The NEW Guide To MASSIVE Payouts for Pedestrian Accidents (I'm A Lawyer)

You're walking home from the grocery store and you're only two blocks from your place. You're crossing the street and a driver who's turning right doesn't see you until it's too late. Pedestrian accidents like this happen all the time in Texas and when you wake up in the hospital the insurance company is already crafting a narrative and building their case and it's not against the driver it's against you the pedestrian. The insurance company will probably call you and they'll ask you a few seemingly innocent questions. They'll ask you, were you fully in the crosswalk? Were you listening to music or were you on your phone? And how do you know that? They might even ask you, what color clothes were you wearing? Were they very dark? How light was it outside? And the thing about Texas law is that it doesn't matter if it's a two-ton vehicle hitting a pedestrian at night or in the middle of the day. That's because if they can put even part of the blame on you, your compensation drops and they don't have to pay as much. It could be 5%. 25% of what they're hoping for is more than 50% of the blame, in which case your compensation becomes zero. Now, most people who get hit by a car when they're a pedestrian, they think that, well, not this case. My case is an open and shut case. It's clear that the driver was the one at fault, that he was the one not paying attention. But they're often surprised that the insurance company tries to build a case against him, even in a crystal clear case like theirs. And that's because of a Texas law that most people are not familiar with, and they don't even realize what the insurance company is doing and how they're trying to use it against them. That law is called proportionate responsibility. Texas follows something that's called a modified comparative fault rule, which means that any percentage points that the jury can find and put on you, the injured pedestrian, then your compensation is reduced by that same amount. And if they find that you're more than 50% responsible for the crash, well, then you get nothing, regardless of what your damages are, regardless of how hurt you are. And insurance companies know that very well. They know the law. They have teams of lawyers and insurance adjusters who are geared to reduce the amount of money that they have to pay. That saves the company money, and that makes them look good for their job. So when they're asking you these questions about. Where were you in the crosswalk? Were you looking at your phone at any time? And what color clothes you were wearing? That's not concern for your well-being. Those are pointed questions to try to get any percentage of blame to be put on you instead of the driver. It's all to save the insurance company money and to pay you less. And ideally, they want to start working before you ever talk to a lawyer. As soon as they can reach you, they will start building their case. So let's see how this plays out with real numbers. Let's say that your damages for your injury is $200,000. That's medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, physical impairment, and mental anguish. Now, if the insurance company can prove that you were 20% at fault, well, then your damages are reduced. They only have to pay $160,000, and they just saved themselves $40,000 for the 20% that they were able to put on you. Whether that's because your clothes were too dark or you were distracted looking at your phone or whatever you might say to them in a recorded conversation. And if they can push your fault to 40%, well, then they only have to pay $120,000. We're talking about saving thousands of dollars for each percentage point that they're able to put on you. And oftentimes, they are building their case from a recorded statement that you give only moments after the crash, maybe hours, maybe days. Oftentimes, you're still on medication, or maybe you're still in the hospital. So here's a myth that costs pedestrians tens of thousands of dollars each time. The myth is that you have to be in a marked pedestrian crosswalk in order for you to have a claim against the negligent driver. And that idea is simply not true. Texas law states that you do not have to be in a marked crosswalk to have a claim against a negligent driver. Texas identifies the natural extension of the sidewalk where you can cross the road as if there were a marked crosswalk. It doesn't have to be painted on the road for you to have the right of way. So when it's just a natural extension of the sidewalk, even when there's no crossing marks in the road, Drivers have to yield to you as if there were a marked hash line right in the middle of the road. And even outside of any crosswalk, drivers still owe a duty of care to everyone around them. If they are speeding or looking at their phone or distracted or not paying attention, it doesn't matter if you were crossing in the middle of the block. They have a duty to pay attention to their surroundings, to all pedestrians and drivers around them. And speed and distraction are the overwhelming majority of the causes of these pedestrian accidents that I see. If you're at an intersection, you can look around and you can see the number of people that are just on their phones while they're driving. It's staggering. And a driver that's on his phone is not going to be paying attention to the road in front of them, which they're required to do as a driver in Texas. Same thing with speeding. If you're driving 10 miles an hour over the speed You're going to need more time to come to a complete stop. to avoid hitting any pedestrian at a crosswalk or not. Ultimately, what it comes down to is your duty of care as a driver on the Texas roadways. So if they're looking down at their phone or they're texting or they're talking to someone else in the car by turning their head, whatever it is, they're not paying attention to the road in front of them and they could easily cause a crash sending someone to the hospital. The Texas right of way laws state that a pedestrian has the right of way at the intersection. And if they've already started crossing, the cars have to yield to them as that is the rule. Similarly, drivers who are backing out of parking spots and driveways owe a duty to those pedestrians behind them. They have to be aware of their surroundings before pulling out of any area. But the most common pedestrian crashes that we see are when a driver has a solid green light and is turning right. Very often, they are the ones responsible for the crash. Regardless of what the insurance adjuster says in your phone call with them, again, they will try to frame everything in the light most favorable to their insured, including saying things like, well, liability is not determined, or there's a little bit of fault on both sides. That is often simply not true. And the injuries in these pedestrian accidents are often very severe because in a car, you have a metal frame, you've got airbags, you've got seatbelts to protect you when you get hit. In a pedestrian situation, you don't have those protections, so the injuries are often much worse. Even pedestrian accidents at relatively low speeds can lead to spinal injuries, traumatic brain injuries, and broken bones. These kind of injuries often result in months of rehabilitation and medical care, piling medical bills, and possibly permanent damage that you'll have to deal with for the rest of your life. Some victims need multiple surgeries or invasive medical procedures just to get their quality of life back again. Others deal with the cognitive problems of a traumatic brain injury that don't always show up immediately after the crash. These things like slower processing speeds, memory loss, or other symptoms of traumatic brain injury might appear weeks or months after the crash, well after you've given your recorded statement to the insurance company. And when injuries are this serious, that's why the insurance company wants to jump on the case early to try to frame things to shift the blame onto the injured person away from the driver. A case worth six figures becomes a whole lot less expensive for an insurance company if they can convince someone that you're 30% responsible for the crash. That saves them tens of thousands of dollars. It's also important to them so they start working early. Often before you've ever left the hospital to try to get you a recorded statement before you realize what's happened. So if you're ever in a situation like this, what you do at the scene of the crash matters most if you're physically able to do these things. First, take photos and videos of everything in the area. The crosswalk, the car, the license plate, the photographs of your visible injuries if you have any. can be helpful. You want to record and take pictures of any witnesses that saw anything and get their contact information. Oftentimes, witness information goes missing. People who see things often don't stick around to give their information. So you want to preserve that because you can't rely on the police officer doing the police report to get everything down. And really, I can't stress this enough. Getting witness contact information is extremely important. It's often the difference between winning and losing if it comes down to your word versus the driver's. And if a police officer responds to the scene, it's important that you insist that a police report gets filed. You might feel immediately after the collision that your injuries don't seem that bad, that you're just a little sore or a little tight, but hopefully it'll go away with time. Adrenaline often hides the true symptoms of your injuries. And they appear hours or days later after the adrenaline's gone down. You want to preserve as much as possible in that police record if you can. And once you're finally getting medical care, it's important that you be extremely careful with those phone calls with the insurance company. Oftentimes, they'll be asking you for a recorded statement before you even realize what's going on. These calls often come fast, usually within 24 to 48 hours after the incident, and they're designed to catch you off guard before you have the ability to process everything that's happened. The questions in these recorded statements are often designed to elicit a particular response, painting you into a corner that makes their defendant, the driver, look as good as possible and you as guilty as possible. This is one of the most common tactics that insurance companies use And it's so effective because most pedestrians don't really understand the law and maybe some lawyers don't understand it either. Even if the pedestrian was jaywalking, that does not remove the duty of care that every driver still has to maintain. Jaywalking by itself does not mean that the pedestrian is a majority at fault, which is what really matters in these kind of cases. And that's because the Texas court system. looks at the full picture not just was the pedestrian jaywalking but what was the driver doing was the driver paying attention speeding or doing anything else that takes his attention off of the road the real question is was the pedestrian's actions the actual cause of the crash or was it the driver's failure to pay attention to look at the road and to give their duty of care to their surroundings So an insurance adjuster who throws out the word jaywalking as their main defense knows that it's just a tactic, not a full and complete defense to any claim. Now, we've covered in other videos what exact documentation is going to win your case, and that applies to pedestrian accidents as much as any other type of accident. That video is already on our channel, and it's worth watching before you ever need to use it. And if you or someone you love has been involved in a pedestrian accident, Whether or not the insurance company is pointing blame at you, it's important to talk to people who have done this before and can guide you on this process. If you need some help, our consultations are always 100% free, and we only get paid any attorney's fees if we win your case. Our contact information is in the description below, or you can go to our website, fill out a contact form, or call us directly. These kinds of accidents are so common here in Texas. Have you ever been involved in an accident or someone tried to blame you when it wasn't your fault? Please drop a comment below to let me know what happened in your case. Thank you so much for watching. I'm Max the Axe with Lone Star Injury Attorneys. Thank you so much.