You might visit a city and notice that it has immaculately-maintained roads. However, just as often, you’ll visit a city or locale and notice many potholes. In such cases, when you’re bouncing along in your car, you might sustain an injury. It can happen if you hit a massive pothole you didn’t see and hit your head on the steering wheel or something similar occurs.
Seeking compensation for a road defect accident often becomes complicated. We will talk about that in detail in the following article.
Do Other Situations Arise Where You Might Injure Yourself on Public Roads?
If you hurt yourself while on a public road, you probably think that would happen while you’re in your car. While such instances occur frequently, you might also encounter another situation where you hurt yourself, and you can blame a road that’s in poor condition.
You might injure yourself while jogging down the side of the road. Perhaps you’re in an area without sidewalks, so running on the road becomes your only viable option.
You might step into a hole you don’t see and sprain or break your ankle. If that happens, you may need to miss work for weeks or months. During that time, you’ll have medical bills piling up from doctor’s appointments.
You could hurt yourself on a public road when you go out for a bike ride. You might hit a crack or pothole in the road’s surface and go flying over the handlebars. When riding a motorcycle, a road in extremely poor condition could cause an accident. You could sustain a TBI if you land on your head or a broken bone if you land in an awkward position.
In short, you can injure yourself on public roads in many ways if no one takes care of them the way they should. However, who can you blame in such instances?
Who You Can Blame if a Road Injures You
It’s not always easy to say who you might hold responsible if a poorly-maintained road injures you. The situation often varies depending on your exact location when it happens.
You might potentially blame a state, county, or city. You could even blame the federal government in some cases. It all depends on what government agency controls that property. This agency should repair the road if it falls into poor repair. However, sometimes, an agency that should maintain a road stalls and does not do the work as quickly as it should.
Often, if that happens, they might not have the financial resources they need. Certain cities or states operating with a budget deficit may not have the additional resources that proper road maintenance requires. They might not have the individuals working for them who can do the work. They may not have the necessary equipment.
However, even if a governmental agency pleads poverty after you injure yourself on a poorly-maintained road, that does not mean you do not have a valid legal argument against them. You can still sue them and probably win, even if they claim they did not fix the road because they lack the money, individuals working for them, or the requisite equipment.
How Can You Collect a Payout Following a Poorly-Maintained Road Injuring You?
Let’s say you’re driving in your car and hit a big pothole. Your vehicle sustains damage, and you also bounce in your seat, striking your head against the roof. You feel sick and dizzy afterward. You see a doctor, and they say you have a concussion.
You can’t work while you’re recovering. You might pursue temporary disability payments, which can cover part of your bills, though you won’t get as much as your salary when you’re working your regular schedule. You may also feel sick and dizzy for weeks afterward.
In such an instance, you can contact a lawyer and speak to them about what happened. In such situations, you’ll want to tell them where the injury occurred. Based on what you say, the attorney can tell you whether they think you have a personal injury case on your hands and what entity you can potentially sue.
If the lawyer says you can sue the county, for instance, since they should have maintained that road, your attorney’s investigators will collect evidence that indicates you’re telling the truth about what happened. They will go and take pictures of the road, assuming it’s still damaged.
They will also use your medical records that show when you sustained a concussion. They might take pictures of your damaged car as well.
What Happens Next?
At this point, your lawyer will notify the proper agency that you’re suing it. The agency will probably have its own counsel, and you will either square off in court or else the entity will offer you a settlement amount.
If you consider settling, you should take into account not just the money you’ve lost because you can’t work and the cost of your doctor visits but also the pain and suffering you’ve experienced. In personal injury law, they call these add-ons non-economic damages.
You would not experience the pain you’re going through were it not for the agency failing to maintain the road. That’s negligence, and your lawyer can argue that on your behalf if the case ever gets to the trial phase.
If your lawyer can establish that the agency that should have maintained the road didn’t fix a pothole, didn’t clean up road debris that caused your accident, or they let road marking fade, which caused your injury, you will probably win your case. You must pay your lawyer out of your winnings, assuming you said you’d pay them using a contingency payment plan.
Remember, though, you must often prove the government agency knew about the road’s condition and failed to repair it as well. If the government agency agrees the road caused your injury, but they insist they didn’t know about the danger, you might not collect any money.
