If a pedestrian has been hit by an automobile, he or she should definitely plan to file a claim against the driver. In order to strengthen that claim, it helps to follow a recognized post-accident procedure.

Procedure to be followed by pedestrian that has been hit:

Call police; get photographs of the scene and of the car driven by the responsible driver.

Seek medical attention. If there is no clinic or hospital nearby, see your own doctor as soon as possible. If the driver has left the scene, speak with witnesses. Try to find a video tape that shows what was taking place at the time of the accident. Later, devote some time and effort into trying to locate the missing driver.

Is the driver always responsible, if a pedestrian gets hurt?

If it was the pedestrian’s choice to run out into the street, assuming that the oncoming vehicles would stop, then that action could be used as a reason for pointing to the pedestrian’s readiness to cause an accident. If the pedestrian had mistakenly stepped off the curb, and had tried to return to the curb, the driver might be freed from 100% of the responsibility. The walker’s behavior can affect the determination of who was responsible. Was the person that got hit texting someone on a cell phone at that specific moment?

Can a municipality be held responsible, if someone walking across the street gets hit?

If the person crossing the street had acted in response to a broken traffic light, then the city might be held responsible. Did that light produce a green signal in two directions at the same time? Did that light fail to signal the need for a walker to wait on the curb?

If a crosswalk had been positioned right after a curve, the city might be held responsible. A driver going around a curve would be ill-prepared to come to a stop, if someone were using that particular crosswalk.

What factors could increase the likelihood that the municipality would be charged with causing the accident?

Personal Injury Lawyer in Charlottetown talk about evidence that other drivers or pedestrians had reported the existence of a real danger at a designated location. Moreover, the municipality had failed to take the appropriate action, after receiving those reports.

The city had allowed a dangerous condition to exist for an extended period of time, prior to the date when a given pedestrian got hit. Those factors might be used to file a case against the city, but that case would have to be filed within a short period of time. Otherwise, it would not be recognized by the court. In the meantime, the municipality might have taken the necessary corrective actions.