Injured Teenager Pedestrian Reaches $1,000,000 Settlement With Twenty Year Old Driver
Motor vehicle accidents do not discriminate among those who are injured
. Men and women both get hurt. The rich and the poor both get hurt. The young and the old both get hurt. But somehow it seems especially tragic when the victim is someone who is young and is either killed before being able to reach his or her promise and potential, or who is seriously injured and has to bear the consequences for the rest of a long life.And to make matters worse, the very same accidents injuring young people often involve young drivers. Young drivers, perhaps in part due to less experience, distractions, lack of caution, or the influence of alcohol or drugs, have a higher risk of being involved in a motor vehicle accident. This article examines a reported case in which three young people, all pedestrians, were victims of a motor vehicle accident involving a young, 20 year old driver.
Consider the reported case involving a twenty year old driver who was speeding in a $75,000 high end vehicle he had borrowed. He ended up losing control of the vehicle which sped into a tree-lined pedestrian median strip. The car struck four people. One of the people struck was a fifteen year old girl. She did not survive the impact. Her sister died from her injuries shortly after the accident. She was only ten years old. The mother of the two girls sustained critical injuries. A seventeen year old boy sustained a fracture of his leg. He had to undergo surgery and required the insertion of two screws into his leg and has significant scarring. He also bears the scars of the memory of seeing the two girls die. The law firm that represented the seventeen year old boy reported that he settled his claim for $1,000,000.
This case is just one example of many cases involving young drivers and young victims. Although the reported case only involved the seventeen year old boy as a plaintiff, two young girls lost their lives from this accident. And was no mention in the report of the case that there was any involvement of alcohol or drugs. It thus appears that this was merely a lack of caution on the part of the young driver.
Handling these cases requires experience not only with the legal issues that can arise but also with medical issues concerning the injuries (which sometimes include psychological issues) and economic issues (from the loss of future income due to any limitations on the ability to work due to the injuries). These are serious and complex cases and a skilled and experienced motor vehicle accident attorney can assist the plaintiff in obtaining proper compensation.
by: Joseph Hernandez