Most of the time, if a pedestrian gets hit by an automobile, the driver of that same vehicle becomes responsible for covering any injuries to the walker. Still, that is not always the case.
Duty of driver
The driver is expected to demonstrate care and concern towards others on the road. Good drivers try to foresee a possible problem, and then act to avoid an accident.
When might a pedestrian be held responsible for a driver’s accidental collision with someone that had stepped onto the street?
• If a pedestrian’s actions were to make a collision unavoidable, then that same pedestrian might be held responsible for the resulting collision.
• Any pedestrians that might decide to run out into the street from a point behind a parked car could be held liable for any resulting accident.
• Any pedestrians that choose to walk on the freeway at night could be held responsible for an accident that was caused when a driver swerved, in order to keep from hitting those nighttime walkers.
• A dog-walker that chose to cross a busy street at a point away from a cross walk could be held liable for any resulting incident.
Sometimes both the person on foot and the driver are partly to blame for the fact that the 2 of them have collided. One obvious example of such a chain of events would be a situation in which a speeding car has hit a person that was jaywalking.
One that has less-obvious answers, regarding who to blame would reflect the influence of the time of day. In this second situation, a walker decides to text a message on his hand-held device, while crossing the street. He is almost hit by a driver that was blinded by the bright setting sun.
How does the legal community handle situations like that?
An Injury Lawyer in Richmond Hill that hears such a question must consider the laws of the province in which he or she has chosen to practice law. If that state/province enforces the policy known as contributory negligence, then neither party could be held responsible for any injuries. Under the provisions linked to contributory negligence, no one person can be held responsible, if someone else is also partly responsible.
The rules associated with comparative negligence are quite different. Those rules state that a judge must determine what amount of fault each party has contributed to creation of the accident. After that determination has been made, each party’s possible award gets reduced in proportion to the same party’s contribution to any resulting collision, or other type of accident. Personal injury lawyers normally know what legal theory applies to a client’s case, if the client appears partly to blame for an accident.