Chicago Car Accident Lawyer Blog

According to news reports, a man was injured in a rollover accident in Naperville on Tuesday. As another driver tried to turn from Route 59 onto I-88, she drove into the path of the victim’s vehicle. The victim then tried to swerve away, and hit a curb; his car was also hit by the car that had been attempting to turn, after which the victim’s car rolled over. Following the accident, according to the report, the victim complained of back pain and was taken to a local hospital.

Rollover accidents are comparatively rare, but are extremely dangerous. According to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data, in 2002 only 3% of the crashes involving passenger cars, trucks, vans, and SUVs included a rollover; however, 33% of the fatalities resulting from those crashes occurred in the rollover incidents. More than 10,000 people died in rollover crashes in 2002.

While SUVs and vans are more likely to roll over than other passenger cars, passengers and drivers can reduce the likelihood of a rollover in any vehicle by making sure that their tires are properly inflated, and by consciously balancing out the load in the vehicle. It is particularly important to balance any additional load placed on a roof rack, which would change the vehicle’s center of gravity.

On a website called Safecar.gov, the NHTSA provides additional safety tips, information about the latest technologies for rollover prevention, and a rating system for rollover safety. If you would like to find out how your car rates in terms of rollover safety, simply go to the site and enter the class, year, make, and model of your vehicle.

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If you’ve been injured in a car accident, you are likely to find yourself in negotiations with a trained insurance adjuster who will make you a settlement offer—in other words offer you a certain amount of money, in exchange for which you would sign an agreement stating that you would not pursue any other compensation for harm that you suffered from the accident.

You may wonder why you might need an experienced Chicago car accident attorney on your side in this process. What would such an attorney do that you might not do on your own? There are a number of answers to that question; one of them has to do with the negotiation process itself.

Even if you consider yourself a forceful and competent negotiator, the reality is that in any negotiation success depends in part on knowing the norms and standards of the particular field in which the negotiation takes place. Do you know what cases comparable to yours have settled for in the past, or which cases went to trial instead, when settlement negotiations failed? Do you know what the outcome of such trials has been in recent years? An insurance negotiator would know those things; you might be able to find out such information on your own, as well, but it would require a substantial time investment. An experienced car accident attorney, however, should be at least as well informed as the adjustor facing him or her.

Another issue is that many people tend to defer to authority, and consider expertise a type of authority. Realizing that the adjuster knows more about the compensation process than you do, you may negotiate less forcefully than you would in a different context, and accept arguments and premises that an attorney would question.

Finally, trained negotiators are aware of something called the “anchor effect.” In a negotiation, the first offer may act as a type of anchor: people presented with a particular number may adjust their expectations based on that number (unless they know enough to realize that the number proposed is completely unjustified in that particular situation). When negotiating with an experienced attorney, adjusters would be less likely to make an overly-low offer to begin with.

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In a report released May 10, 2010, the National Insurance Claim Bureau (NICB) contends that questionable insurance claims that arise out of staged accidents went up 46% (nationally) between 2007 and 2009. “Staged” accidents are car crashes in which a driver intentionally crashes into another (who may be picked completely at random), and afterwards, either alone or joined by passengers, makes inflated claims in regard to injuries suffered and/or the cost of medical treatment for those injuries. According to the NICB, such staged accidents are more likely to occur in urban areas that have a lot of traffic, and in particular in wealthier areas, where more drivers are likely to have good insurance coverage.

The National Insurance Claim Bureau also reports that Illinois ranked 5th in the nation in terms of the number of questionable claims that apparently arose from staged accidents. However, with 433 such questionable claims reported, Illinois was still far behind the states that were ranked first and second (Florida, with 3,006 such claims, and New York, with 1,680).

While staged accidents are a real and important concern, the recent media reports about this criminal practice may lead to some very real, non-staged claims being questioned and even denied. A careful balance has to be struck, between the effort to fight insurance fraud and the need to compensate innocent victims of accidents that lead to serious injuries.

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A recent news report details a Chicago car crash that occurred Tuesday evening in the Hermosa neighborhood. The driver of the car, a 24-year-old woman, ran away on foot from the scene of the accident, only to return and be arrested two hours later. According to the police, when the woman fled the scene, she left a three-year-old child alone in the back of her car.

As a result, the woman has been charged not only with leaving the scene of an accident that involved vehicle damage, but also with endangering the life and welfare of a child. She was also charged with driving without a license and failing to have insurance.

The boy appeared not to have been injured, and the news report didn’t note whether the driver or passengers in the other car suffered any injuries. However, even in cases of relatively minor car accidents, the people involved are often in shock for some time after the crash. They might make poor decisions, and might not even remember very well exactly what happened. It is extremely important, therefore, to consider ahead of time what you might need to do if you are ever involved in an accident. Consider, for example, which friend or relative you might call for help. Also consider drawing up a list of the kind of information that you should try to collect and jot down as soon as possible after any accident—the kind of information that you might otherwise forget. Most of us know that we’re supposed to exchange insurance information with the other driver; however, other information might also help you fully protect your rights. Such information would include the exact date, time, and location of the crash; the weather conditions at the time; and the license plate numbers of the other car involved. If there are any witnesses, you should ask them for their names and phone numbers, as well, in case you may need to reach them later for any information they can provide about the crash.

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On April 28, six students from Plainfield North High School in West Chicago were injured in a crash that involved two school buses and an automobile. The injured children were treated at Central DuPage Hospital for what were described as minor injuries. At the time of the accident, approximately 90 students were riding on the two school buses, on their way to watch a play.

A study published in the November 2006 issue of Pediatrics (the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics) concluded that the number of injuries to children riding in school buses had previously been significantly under-reported. According to the study, approximately 17,000 school bus-related injuries were treated in emergency rooms in the United States each year between 2001 and 2003. In older children, most of the injuries were to their lower extremities; however, in children younger than 10, more than half of the injuries treated were head injuries. Older children were far less likely to suffer a head injury. The conclusions of the study underscore the need for proper safety measures for children, especially young children, who travel on school buses.

If you or your child have been injured in a car accident and are concerned about your ability to be compensated for medical expenses, pain and suffering, or lost wages associated with the injury, you should consider a consultation with an experienced Chicago car accident attorney who would be able to evaluate the legal issues related to your circumstances.

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