Maison Law helps victims hurt in highway accidents involving a reckless driver trying to merge. We stand up to car insurance providers to ensure that victims receive full support while they are down with an injury and unable to work.
If you have been injured, please get in touch with a Watsonville Car Accident Lawyer for a free case review. It’s an informative, no-string-attached way to find out what your injury may be worth and how to hold a car insurance company fully responsible.
When You Should Have a Lawyer
With a minor accident on a highway like 152, you may come out fine handling your case yourself. But when a serious injury is involved, you’ll need to win no less than what you need to pay all of those rising medical costs. But the higher the bills go, the harder car insurance companies will fight to avoid blame.
An established lawyer, who must also be a skilled investigator, can help you fight back when insurers try to say you were the cause of a merging accident. Your lawyer can stand up for you when adjusters attempt to downplay how badly you’re hurt, just to get away with offering you less.
A Maison Law Attorney would often provide a critical boost to your recovery support when you were dealing with these and other serious injuries:
- An accident involving a broken bone, such as a wrist fracture or a broken leg
- An accident involving a Traumatic Brain Injury, including a serious concussion
- An accident involving a neck injury, including a serious case of whiplash
- An accident involving a back injury with pain that doesn’t go away after a few days
- A merging accident resulting in a permanent physical disability
- An accident involving an injury to your child or another family member
You can always file an injury claim on your own. However, when taking on giant car insurance companies, an experienced lawyer with great negotiation skills is often able to earn you much more than you could earn yourself.
Taking Advantage of a Free Accident Consultation
If you aren’t sure if your case is worth filing, there’s no harm in scheduling a case review with a real Watsonville car accident attorney. This consultation is free, 100% confidential, and it comes with no obligation.
Allow Maison Law to help you navigate through this difficult time. We’ll go over all of your legal options and help you find the best path to getting your bills paid and getting back to your normal life.
Compensation for Merging Accident Victims
Victims who have been hurt by a careless driver will need money for every hospital bill that arrives in the mailbox. They also need help keeping up with normal bills, like their rent and power bills, while they are unable to go to work and earn a paycheck.
That’s for victims who have injuries that heal in a few weeks or a few months. Victims who come away from a highway accident with a permanent disability will need much more. This might involve an amputation or a permanent brain injury.
They will need a lifetime of support if they can never return to work. They may need money for training or coursework to help them land a new job that they can handle with their disability.
It’s up to an experienced attorney to get all financial damages covered, along with some other factors that victims may not have known could boost their settlement checks:
- Medical costs: This includes the costs of the emergency response and ambulance fees. Support should cover a hospital stay, surgery, physical therapy, medical equipment, medication, and any ongoing treatment required.
- Pain and suffering: Not every cost is financial. This covers the physical pain and emotional stress caused by the accident.
- Loss of enjoyment of life: This is another emotional damage. If your injuries prevent you from participating in your favorite hobbies or even family activities, you should be able to recover damages for these losses.
- Lost wages: If your injuries force you to miss work, you should receive reimbursement for every hour of income you lose. This can include a lifetime of support if a physical disability keeps you from ever going back to your old job.
- Property damage: The cost of repairing your vehicle so it’s a reliable and safe ride again. The cost of replacing a totaled vehicle.
- Wrongful death: If you lost a loved one in an accident caused by a merging driver, California law allows certain family members to file a claim for funeral expenses, lost financial support, and emotional suffering.
Figuring Out Who’s Responsible for an Accident in a Merge Lane
According to the California Vehicle Code, the merging driver bears the responsibility to join traffic safely. The driver already on a highway has the right-of-way and doesn’t have to take any special action to allow someone in.
It’s the merging driver who would be responsible for matching the speed of traffic and finding enough room to move over.
“(a) The driver of any vehicle about to enter or cross a highway from any public or private property, or from an alley, shall yield the right-of-way to all traffic, as defined in Section 620, approaching on the highway close enough to constitute an immediate hazard, and shall continue to yield the right-of-way to that traffic until he or she can proceed with reasonable safety.”
It’s a stress point, and there are accidents every year in merge lanes in the Watsonville area. That includes where Main Street and the Pacific Coast Highway traffic come together.
What to Do After a Merging Accident
If you are in a collision, the merging motorist would usually be found responsible. But the California Highway Patrol can fail to note that an accident took place during a merge. An insurance provider may also twist the facts to make it look like a standard accident that an innocent victim is responsible for.
Keeping the blame in the right place can come down to having the right evidence. Victims can help in this regard and take action in the minutes after a scary accident if they are left strong enough.
Victims should contact 911 first and call for an ambulance if anyone has injuries of any level.
Then, victims try to take a few important steps and avoid taking a few other actions:
Do’s
- Give the Watsonville Police or CHP the full story: Tell the responding officer everything you remember about what happened and make sure they know the other driver was trying to merge at the time.
- Get checked out by Paramedics: If you or anyone else is hurt at all, you should have an ambulance respond to the scene. Have paramedics check out every pain. And even if you go to the emergency room at Watsonville Community Hospital, visit your own doctor in the days that follow to get all injuries documented.
- Collect evidence: The best evidence often gets cleaned up and disappears once the scene is cleared. Take photos with your cell phone. Get photos of car damage and any visible injuries you have. Get contact info from witnesses. Exchange information with the other drivers unless an officer provides the information to you.
- Alert your insurance agent: Call your insurance provider and let them know what happened on the day of your accident. Do this even if you weren’t at fault.
DON’TS
- Don’t offer statements to the other driver or to an insurer: Don’t talk about your injuries or who was to blame with the other driver. When the at-fault driver’s car insurance company contacts you later, they’ll be hoping you’ll make a recorded statement about what happened. Politely decline and only offer basic information. They hope you’ll say something they can twist to hurt your case later. Let your attorney handle communications with insurance representatives.
- Don’t post to social media: You may want to post an update on social media about your accident and that you are okay, but you should not jump on Facebook or Instagram. The opposing insurance company can also twist these posts to make it look like you weren’t hurt.
- Don’t sign off on a settlement: Don’t sign any settlement that’s hastily offered. Have a skilled car accident attorney check out any agreement you are thinking about signing. If you receive an offer quickly, it probably means the car insurance company knows your injuries are worth more, and they want to get you to sign and accept less.
Contact a Watsonville Car Accident Attorney
If a merging driver’s mistake results in a serious injury, it’s a strong indicator that you could use the help of a lawyer. Contact us to set up a free, no-obligation consultation with a real Watsonville lawyer to go over your options.
If you decide you could use our help, we are there, but you don’t have to worry about finding the money to pay a lawyer. We work on a contingency basis. It means we don’t get paid unless we win your case for you. Then, our fee comes out of the settlement check that an insurance company must write for you.
