Fairfax Failure to Yield Accidents

Failure to yield occurs when one party driving either fails to follow yield signs or does not follow the general rules of the road and, as a result of the failure to yield, an accident occurs.  A Fairfax car accident lawyer can help determine fault in these cases and seek appropriate compensation for their client.

Determining Fault

It may be difficult to determine who is at fault in a failure to yield accident because both parties may believe they had the right of way. This typically occurs in intersections such as a four-way stop, a blinking light, a solid green light but not green arrow, or a fork in the road.

A lot of different scenarios can occur in which drivers may encounter other drivers on the road and believe it is their right of way. If the other driver believes the same thing, both drivers proceed and an accident can occur as a result.

Accident Occurrences

There are a variety of examples of accidents that have resulted from failure to yield. For instance, such an accident can occur when one party makes a left-hand turn on a yield on left and the other party is coming. Or, when one party is making a U-turn and the other party is trying to make a right-hand turn in the same direction, a failure to yield accident often occurs. In that context, it may be difficult to determine liability.

Other examples of places where failure to yield accidents can occur include forks in the road where there is no traffic control, one-way bridges, four-way stops, and others. These are all examples of places where one can expect drivers to obey the rule of the road, and if drivers fail to do so, then an accident may occur.

Dealing with Insurance Companies

Insurance companies often use failure to yield accidents as an opportunity to deny liability by claiming that the injured party is actually the one responsible. Insurance companies often vigorously defend failure to yield accidents, so they see it as a prime opportunity to use the contributory negligence defense.

Working with an Accident Attorney

An experienced lawyer can use a variety of investigative methods to determine liability in failure to yield accidents. This may include examining the police report in detail, speaking to the reporting officer, talking to the parties involved, talking to independent witnesses, going to the scene and observing how traffic typically behaves at that scene, and searching for and potentially requesting surveillance video. Depending on the location of the accident, there may be video available from nearby stores, restaurants, or schools that may capture the action.

Rather than solo practitioners, firms with several accident attorneys will have the benefit of different points of view, levels of experience, and personal opinions that can be used together to get the best outcome for their clients. In addition, while solo practitioners often have several legal assistants, a fully staffed law firm often has a potentially larger number of resources for a client’s case.