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Since they deal with the same injuries, passengers have the same legal rights as drivers in New York. The law protects everyone, no matter where they sit in a vehicle. These injuries include broken bones, head injuries, and other wounds that are normally permanent. These rights include the right to file a personal injury claim and the right to a hearing on that claim.
When families face issues like these, they should seek the professional help of a highly skilled auto accident lawyer who has the tools necessary to obtain maximum compensation for your serious injuries.
Financial Issues
Many injured passengers give up their rights. Instead of relying on a dedicated personal injury lawyer, they rely on an insurance company.
The out of pocket expenses in a life threatening injury case usually exceed $150,000. At best, a group health insurance plan only covers some of these costs.
Health insurance usually doesn’t replace lost wages. Some people have accidental death and dismemberment (AD&D) insurance, but these policies only pay for current losses.
Additionally, most health insurance plans have deductibles and copays, meaning families must continue to pay for care long after their injuries.
All this assumes the policy pays. AD&D policies have strings attached and most health insurance plans exclude injury related costs.
Emotional Issues
Other injured passengers give up their rights for emotional reasons. They don’t want to blame the driver, with whom they usually have a personal relationship.
Criminal courts blame people for criminal acts. Civil courts compensate injury victims.
This compensation usually includes money for economic losses, such as medical bills, and non economic losses, such as pain and suffering.
Driver error, usually aggressive driving or operator impairment, causes over 98 percent of the car wrecks in New York. In a perfect world, people would immediately step up and do the right thing when their mistakes cause injury.
When drivers make mistakes and hurt people they care about, or at least know personally, they’re often willing to pay compensation. But the tortfeasor (negligent driver) isn’t calling the shots at this point. The insurance company makes all such decisions.
Individuals aren’t typically financially responsible for damages or litigation costs; insurance companies usually write these checks. So, a legal action doesn’t impose a financial burden on a tortfeasor.
Granted, the company will probably raise the tortfeasor’s premiums or possibly drop coverage altogether.
Legal Issues
A car accident attorney can force an insurance company to compensate an injured passenger if the driver was negligent.
Ordinary negligence is a lack of ordinary care. Drivers breach their duty of care when they drive aggressively or while impaired. The duty of care requires motorists to drive defensively and be at their best, emotionally, mentally, physically, and otherwise, when they get behind the wheel.
Negligence per se is a violation of a safety law, like the speed limit or DUI law. If emergency responders issue a citation and that violation substantially caused injury, the tortfeasor is liable for damages as a matter of law.
Furthermore, defective products, mostly defective tires, cause many car crashes. Comparative fault laws usually don’t apply in these claims, meaning that the producers of the defective product would have to pay for an injured passenger’s care.
Passengers have the same rights as drivers. For a free consultation with an experienced New York personal injury lawyer, contact Napoli Shkolnik. We do not charge upfront legal fees and only recover a fee when we win your case.