Road Design Defects and How A Team of Riverside Car Accident Lawyers Can Help

It is fair to say that in the majority of cases a car accident is usually the fault of one driver or the other and pinpointing negligence in the case of litigation is usually fairly clear cut. However there are instances where an accident or collision happened through no fault of the vehicle driver. One such occasion is in the case of a road design defect. If you have been involved in an accident involving a defective road in the state of California, then you should contact an experienced team of Riverside car accident lawyers.

So what constitutes a road design defect?

In essence, a defective road and hazards that pertain to a defective road, fall into three different categories. These are road maintenance defects, basic design flaws and signal and signage defects. Each category brings with it its own legal problems and each problem has to be handled differently. An experienced Riverside County car accident lawyer will know and understand this.

Road maintenance defects

Road maintenance defects can cover a whole multitude of criteria and include overhanging trees, hedges and branches that interfere with the drivers line of vision, badly pot holed roads, debris strewn roads, ineffective or broken street lighting, broken or buckled guard rails and uneven or slippery roads due to bad maintenance.

Signal/signage defects

Any broken or not fully functioning signals and signs that are meant to warn drivers of upcoming hazards or bad terrain features can be classed defective, as can hard to read or broken road entrance and exit signs and faulty traffic lights. Also falling within this category are poorly marked construction site zones

Flawed road designs

Within this category comes intersections that have been perceived to be poorly designed, a distinct lack of or insufficient road dividers or medians, none or insufficient road shoulders and insufficient road drainage, which can lead to an excessive build up of water that may cause vehicles to hydroplane.

In many cases accidents involving signal and signage defects and road maintenance problems are reasonably easy for an experienced car accident lawyer to pinpoint negligence. The companies responsible will accept negligence, as there is often definite proof that something is indeed defective. However, in the case of a suspected flawed road design this is not always so easy to prove. Quite often when a claim is filed it goes through to the department responsible. In California this is usually, but not always Caltrans. In nine cases out of ten they will throw the claim out again. The reason for this is that if a badly designed road has been cited as the cause of an accident, then the reasoning behind Caltrans not accepting the claim is that the cited road had to originally be cleared by safety planners even before it got anywhere near the building stage. Therefore it is deemed as safe. One way a skilled team of Riverside car accident lawyers can get around this problem is to try to prove that things have changed since the road was passed as adequate and that it is now a danger. Circumstances such as more traffic on the roads could be one reason.

In theory an attorney has to work quickly because with any governmental department, they have set time scales upon which they operate. If a claim is not filed within this given period, then it is classed as null and void. Therefore a skilled lawyer has to be able to gather all the information necessary to build a case in a short space of time. Any team of Riverside car accident attorneys worth their salt will have the financial, backing in place to be able to call upon a whole host of independent professionals who can help with the case. People such as accident investigators, road design experts and medical experts, can all be asked to present their findings to the attorney. From this, they can pinpoint where the negligence lays and file a claim accordingly.

As you can see, this type of case is far from straight forward but with the right firm of Riverside car accident lawyers a positive result can look likely. Being able to receive the full and fair compensation that you deserve for your injuries is paramount and this is something that a team of experienced attorneys will be working towards.