Contacting An Attorney For a Fairfax Pedestrian Accident Case

In a pedestrian accident cases it’s important to hire an a Fairfax injury attorney because oftentimes you may not be aware of the extent of your injuries right when they occur and it may be harder to identify the at-fault parties in a pedestrian case. Hit-and-run pedestrian collisions make it even harder to identify the defendants, particularly if there are no witnesses. However, there are also usually more complicated injuries because there are  usually two impacts involved instead of one impact, as in many accident cases.

The first impact in a pedestrian case is usually when the vehicle strikes the pedestrian and the second impact is when you as a pedestrian either make a contact with the ground, a side rail, another vehicle, a light pole, or whatever it is. Almost all pedestrian accidents involve multiple impacts which are then going to be causing injuries to multiple parts of the body and internal injuries are very common in pedestrian cases also.

What Can An Attorney Do For An Individual In These Cases?

What they can do in a pedestrian case is that they can work to identify the defendants, important witnesses, sources of coverage, advocate for the client, handle communications with the defendant’s insurance company on their behalf, and monitor the patient’s medical treatment to make sure that the patient is on track to recovery. A lot of the time when you’re driving your vehicle you might have a passenger with you who may be a valuable witness. There may also be witnesses in other vehicles or on the street, or important other sorts of information such as security cameras, speed cameras, and other forms of video surveillance that may be able to show the accident itself or the facts and circumstances surrounding the accident. In Fairfax, there may be cameras on ATM machines, government or courthouse buildings or other public buildings or traffic cameras at red lights. There are a lot of potential sources of video footage that may have actually caught the accident on video.

If you are a pedestrian and you are struck by a vehicle, particularly at night or in a residential area, there may not be many witnesses to the collision, if any.  If there are witnesses, it is important to identify them and obtain their statements as soon as possible after the accident. Identifying other witnesses is hugely important at the earliest stage possible, and an attorney can help to do that.

Pedestrian Accident Cases Involving Buses

Another thing can be buses, either commuter buses or Fairfax Connector buses, whatever they might be, those buses generally have cameras similar to a police dashboard cam. There might be video footage of the accident  that is helpful in all cases but particularly in pedestrian accidents.

And something that’s unique about Virginia law, it’s one of the few jurisdictions in the country that applies the doctrine of contributory negligence, which is a defense that a defendant can raise to say that the plaintiff caused or contributed in some way to the accident that caused their injuries. If a defendant can plead and prove that, it bars any recovery in almost all circumstances.

Now, there are few exceptions to that, but for the most part that rule stands. A lot of the time there’s going to be a factual dispute as to whether the pedestrian had the right of way, whether they should have been in the street if they were jaywalking, whether they should have crossed where they did, or some other defense based on the positioning of the injured victim. If an attorney is able to ferret those things out at an early stage and start building a response to those arguments or is able to marshal the evidence to prove that the victim did not cause their own injuries, or that the pedestrian didn’t cause the accident or contribute to it in any way, that can really help to avoid future problems from the outset.