DECATUR PEDESTRIAN ACCIDENT ATTORNEY

Pedestrians are the most at-risk group in traffic accidents and often sustain a greater injury in any collision against a vehicle. Our group of Decatur Pedestrian Accident Lawyers has fiercely fought and advocated for the rights of victims for over 30 years.

According to the CDC, one pedestrian was killed every 88 minutes due to traffic crashes in 2017. Among vulnerable road users, some are more vulnerable than others:

• Elderly people show a gradual decrease in their abilities to cope with difficult traffic situations. They are becoming physically more fragile, which means that the injuries sustained in a collision may have more severe consequences for them. Most elderly people tend to disengage from traffic, thus reducing their mobility and the scope of their social life. Elderly people with Dementia or Alzheimer’s Disease contribute a large population of victims because of their confused mental state.

 

• Disabled persons using mobility aids, or a wheelchair are more at risk in difficult traffic situations or because the infrastructure is not adapted to their abilities. Persons with mental disabilities like Schizophrenia or veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are at particularly high risk for crosswalk accidents or other traffic accidents during episodes.

 

• Children are among the most vulnerable road users as their abilities to cope with traffic are limited, especially in the first nine or ten years of their life. Children are more likely to be playing outside or crossing the street to get on the bus when they are injured by a vehicle. Kids are highly at risk in any situation where motorized traffic is heavy or fast, visibility is limited, or the drivers focus their attention on other vehicles and tend to forget about pedestrians. According to the CDC in 2016, one in every five children under the age of 15 who were killed in traffic crashes were pedestrians.

 

• Public Transportation Users in cities or densely populated areas are common victims of pedestrian accidents because they are more likely to be on sidewalks or crossing the street to get on a bus or get to a train station. Public transportation users may be rushing to catch the last ride to work when a driver doesn’t see them at a crosswalk and an accident occurs.

 

Improving traffic situations and infrastructure to facilitate the movement of the most vulnerable users of the road is not only a safety measure but a basic action to treat them with equity and to fully integrate them into society.

While everyone has the responsibility to be aware of their surroundings—and not walk straight into things while staring at their phones, for example—those who are in bigger, more dangerous vehicles have more of a responsibility than bicyclists or pedestrians.