Looking at the Whole Picture After an Accident

Today I met with a young couple, they had been involved in a car wreck with an 18 wheeler, but in their circumstances, the 18 wheeler stopped in front of them and they didn’t have time to stop. It did not have working brake or turning signal lights.

The police officer said that they were in part at fault for failing to control their speed but that the 18 wheeler should have been red tagged (taken off the road entirely) due to the defective lights.

The only one who got a ticket was the truck driver because of the condition of his rig. Their car was totaled in the wreck and they had to go to the ER.

This all happened more than a month ago and they hadn’t been able to get a response from the insurance company, the adjustor was rude to them and said the wreck was their fault so the truckers insurance wasn’t on the hook. They needed some advice so they came to me. Both of them were hurt in the wreck, not badly, but an er bill is one you don’t need when you are already looking at losing your car. Their car was totaled and they missed some work, had two kids, oil patch jobs, you get the idea. They were at their wits end.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a lot of good to tell them. Since it was broad daylight, odds were a jury was going to place a lot of the responsibility for the wreck on the car driver’s shoulders. They probably would put some on the trucker, but how much and if you can’t get at least 50% of on the other guy, then you are not owed a dime under Texas law, no matter how badly you are hurt. Law states if is is more than 50% your fault you are barred entirely from recovering.

So, in Texas, if it is 50% the other guys fault, your damages would be reduced by your percentage of responsibility, so in a 50%/50% split, if jury gave you 10,000, you would get 5,000. If it is more than 50% your fault then you get nothing. I can definitely understand the reasoning for the law and it’s fair, but those facts don’t help these folks. I just didn’t see them getting there in this case and told them so.

On the property damage, if your car is paid off and you are only carrying liability, which was their situation, then if the wreck is your fault you get no help from your insurance company getting you back on the road. This was their only means of transportation. The husband had been scrambling to get rides to work while they tried to figure out their options. So they were out of luck on this side as well.

BUT, when we checked they did have Personal Injury Protection (PIP). As I have said before this type of car insurance is super cheap and IT DOESN’T CARE WHO IS AT FAULT. Even if it’s your fault, it will pay 100% of your past medical bills and up to 80% of your lost wages directly to you, so you can decide how to use it after you receive it.

They didn’t realize they had it. I explained to them what it meant. I thought they were going to cry they were so relieved when they left. Hopefully this will be enough to get them back into a car and back on their feet.

One of the things I still love about my job is helping people, whether I can take their case or not.

Misty

 

This post is also available in: Spanish