Jul 10, 2012 | Car Accidents, Uncategorized
Chief among the causes of major highway pileups are bad conditions and plain bad driving. With more and more cars on the road, it can be expected that there will be a patch of inattentive drivers ready to form a pileup.
So, how can you avoid a pileup? You must avoid the common causes.
- Check the weather. If visibility is low or the roads are very wet, pileups are much more likely. If you must drive in poor weather conditions, increase your following distance to account for increased braking time and shorter sight distance.
- Drive the speed limit. This piece of advice of obvious, but so many of us fail to follow it on a daily basis. Certainly, slowpokes on the highway are dangerous, but so are speeds in excess of the design speed of the road. If weather conditions are poor, account appropriately for the poor conditions by reducing your speed.
- Don’t tailgate. Especially if conditions are poor, the key cause of pileups is that drivers don’t have time to stop. If you follow too closely, you simply can’t brake in time, both because of human response time and braking time.
- Finally, pay attention. Especially if conditions are bad, concentrate on the road. On the German autobahn, cupholders were once rare for this reason. Driving is an activity that requires attention. Make sure that your attention is not on your cell phone or fiddling with the air conditioning or radio. These distractions often turn out to be deadly.
Serious Car Accident Attorneys of Reeves, Aiken & Hightower
If you or a loved one has been injured or killed in a car accident, you need a serious car accident attorney like those at Reeves, Aiken & Hightower. Review our credentials, make sure that we are right for you, and call us at 877-374-5999, or contact us here, for a private consultation.
Jun 27, 2012 | Car Accidents, Uncategorized
This year to date, York County fails to rank amongst the most fatal roads in South Carolina.
The most fatal 7 counties are:
- Lexington County – 32
- Greenville County – 26
- Spartanburg County- 25
- Charleston County – 23
- Richland County – 23
- Anderson County – 20
- Horry County – 19
Most of the fatalities, at least in Lexington County, had alcohol as their root cause. Drunk driving is obviously dangerous and is on the rise during these trying economic times.
Other contributing factors commonly cited by officials are:
- failure to wear seatbelts
- failure to wear helmets (on motorcycles)
Serious Accident Attorneys
Whether you or someone you love has been injured on a motorcycle, in a commercial trucking accident, or in an auto accident, the attorneys at Reeves, Aiken & Hightower are here for you. Compare our credentials to any other firm, then call us at 877-374-5999 (or contact us at this link) for a private consultation.
Jun 25, 2012 | Car Accidents, Uncategorized
In Greenville, SC, a 19 year old boy was tragically injured in a hit-and-run Saturday night. He was taken to the Greenville Memorial Hospital, where he soon died of blunt force trauma. The Greenville County Coroner’s office identifed him today as Joseph Hastings.
The South Carolina Highway Patrol reported that Hastings was in the road when he was hit, and the driver of the automobile involved had fled. The driver was arrested soon after the hit-and-run as Joshua Kelly. He was charged with leaving the scene of an accident involving death.
South Carolina Pedestrian Accident Attorneys
If you or someone you know has been injured in a pedestrian accident, you should seek the counsel of experienced pedestrian accident attorneys like those at Reeves, Aiken, & Hightower. We know how to fight for you. Compare our credentials to any other law firm. Then call 877-374-5999 or contact us at this link for a private consultation.
Jun 21, 2012 | Car Accidents, Personal Injury, Uncategorized
In South Carolina, the rule is comparative negligence: even if a plaintiff is partially negligent, that plaintiff can still recover if their negligence does not exceed the negligence of others. The recovery will, however, be reduced in proportion to the plaintiff’s negligence.
For example, if a plaintiff is 30% at fault (negligent), and one defendant is 70% at fault, and damages as determined by a jury are $100,000, the plaintiff would get a verdict for $70,000 from that defendant. You might be thinking about how one would determine the percentages of fault. The answer is that the legal system just punts. The case is put on by both the plaintiff’s side and the defense, witnesses are called, and arguments are made. Then, the jury is told the rule, that they have to determine how much each party was at fault, and they come up with an answer. So, they ignore how hard the question is, and they come up with an answer because eventually they will tire of deliberating.
There are a few wrinkles to the comparative negligence rule though.
50% or 51%: The rule in SC is that the plaintiff’s negligence must not exceed that of the defendants, i.e. in a case where a jury determines that the plaintiff and defendant split fault exactly 50-50, the plaintiff gets 50% of damages. If the plaintiff is the least little bit more at fault than the defendant, the plaintiff is barred from recovery. This rule is called the 51% bar rather than the 50.000…001% bar because 51 percent bar is easier to say.
What happens when there are multiple parties? In multi-party suits, the plaintiff’s negligence must not exceed the combined negligence of the defendants. So, even if there is no defendant individually responsible for 51% of the negligence, the plaintiff’s claim is not barred.
Is it an affirmative defense or is the burden on the plaintiff? It turns out that, although contributory negligence was treated as a defense, comparative negligence generally acts as a burden on the plaintiff. In South Carolina, the burden is on the plaintiff to prove that the defendant was negligent by a preponderance of the evidence. The defendant can of course offer evidence that they were not negligent, but they can also offer evidence that the plaintiff was negligent as well. Ross v. Paddy.
Reeves, Aiken & Hightower: Serious Accident Attorneys
If you have been in a serious accident, and need help of a serious accident lawyer, please browse our website. Compare the credentials of attorneys at Reeves, Aiken & Hightower to the attorneys at any other firm. Then call us at 877-374-5999 or contact us at this link for a private consultation.
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Jun 20, 2012 | Car Accidents, Uncategorized
Everybody knows that it is a good idea to buckle up their kids in appropriate child safety seats. Cars are designed to protect adults not children in the event of an auto collision. States including South Carolina have chosen to make this common sense law.
The law provides that:
- during ages birth to 1 year old, or who weigh less than 20 pounds, children must be secured in a rear-facing child safety seat,
- during ages 1 to 5 children who weigh 20 to 40 pounds must be restrained in a forward-facing child seat.
- during ages 1 to 5 children who weigh 40 to 80 pounds must be secured in a belt-positioning booster seat.
- Children under the age of 6 are not required to be in booster seats if they weigh more than 80 pounds or if they can sit with their backs against the car’s seat and bend their legs over the seat edge without slouching.
- Children under 6 may not sit in the front passenger seat. However, this restriction does not apply if the vehicle has no rear passenger seats or if all other rear passenger seats are occupied by children less than 6 years old.
Violators are subject to a $150 fine. This law does not apply to taxis, church, school and day care buses, or commercial vehicles.
If your child has been seriously injured in an automobile accident, get medical treatment and then contact us. Browse our website. Compare our credentials to those of attorneys at any other firm. Then, call us toll-free at 877-374-5999 or contact us on this form. We are ready to fight for you and your child.
Jun 15, 2012 | Boating Accidents, Car Accidents, Uncategorized
Everybody knows what they are supposed to do if they’ve been in a car wreck, but after an accident on the lake or river, you might find yourself asking “what do I do after a boating accident?”
The answer on water turns out to be not too different from the answer on land. If you are the operator of the boat you must:
- Stop your vessel as soon as you can do so safely at the scene of the incident,
- Assist anyone injured in the incident, unless doing so would endanger your vessel or your passengers,
- Give in writing your name, address, vessel identification to anyone who was injured or had property damaged in the incident, and
- Report the incident to the Department of Natural Resources, if the accident occurred in South Carolina.
Of course, the ramifications of the boating accident do not end at the scene. If you were injured in a boating accident, it may very well be in your interest to seek the counsel of an experienced boating accident attorney to determine what you may be entitled to. Boating accidents are a very serious matter, and just like the more common car accident, insurance companies are never eager to compensate accident victims.
The boating accident attorneys of Reeves Aiken & Hightower LLP know how to deal with serious boating accident cases and are ready to fight for you. We encourage you to examine our credentials and experience and compare us to any other firm. You can then call us toll-free at 877-374-5999 for a private, confidential consultation to review your particular case.
