Did Poor Road Conditions Cause Your Car Accident? Know Your Rights
Posted on: 24 July 2015
When road conditions like potholes, missing guardrails, and uneven pavement are what lead to a major car accident, you may be wondering what your rights are. These types of road conditions can not only cause serious damage to your car, but potentially cause injury as well.
While the government often has sovereign immunity to these kinds of lawsuits, there are exceptions that can make your case viable, such as if gross negligence was displayed. You will need to determine who was responsible for the dangerous road conditions, and then prove that they are liable for the accident.
Determine The Party Responsible For Regular Maintenance
A road can be maintained by a city, regional district, or the territory/province, and it is normal for different aspects of road maintenance to be shared between different parts of the government. For example, the territory/province could be the one that fills potholes, while the city's job is removing the snow and deicing streets.
You'll need to do some research to determine who is responsible for the type of neglect that caused your accident.
Prove Poor Road Conditions Were Due To Negligence
A key factor to winning your case will be if you are able to prove that gross negligence is what ultimately lead to your accident. This can be from a territory/province cutting back their road repair budget, and the damaged road would have normally been repaired otherwise. Another example is a county forgetting to deice a road that regularly sees slippery pavement after a snowfall.
Negligence would not be possible if the responsible party could not have acted in a reasonable and timely matter. For example, a storm may have knocked down a tree into the road, or you were driving on a slippery road immediately after freezing rain started. Both of these are situations where it's possible that someone simply could not react fast enough to the problem, and would not be considered negligent.
Prove How The Accident Occurred
You should be documenting as much of the damage as possible immediately following an accident. This is because the closer the damage was documented to the accident, the more likely it is that a judge will believe you. Waiting a long time to document damage may cause the judge to believe that the damage occurred in another way.
Once you know all of this information, you can work with a lawyer like Terry Napora Law Office to determine if you have enough of a case to form a lawsuit.
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