Riverside Car Accident Lawyer Helps With the Difficult Case of Road Design and Defect

In California we have some of the most highly trafficked roads in the nation and as a result any car accident lawyer Riverside is probably kept fairly busy. It is fair to say that the majority of car accident litigations on our roads are fairly straight forward as fault is usually found in one party or another. However, what if a car accident wasn't caused by the negligence of another driver but was caused by the condition of a road or through defective or faulty signage? This is when it gets a little more complex.

If you have been involved in a car accident and you believe that it has occurred because of a faulty road, then it is imperative that you speak to a lawyer as soon as possible. Generally speaking, when the police attend a scene of an accident they are looking to apportion blame on to one driver or the other and will not necessarily take into account any outside influences that have caused the accident. Also when you inform your insurers of your accident, you will find that they are not really working for you, and as a result will aim to pay out as little as possible. This payout is to primarily cover the cost of the vehicle itself as well as any medical expenses incurred during your immediate treatment. An experienced Riverside car accident lawyer is used to looking into such cases and if it is believed to be a road design defect will know exactly which avenue to take in order to get the ball rolling.

In essence road design and defects can fall into 3 main categories and they are maintenance defects and hazards, basic design flaws and defective or inefficient signals and signage.

Maintenance defects

These can be problems such as potholes in the road, broken guardrails, overgrowth such as branches and hedges, road debris and broken street lighting

Defective signals or signage

These can include broken traffic lights, poorly marked zones of construction, broken street signs (including no exit/entry)

Design flaws

Design flaws cover a multitude of things and can include badly designed intersections, insufficient lack of road markings including dividers and medians, a lack of or insufficient road shoulders and a build up of water caused by a lack of drainage.

If the accident is believed to be down to either faulty signals or a lack of correct signage, or a maintenance defect, then again this is a fairly easy claim which is filed directly to the state department that deals with road maintenance. However a design flaw claim can be a little more difficult to bring to bear. Firstly to file a claim for a road design flaw your lawyer will have to make sure that this is indeed the case. Therefore they will have to gather as much evidence as possible to support the claim. An experienced Riverside car accident lawyer will be able to call upon a team of expert professionals who can take a look at the scene and present back to the lawyer with their findings. From this an attorney will be able to make an informed decision. People such as accident investigators and road design experts can all be asked to help in such a case.

If and when negligence has been found then the next thing that a lawyer will do is to file a claim to the government or state department that deals with the roads. In California this is usually Caltrans (California Transportation) but not always. More often than not when filing a claim for a defective or badly designed road the department will normally throw the claim out. This is because in order for all roads to be built they have to go through strict quality control and design inspections, upon which they are then deemed safe to be built. The way a lawyer can get around this is to be able to prove categorically that due to an increase in traffic over the years the road has now become dangerous.

These can be very difficult to prove as favourable claims often result in not only a compensation payout, but also having to make safe, redesign or even rebuild the road, which can easily run into tens of millions of dollars. Therefore these cases rarely get settled out of court. This means that your lawyer should have the skills, experience and financial backing to bring a case such as this to fruition.

A highly experienced group of Riverside County car accident lawyers will have the ability to deliver a full and fair compensation package to the client however complex the case may at first seem. This is why it's important to make the right choice.