, broken bones, spinal cord injuries, knee injuries, lacerations, bruises, whiplash, and internal injuries.
Car accidents can also cause emotional injuries, like depression and anxiety. Accident victims may feel scared to get into vehicles and feel depressed that they can’t do the same things they used to. Accident victims may benefit from seeking mental health counseling.
How Do You Determine Fault in a Car Accident?
Before you can pursue monetary compensation for a car accident, you have to establish fault. Investigators have to examine whether both motorists were careless at the time of the crash. Determining this can be quite tricky, even if the accident seems cut and dry at first.
Should I Accept the Insurance Company’s First Offer?
After a car accident, the at-fault party’s insurance company may contact you and ask you questions about your case. They may even try to offer you a settlement. While it might be tempting to accept the offer and get everything over with, it’s not in your best interest to do so. The insurance company’s first settlement offer will likely be too low to cover all of your losses. Don’t accept an offer before discussing it with your Washington, DC automobile accident attorney.
Should I See a Doctor?
If you’ve been in a car accident, you should definitely seek medical attention as soon as possible. Even if you feel okay after the crash, it’s still wise to get evaluated by a doctor. Some injuries, like whiplash and concussions, don’t always present symptoms right away. You don’t want to put your health at risk. Delaying medical care can also hurt your injury claim. A doctor should properly diagnose your injuries and recommend the appropriate treatment. Remember to retrieve copies of your medical records.
How Much Compensation Can I Recover in a Car Accident Claim?
The amount of money you can recover in a car accident claim may depend on the individual circumstances in your case. Your attorney may consider your medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering and other factors when determining how much your claim is worth.
Do I Have to Go to Trial?
The majority of car accident claims get settled out of court. Your attorney may spend time negotiating a fair settlement with the insurance company for your losses. However, if the insurance company isn’t willing to offer a fair settlement, it may be necessary to go to trial.
Do I Need an Attorney?
Car accident cases can be quite complex, so it is in your best interest to hire a Washington, DC automobile accident attorney. He or she can help you gather necessary evidence, file all the paperwork on time and handle communication with the insurance company. Your attorney can improve your chances of receiving a fair settlement.
