Washington DC Injury Lawyer Blog
In dense urban areas such as Baltimore and Washington, D.C., the chances of a pedestrian being struck by a passenger car or commercial vehicle are likely greater than anywhere else in Maryland. Aside from some of the obvious locations where persons on foot can come into close proximity with motor vehicles — for instance urban crosswalks, bus stops and airport pick-up/drop-off zones — pedestrians can also be badly injured or even killed when simply walking through busy parking lots or in poorly illuminated parking garages.
As Baltimore, MD, personal injury attorneys, the legal team at Lebowitz & Mzhen, LLC, understands the range of threats that can be encountered when pedestrians and motor vehicles mix. Bicycle riders, shoppers, skateboarders, joggers, and even office workers rushing to their jobs can all be at risk to some degree when motor vehicle traffic is close by. And while adults make up a large portion of the foot traffic in Maryland’s urban areas, young children and teens are also at risk; sometimes even more so due to their often distracted behavior and relative lack of concern for the inherent risks of being a pedestrian in a busy cityscape.
Recent news reports brought home the dangers that kids can face when crossing city streets. A 12-year-old girl was sent to the hospital with a serious foot fracture following a pedestrian collision in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C. According to police, Paisley Brodie was leaving school when she was hit by a Land Rover SUV operated by Earl Darryl Curtis, 58, from the District Heights, MD, area. At first, the driver received a ticket for colliding with a pedestrian on September 9th; that citation carries with it a maximum possible penalty of 30 days in jail and a $250 fine.
However, in this particular case, further investigation reportedly showed that the vehicle involved in the collision had amassed more than $18,000 in tickets generated by D.C.-area traffic cameras — many of those citations were for speeding and/or running red lights. Based on that evidence, the D.C. attorney general recommended that the owner of the vehicle be brought up on criminal charges with a maximum 90-day jail sentence and a $500 fine.
Prior to being issued a more serious warrant, the driver had maintained in an interview that the victim hit his vehicle and caused a “nick” in the bodywork. However, he also reportedly admitted that he had driven into the crosswalk on a red light, which was corroborated by a witness to the crash. Furthermore, additional information indicated that the driver was already on probation following an incident last March in Annapolis when he received a citation for failure to “control speed to avoid a collision” (Curtis claimed he was not at fault in that crash as well); the vehicle he was driving at the time of the March collision was a Chevrolet Impala, which had more than $3,000 in unpaid traffic camera tickets.
It is important to note that traffic cameras typically capture only license plate information, not images of the driver or passengers of a vehicle, therefore there is no way to truly determine if Mr. Curtis was operating either of those vehicles during every instance of a recorded traffic violation. Some believe this is an unfortunate aspect of Maryland’s motor vehicle statutes as the existence of unpaid traffic citations can only prevent a vehicle owner from registering a car or truck, yet has no bearing on whether that same individual is allowed to renew his or her driver’s license.
Community uproar over Mr. Curtis’s — as well as other traffic offenders’ — apparent multiple camera-recorded offenses has raised greater awareness of the issue; as yet, however, there has been no new legislation that would allow stiffer, criminal-related charges to be imposed on individuals who routinely demonstrate dangerous driving activity. Because of this, Maryland police departments that present what would seem to be hard evidence of unlawful behavior often see their arrest warrants declined by local prosecutors.
Holding a Bad Driver Accountable for Your Injuries
Official data shows that, over a 12-month period (Oct. 2022-Sept. 2023), the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia received nearly 2,500 referrals for criminal charges from local police departments arising from traffic-related offenses; yet, the AG’s office pursued less than 1,600 of those cases. One reason for the apparent lack of driver accountability built into the current law is due to there being an exceedingly high standard of proof when it comes to charging an owner of a “repeat offending” vehicle. In order to avoid the greater burden of proof required under current law, the D.C. Office of Attorney General has, in some cases, pursued alternate legal remedies that don’t present as high a bar but still provide a modicum of justice in cases involving egregious traffic law offenders.
Putting aside the criminal aspects of repeat traffic offenders, from a personal injury standpoint, sustaining any kind of serious injury as a result of a traffic collision is often sufficient to file a personal injury or wrongful death claim against a negligent driver. Each year across the nation, several thousand pedestrians die in motor vehicle collisions, with many thousands more being injured on top of that. Being injured is not a guarantee of monetary recovery; that requires a successful legal strategy.
Whether someone is the victim of a pedestrian accident involving a passenger car, commercial truck, or SUV, the plaintiff in the case needs to establish that the driver is responsible for the victim’s injuries. As part of a negligence lawsuit, the plaintiff’s attorney must prove four elements to the court: 1) Duty of care owed to the victim; 2) Breach of that duty by the defendant; 3) Showing that the breach was a direct cause of the victim’s injuries; and 4) Presenting the extent of damages incurred by the victim as a result of the defendant’s negligent actions.
Pedestrians Can be Found “at Fault” in Crosswalk Accidents
Despite the obvious disparity between a vulnerable pedestrian and a 3,000-pound passenger vehicle, pedestrian injury accidents do not always precipitate successful personal injury lawsuits. Just like any other kind of traffic collision, there are factors that point to the negligence of one or the other party. Here in Maryland, however, the fact that a driver may have been at fault in the injury or death of a pedestrian, cyclist or roadway construction worker may not in itself be sufficient to prevail in a personal injury case.
Victims of pedestrian traffic accidents can, in fact, lose their case in court due to Maryland’s contributory negligence statute. Under some situations, such as crossing in the middle of a street, crossing the roadway outside of a marked crosswalk and crossing against a red traffic light or “Do Not Walk” pedestrian signal, the court may find that the victim contributed in some way to the accident in which he or she was injured.
It is instructive to note that under Maryland state law, any monetary recovery of damages requires plaintiffs to prove that the other party was 100-percent at fault. As personal injury attorneys, Lebowitz & Mzhen, LLC, understands that Maryland’s “at-fault” auto insurance laws can place a seemingly unfair burden on accident victims. If the defendant’s lawyers can show — using video evidence, eye witness statements, or police reports — that the victim was just one-percent at fault, there is a chance that the claim may be denied, thus ruining the plaintiff’s ability to recover damages for his or her medical bills, rehabilitation fees and other related costs.
In situations where a police report is the only evidence that the victim was partially responsible for his or her injuries, the plaintiff’s attorney may still be able to win a pedestrian-automobile injury accident case; this is because police reports are rarely allowed as evidence in these kinds of personal injury cases. A qualified Maryland injury lawyer will often remind the court that a police report typically reflects the officer’s opinion about whether the pedestrian was at fault in the collision, and therefore is not usually admissible in court.
In addition to the possible inadmissibility of the police accident report, a plaintiff’s personal injury case may also benefit from other supporting evidence, such as statements from witnesses; photos of the crash scene; video from a nearby red light camera; or commercial security camera footage; and even the defendant’s cellphone records, which may be useful in demonstrating that the driver was distracted at the time of the pedestrian accident.
Finally, when it comes to children being injured as a result of a car-pedestrian collision, if the victim’s guardian or parent can establish negligence, the child will most likely be entitled to compensation for the costs of medical care and subsequent recuperation following the incident, as well as potential monetary damages for pain and suffering the child experienced during and after the accident. Furthermore, since parents of an injured child can sometimes incur a significant amount of personal debt to pay for their child’s medical procedures, the parents themselves may need to seek further damages arising from the family’s deteriorated financial condition following the child’s injury accident.
Caring for an injured child is hard enough without having to worry about how to recover the often financial draining costs associated with a youngster’s hospital and rehab fees. At Lebowitz & Mzhen Personal Injury Lawyers, we don’t want you to go through the legal process alone. You can trust in our experience when representing children and their parents throughout Maryland and the District of Columbia. Please take advantage of our free, no-obligation initial consultation — call us at (800) 654-1949 to set up a risk-free meeting to discuss your case; or contact us online today.