Who Is at Fault in a Car Accident T-Bone?

February 25, 2022 | Uncategorized

The last thing you hope to happen when you are on your way to an engagement or just our running errands is to have the brakes put on your day by a T-bone car accident. In this article, we’ll explore how you can determine whether the other driver was at fault in your accident and how a local car accident attorney can help you collect the best possible compensation for your injuries. Reach out to a St. Louis car accident attorney for a risk-free consultation as soon as possible after you leave the emergency room, and read on to learn more.

How Can a Car Accident Attorney Help Me Collect Damages for My T-Bone Accident?

The benefit of having an attorney on your side as soon as possible after you have received emergency medical care for your injuries is to have someone step into your shoes, handling all communications and negotiations on your behalf.

Whether it is with the other party’s insurance company or their lawyer, dealing with the process of determining what your damages are and collecting them can be stressful. Without the help of an experienced attorney, it is also very difficult to accurately measure what your short- and long-term damages will be from your injury.

Causes of T-Bone Car Accidents

Drunk Driving Can Result in T-Bones

If the driver who hit you in your T-bone car accident drove drunk, you can hold them liable for the damages you suffered. All drunk driving accidents are entirely preventable, as the driver made the conscious – and also illegal – decision to get behind the wheel of a motor vehicle while intoxicated. When a driver is drunk and breaking the law, they are liable for any accidents and the resulting damage that they cause.

In the United States, 28 people die each day due to drunk-driving crashes, and every state in the U.S. takes drunk driving accidents very seriously. Drunk driving is illegal in all states of the U.S., but if the police did not show up and assess the driver who caused your accident for sobriety, you might not know if they drove under the influence at the time of the accident.

Knowing what the other driver did before the collision is not something you can discover. Looking inside the vehicle or body of another driver when you are on the road trying to be responsible isn’t possible.

When you are in the shocking moments after the accident, determining your car accident injuries and how damaged your vehicle is, asking the other driver whether they were drunk might not be at the top of your priority list. Your car accident attorney collects evidence through depositions and other legal instruments to determine what the other driver was doing to identify whether they were doing anything that makes them liable for your injuries.

Distracted Drivers Can Lose Focus and T-Bone Another Car

When a driver engages in any activity that takes their attention off the road while driving, they drive distracted. This caused 3,142 deaths in a recent year.

Distracted driving accidents usually include using a smartphone or cellphone to talk or text while driving, chatting with passengers, eating while driving, using the center in-dash display to surf the radio, and other activities. When drivers are distracted and cause accidents, they have been irresponsible and generally will be liable for the damages that they have caused in the accident.

Determining when another driver in your accident was distracted and at fault for your damages requires asking the right questions and collecting evidence that a court would admit.

Collecting this information after your accident when you need to recover from your injuries and get on with your life can be very difficult, which is where your car accident attorney is of value. As we’ll explore below, your car accident attorney steps into your shoes and handles all communications and negotiations towards your settlement on your behalf, taking the stress out of your day-to-day life.

Driving While Drowsy Causes T-Bones Accidents

When a person is driving while drowsy, they cannot react quickly to demands on the road, whether it is the weather or changing stop lights. Drowsiness and fatigue often cause drivers to lose focus and concentration, leading to mistakes behind the wheel. In the worst-case scenarios, a driver might fall asleep at the wheel, causing them to completely lose control of the vehicle. If the driver who hit you in your T-bone accident was engaging in drowsy driving, they should cover your losses.

Large Trucks and Buses Cause Many Accidents and Fatalities

The roads of the United States are made significantly more dangerous due to accidents involving large trucks and buses. In one year alone, there were 5,237 fatal accidents involving large trucks and buses in the U.S., in addition to 127,000 crashes that resulted in injuries involving large trucks and buses.

The prevalence of these accidents indicates that trucks and buses can be a danger on the roads. If you or a loved one suffered injuries or died in an accident with a large bus or truck, you deserve to seek compensation for your damages.

Given that buses and trucks are both significantly larger and heavier than traditional motor vehicles, the law holds truck and bus drivers to a higher standard. They must possess commercial driving licenses to operate these large vehicles, and also are required to have sufficient time off between shifts to be adequately rested for work to prevent drowsy driving.

Due to the higher operating height of trucks, they are more likely to run over motor vehicles in collisions, increasing the likelihood of severe injury or death. When truck or bus drivers are not operating their vehicles attentively and responsibly, and they cause an accident, you are entitled to compensation for your damages.

The Insurance Company Can Be Difficult to Deal With

When it comes time to collect on your damages from your accident, the driver who caused the accident is not the person who will be paying you, but rather their insurance company. If a commercial truck driver hit you in a T-bone crash, you should receive payment from the insurance company of the trucking company.

You won’t have to worry about seeking money from the pocket of a worker or the other driver, as generally, it is the insurance company that will cover your damages. However, the insurance company does not work for you and it makes more profit by denying your claim if possible or by paying you as little as possible.

Insurance companies profit by maximizing revenues by collecting as much as they can on premiums from their customers and by minimizing costs by paying out as little as possible on claims to injured persons like you. When you have been injured and submit your claim to the insurance company, their full-time teams of claim analysts and lawyers will carefully scrutinize your application to find any reason to reject it.

At times, insurance companies reject rightful claims, as it delays the payout and can make the claimant more likely to give up completely or accept a lesser amount. The way to prevent the insurance company from wasting your time and trying to pay you less than what you deserve is by hiring a car accident attorney for your T-bone accident.

Damages for T-Bone Accidents Include Medical Bills in the Short- and Long-Term

The damages that you deserve for your car accident aim to make you whole, to put you in as close a position as possible as though the accident had never happened. When you have life-altering injuries, this is only possible through compensation up-front.

In terms of medical bills, your compensation should cover your costs, both in the short and long term. This includes the emergency room medical bills after your accident, as well as any follow-ups, treatments, and medications. If rehabilitation is required in the long-term, the cost of that should also be covered.

When your injury impacts your ability to work, whether by preventing you from working at all or only being able to return to a lower-paying position, you deserve damages. In the short term, you deserve compensation for any missed wages or salaries and other work-related benefits like accrued sick time and vacation time during your recovery.

At this time, you’ll require second opinions and expert medical follow-ups to provide evidence to support the future damages you will be seeking. You can collect this by consulting medical experts, who your car accident attorney will have in their local network to refer you to.

Seeking Compensation for Lost Earnings

A long-term injury may affect your ability to work. You can measure how your injury affects your long-term working ability by having an occupational expert analyze your injury. Understanding how your ability to work might change in the next few months provides short-term damages, but you need to know where your injury will go in the next decade or two to get full coverage for your injuries.

Injuries like nerve damage or back issues can magnify in time and lead to greater levels of disability in the future. Accurately assessing your injuries to determine future symptoms – and how those symptoms will impact your professional life – is essential to securing full coverage for your injuries. Without accurate calculation of your future costs associated with your injury, you and your family will be left footing the bill.

How Much Is a Car Accident Attorney?

While you might be worried about the potential cost of your car accident attorney, don’t be. If a car accident attorney takes a personal injury case from a person who was hurt in an accident caused by someone or something else, often they will do so on contingency. Taking a case on contingency means that your attorney only receives payment if they win on your case, out of a portion of the earnings they produce for you that you agree upon before they start on your case.

While car accident attorneys don’t take every case that comes their way, if one takes your case, you can rest assured that you will recover the best possible compensation for your injuries.

Reaching out to a car accident attorney for a consultation on your case is risk-free. You have no obligation to pay anything until you agree to payment terms you accept in writing. Finding a local car accident attorney can be as simple as looking on Google and making a few phone calls. You are allowed to ask questions about whether the attorney handles many car accidents cases and if they win them.

Attorneys are like doctors in that they often have areas of focus. Just as you would not contact an eye doctor to help you with a foot problem, you would not reach out to a real estate attorney to help with your car accident case. Personal injury attorneys generally handle car accident cases, and this is the type of firm you need.

Connect With a Car Accident Attorney Today

If you were in an accident and another driver was at fault, whether it was a T-bone, a rear-end collision, or something else, you could be entitled to compensation. A local, experienced car accident attorney will know how to accurately calculate your damages and ensure that you collect the full compensation you deserve. Contact a local car accident attorney for a consultation to discuss your case now.