Miami Pedestrian Accident Attorney

People Injured while walking in the street depend on this Miami Pedestrian Accident Lawyer for assistance. A pedestrian is somebody who is on foot, on either a public or private roadway. While walking can be good exercise, it can also be quite dangerous – especially in Florida where drivers are not always the best.

Pedestrian crashes are caused by all sorts of different factors. For example, oftentimes a pedestrian wreck can be caused by lack of lighting or poor/inadequate lighting. Drivers on dimly-lit streets might not be able to see people walking near the roadway. As a result, these pedestrians can easily be hit.

If you’ve been hit by a car due to inadequate lighting on a roadway, your case would be referred to as a roadway construction case. The case would be against either the owner of the roadway or the company that either designed or installed the lighting.

If the owner of the roadway where you were hit was a governmental entity, then your case will be one of “sovereign immunity.” A sovereign immunity case is a case against a governmental entity (e.g., the City, the County or the State). Sovereign immunity cases carry with them certain restrictions and limitations. For example, you can only recover up to $200,000 from a governmental entity in a personal injury case. Further, you must give the governmental entity you’re suing six-months notice before filing suit.

Roadway lighting may also be the responsibility of the governmental entity that owned the road. For example, the owner of a roadway is supposed to check periodically to make sure that the lighting on its roadways is working and adequate. If it doesn’t do this, then it will be liable.

The governmental entity may hire a contractor to work on the lighting. In that case, the contractor will be responsible for any lighting problems. However, the governmental entity itself will always be liable as keeping its premises safe is said to be a “non-delegable duty” – meaning the owner of a property cannot delegate or contract-away its duty to keep its property safe. If the property isn’t safe and somebody is injured as a result, then the owner of the property will be responsible even if it hired a contractor to do the work.

Pedestrian wrecks frequently result from drinking and driving. If you were injured by a drunk driver, then you may be able to pursue punitive damages. Punitive damages are designed to punish the wrongdoer, rather than compensate you (which compensatory damages are designed to do).

Further, if the drunk driver that injured you was coming from a bar, nightclub or restaurant that served him alcohol, you may be able to pursue a “dram shop” case against the bar, nightclub or restaurant. You will be able to do this if the bar, nightclub or restaurant either 1) knew the defendant was “habitually addicted to alcohol” (i.e., an alcoholic) or 2) served a minor.

Texting and driving also frequently causes pedestrian collisions. This may easily occur when a driver looks down at his or her phone and away from the road. That driver may then easily drive off of the roadway and strike a pedestrian on the sidewalk or swale.

Should you or a loved one be hit as a pedestrian, contact this Miami Pedestrian Accident Law Firm. Mr. Quackenbush handles cases all over Florida (including Palm Beach County, West Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale and Broward County). Call Mr. Quackenbush at 954-448-7288 to discuss your case at no charge.

Frequently, pedestrians are victims of hit-and-run accidents. Passing vehicles will hit pedestrians and flee the scene for whatever reason (e.g., because the drivers don’t have licenses, because they don’t have insurance, because they have warrants out for their arrest, because they are drunk/intoxicated/impaired, etc.). If this occurs to you, it is obviously critically important to determine the identity of the driver. This is because you may be able to recover compensation either from the driver him or herself or from his/her insurance company.

One way that you may be able to determine the identity of the hit-and-run driver is through the use of red-light cameras. If your accident was at an intersection, then you may be able to retrieve the video footage from the intersection. That footage could possibly reveal the identity of the other driver (e.g., his or her license plate may be visible on the video, etc.).

Further, even if your crash was not at an intersection, you may be able to retrieve red-light cameras from neighboring intersections. Perhaps the hit-and-run driver was caught on camera at a neighboring intersection while he or she was speeding away from the wreck.

However, if you are going to attempt to retrieve red-light cameras, you should do so as quickly as possible. This is because many of these video cameras tape on “loops.” This means that the videos will tape over itself every so often (it could be every day, every three days, every thirty days, etc.). If you don’t obtain the footage before the video tapes over itself, it could be lost forever.

Even if there were no red-light cameras in the area, there may have been neighboring businesses (gas stations, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants, etc.) that might have had surveillance videos that captured the accident. Mr. Quackenbush will attempt to retrieve this footage directly from the businesses themselves. In doing so, many times he will find witnesses who saw your collision or heard something about it which might be useful to your case.

Sometimes red-light videos will reveal only part of a license plate. The video quality on such videos is not always optimal, and you may be able to only make out a couple of letters or numbers. Nevertheless, this information can still be quite useful, and the police are very good at tracking down suspects even with only part of a license plate.

If you were hit as a pedestrian in the State of Florida, you may be entitled to “personal injury protection” (“PIP”) benefits. P.I.P. from your automobile insurance will pay for up to $10,000 of your medical bills or lost wages/time missed at work.

You are entitled to personal injury protection benefits even if you weren’t in a motor vehicle at the time of the accident (i.e., if you were a pedestrian). If you had your own automobile insurance policy at the time of your crash, then you will be entitled to personal injury protection through your own policy. On the other hand, if you didn’t have automobile insurance at the time of your wreck, then you will be entitled to personal injury protection benefits from the insurance policy of the other driver.

One argument that the defense will frequently try to make in pedestrian crash cases is that you were walking in a place where you weren’t supposed to be (e.g., outside of a cross-walk) and that therefore it was you who caused the accident. However, Mr. Quackenbush may be able to make the argument that the defendant should have still avoided the accident. That is, even if you were in a place where you weren’t supposed to be at the time of the crash, the vehicle that hit you may have had the “last clear chance” to avoid the accident. Motor vehicle drivers are supposed to avoid hitting pedestrians at all costs – even pedestrians who are in areas where they weren’t supposed to be. If a vehicle driver fails to do this, then he or she may be responsible for the wreck.

Pedestrians injured in collisions frequently experience catastrophic injuries. This is because they don’t have the benefit of vehicles protecting them. As such, pedestrians may incur any of the following injuries:

• Broken/fractured bones
• Brain injuries/bleeds/damage
• Paralysis/paraplegia/quadriplegia
• Comas/vegetative states
• Death

The statute of limitations in a pedestrian wreck case is two years. This means that, if you’ve been hurt as a pedestrian, you have only two-years to file your lawsuit. However, if the case involves death (i.e., it is a wrongful death case), then the statute of limitations is only two-years.

If your loved one has tragically passed away as a result of a pedestrian collision, then an estate will have to be created on your loved one’s behalf, you or another loved one will have to be appointed as the “personal representative of the estate” (“PR”), and any compensation recovered in the case will go to the “beneficiaries of the estate” (i.e., your loved one’s survivors).

Call Mr. Quackenbush at 954-448-7288 if you’ve been hurt as a pedestrian anywhere in Miami-Dade County (including Aventura, Coral Gables, Cutler Bay, Doral, Florida City, Hialeah, Hialeah Gardens, Homestead, Key Biscayne, Miami Beach, Miami Gardens, Miami Lakes, North Miami, North Miami Beach, Opa-Locka, Palmetto Bay, Pinecrest, South Miami, and Sunny Isles Beach). Mr. Quackenbush will discuss the possibilities of your case for free.