Figuring out who is at fault in a traffic accident is a matter of deciding who was careless. And for vehicle accidents, there is a set of official written rules telling people how they are supposed to drive and providing guidelines by which liability may be measured and knowing what determines who is responsible in an automobile accident.
These rules of the road are the traffic laws everyone must learn to pass the driver’s license test. Complete rules are contained in each state’s Vehicle Code, and they apply not only to automobiles but also to motorcycles, bicycles and pedestrians.
The rules of the road are complex. Clients often tell me well he hit me so he is at fault. Who hit whom is usually irrelevant. Clients should never try to handle the case without a lawyer.
While there are thousands of traffic laws that deal with drivers’ obligations to each other, there are some basic traffic rules which repeatedly appear relevant in determining liability and which a good Baltimore Injury lawyer will know.
- Negligence is doing something that a person using reasonable care would not do, or not doing something that a person using reasonable care would do. Reasonable care means that caution, attention or skill a reasonable person would use under similar circumstances.
- A reasonable person changes conduct according to the circumstances and the danger that is known or would be appreciated by a reasonable person. Therefore, if the foreseeable danger increases, a reasonable person acts more carefully.
- The violation of a statute, which is a cause of plaintiff’s injuries or damages, is evidence of negligence.
- Striking a stopped car or a moving car in the rear
- If you change lanes and hit another car in the lane you are changing into
- If you run a red light and collide with a vehicle that has a green light
- If you run a stop sign and collide with a vehicle that did not have a stop sign
- If you fail to yield the right of way at a yield sign and collide with a vehicle that did not have a yield sign
- If you make a left turn, in front of traffic going in the opposite direction
- If you pull from a park position and hit another vehicle on the boulevard
- If you pull out of a parking lot or side street and collide with a car on the boulevard
- If you stop at a red light and make a right turn on red or go straight after you stop while the light is still red and collide with a vehicle that has a green light
- If you stop at the stop sign and then proceed and collide with a vehicle that did not have a stop sign
- Crossing the center line
- Roundabout road law
- Speeding
