4 Pedestrian Accident Tips That May Help Your Case

Did you get severely injured while walking? Read our 4 pedestrian accident tips that may help your case, then contact our Florida attorneys.

1) Attorney Fees

4 Pedestrian Accident Tips That May Help Your CaseThe initial cost to hire a pedestrian accident injury attorney at Goldstein Buckley Cechman, Rice & Purtz is absolutely $0 to you. We work on what is called a contingency fee basis which means you will never see a bill from us in the mail and we will never ask you to write us a check. We take on your case and we work to put together your case and try to seek full justice for you, full justice being what you, the client, wants and deserves. We then take a percentage of that based upon a contractual agreement that we enter into early on. You do not owe us anything up front for us to look at, evaluate, or even take on your case. Once we take on your case, you similarly do not owe us anything for the costs associated for your case. Those are things that we put forward on your behalf that get paid back later based upon the amount of the settlement or the judgment reached in your case. Again, you will never see a bill from us at Goldstein Buckley Cechman, Rice & Purtz. What we are paid solely depends on how good of a job we do for you and how well you allow us to work with you hand in hand on your case.

2) Mistakes To Avoid

The most common mistakes people make in a pedestrian accident injury case in Florida is simply not documenting what occurred at the point in time that it occurred, witnesses, getting names, taking photographs, making sure that the right folks arrive at the scene, calling the police, making sure that things are not moved or touched, and also working to really help at the ground level to put all of this together so that when you hire the right attorneys, the ammunition already exists.

The other most fatal mistake we see in pedestrian accident cases is folks sometimes just think they’re going to get better. It may be something where you were on your bicycle or you were walking across the street and a car bumps into you while you were in the crosswalk. Folks may go to the ground and think they’re just bruised, maybe battered, and will feel better over the course of a couple of days and they don’t seek medical care and treatment. They don’t document all those things at the scene. They don’t go about making sure they’re contacting the authorities and they simply, like we all do sometimes, just think this is a minor blip on the radar screen and we’re going to get better. Ultimately, more times than not, that doesn’t happen. Things get worse over the course of time. Pain starts to set in and intensifies.

If you dismiss that early on in the process and just think it’s going to get better, you potentially left a whole lot out that your attorney can work with in order to maximize the value for your case and seek justice for you. At Goldstein Buckley Cechman, Rice & Purtz, we are committed to getting on the ground with you early on making sure that we are taking the right approach helping you help us document exactly what we need to maximize the value of your case.

3) Case Value

Determining the value of a pedestrian accident injury claim in Florida depends on many factors. It starts with the economic part of your damages, the medical expenses, the wage losses if you had to miss work as a result of the incident, the need for future medical care and treatment and what that’s going to cost, the loss of what’s called future earning capacity which means your ability to earn money in your chosen field may have been affected. Those economic damages including things like what you may have had to pay other folks to handle around your house while you were laid up or unable to attend to certain things that you normally would have done yourself.

It not only includes those economic things to discover value, but it includes things that are called non-economic damages, what is known as pain and suffering. It certainly encompasses those two elements, but it also encompasses things like the loss of capacity for enjoyment of life, those non-economic things you can’t necessarily plug into a computer and put a dollars and cents valuation on. We work through you to put a valuation and a dollars and cents number on that claim based upon us hitting the ground running with you early, learning who you were, learning how this accident has affected you, and learning about what it’s going to take for you to try and make your way back to your full self, knowing all full and well that most injuries are never going to get 100% better.

The valuation of your claim also goes into what’s called comparative fault in Florida. Who was at fault for the accident? Just because someone is deemed to be at fault for the accident doesn’t mean that parties can’t share fault for the accident. Getting an attorney involved in your pedestrian accident case is very important not only for putting the dollars and cents valuation on those economic but also those non-economic damages. It is vitally important to find someone that knows the law so that we can make sure we are holding fully responsible that person that struck you in their automobile while you were walking down the road and not have some jury or some insurance company try to blame you for something that you know you haven’t done other than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At Goldstein Buckley Cechman, Rice & Purtz, we are committed to working through all those factors of the case with you to put together the most comprehensive and detailed analysis we can to try and get your case resolved early for full value but if not, to take your case through the process in order to seek justice for you.

4) Going to Trial

Your pedestrian accident injury claim may or may not need to go to trial. It certainly depends upon the factors involved in a case, including who was at fault for the crash or if there is shared responsibility between the automobile driver and the pedestrian. Those are arguments that insurance companies like to have many times in pedestrian accident cases to try and save themselves some money, to be completely honest with you. Your pedestrian accident injury case also involves your damages, your medical expenses, both in the past and what you’re going to need in the future, your wage losses, your loss of future earning capacity, and then certainly those intangible or non-economic damages, your pain and suffering and how the accident has affected you and continues to affect you.

There are certain points in times where if we put together the right information early on with you in your pedestrian accident injury case, we can get a good and substantial offer from the insurance companies. There are other times where insurance companies simply don’t play fair because they want to make you work through the process. That’s where getting qualified attorneys, like us at Goldstein Buckley Cechman, Rice & Purtz, onboard to handle your case and help you navigate those waters can work to seek maximum value for you, whether that be early on in the case, some point in time in the middle, or through the trial of your pedestrian accident injury case. It all is based upon what you and what we can work to put together with you to seek full justice in your case.


Have you or a loved one recently been injured in a pedestrian accident in Florida and have questions? After reading our 4 pedestrian accident tips that may help your case, contact our experienced Southwest Florida pedestrian accident lawyers today for a free consultation and case evaluation.

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