Passengers in the vehicle may be able to recover damages from the driver’s insurance company if the driver was negligent in causing the crash. In other cases, the crash may be attributed to poor road design or a problem with the vehicle itself, meaning the driver or passengers may be able to make a claim against a third party.
Regardless of the situation, people who have been injured in a single-vehicle accident should consider getting help from our South Carolina personal injury attorneys at the Joye Law Firm.
Call Joye Law Firm or fill out an online contact form to schedule a free consultation.
About Single-Vehicle Crashes in South Carolina
Single-vehicle crashes are very common. In fact, a NHTSA National Motor Vehicle Crash Causation Survey indicated that 30.8 percent of 5,471 studied crashes were single-vehicle accidents. The 5,471 studied crashes were chosen as a representative sample of 2,189,166 crashes on the national level.
In a single-vehicle accident, there is only one driver who was in control of a vehicle. This often makes it easier to determine who was at fault for the crash — it generally was the only driver involved. This driver, therefore, is usually going to have to make a claim with his or her own car insurer to recover compensation for the accident. Passengers who were hurt in a single-vehicle accident caused by the driver’s negligence may be able to recover damages under the driver’s liability insurance.
In some cases, the accident may have been caused not by the driver of the vehicle but by some external factor. A tire blowout might have caused a rollover accident, for example, or some design defect may have led to a loss of control or brake failure. In such cases, the driver and passengers in the single-vehicle crash could potentially hold the car manufacturer, seller or distributor responsible. This type of claim would be a product liability lawsuit. The injured parties would need to show that there was some problem or defect in the vehicle that caused injury.
In other instances, the fault will lie not with the car but with the design or maintenance of the road. For example, a road may have been improperly maintained or poorly designed such that it was unsafe. If there was a problem with the road design or maintenance, then the entity responsible for design and maintenance could potentially be held liable, which is most often a government agency.
Governments are protected from lawsuits by “governmental immunity.” Governmental immunity doesn’t make it impossible to sue, but it does make it harder, and there are specific requirements you have to meet and things you must prove in order to take legal action in these cases.
Contact Our Charleston Single-Vehicle Accident Lawyers Today
If you’ve been seriously injured in a single-vehicle crash in South Carolina, you need lawyers you can trust to work to obtain the money and benefits you deserve. For a no-cost consultation, call Joye Law Firm at (877) 936-9707 or fill out our online case evaluation form.
