Start Your Pedestrian Accident Claim Before It’s Too Late

Pedestrian accident injury claims differ in multiple ways, shapes, and forms than automobile accident claims. A lot of times, it comes down to what Florida law says about the duty owed as a result of a crash involving a pedestrian. Pedestrians have certain duties and responsibilities under the law but the law more times than not is more favorable to pedestrians and puts certain duties and responsibilities on auto drivers to make sure they’re looking out for pedestrians certainly here in sunny southwest Florida where we’re out and about quite a bit just based upon our community and lovely weather that we have. The occurrence of the accident and putting the pieces together in a pedestrian accident case is vitally important from the very beginning.

As opposed to an auto accident case where someone runs into the back of you while you’re at a stop sign, it’s pretty clear in that circumstance who’s at fault for the accident, but in pedestrian cases, it can become more involved. It’s certainly important that you get an attorney onboard early, that you document not only your injuries and your damages but the scene of the incident early on so that we, your attorneys, can go about dealing with the insurance companies using the law in Florida to our benefit to show who certainly was at fault for the accident more times than not it being that motor vehicle driver who simply wasn’t paying attention in looking at for pedestrians.

As far as damages goes, the damages in a pedestrian accident case and the damages in an auto accident case are very similar and pretty much overlap in Florida, the biggest difference, again, being who was at fault for the accident and trying to put those pieces together early on. At Goldstein Buckley Cechman, Rice & Purtz, we’re committed to getting on the ground level with you early on in the case to make sure we are putting together the best case we can to show who certainly it was that was at fault for the crash.

After a pedestrian accident, it is never a good idea to talk to the insurance company for the adverse party, the driver that was likely involved in striking you while you are a pedestrian. It’s never advisable to speak with them until you have spoken with an attorney that you trust and that you know will handle your case for you. Getting an attorney involved early makes the most sense for you so that insurance companies do not try to take advantage of you when they seek to take your statement or simply call you to ask you how you’re doing after an accident. There are ulterior motives that are involved. We at Goldstein Buckley Cechman, Rice & Purtz deal with insurance companies all day, every day. We know their tactics. We know the way they approach these things. Getting us involved in your case early on will allow us to help you navigate those waters and will help you to not let the insurance company take advantage of you when you’re at your most vulnerable.

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.