A person was killed in an accident on an HOV lane ramp along I-15 in Escondido allegedly caused by a speeding driver. The accident occurred during the afternoon, when the driver of a Jaguar XK6 allegedly ran a red light while traveling at freeway speeds and smashed into a Toyota Avalon broadside. A female front-seat passenger in the Avalon, who wasn’t wearing a seat belt, died at the scene. The woman’s brother-in-law stated that she had been on her way to pick up her husband of 45 years at the bus station when the accident occurred. The 81-year-old male driver of the Jaguar was injured in the accident and transported to the hospital in critical condition. His passenger also suffered serious injuries.
Speeding, which is defined as exceeding the posted speed limit or driving too fast for the conditions of the road, is a major problem on U.S. roadways, accounting for more than 9,000 deaths in 2018. This equates to about 25 percent of all traffic-related deaths across the nation, according to the Governor’s Highway Safety Association. In San Diego, 2016 statistics reveal that 2,245 people were injured or killed in accidents involving speeding in that single year. If you’ve lost a loved one due to a speed-related crash in San Diego, you may be eligible for compensation through a wrongful death claim. An experienced car accident attorney can provide more information about the process involved in obtaining this type of compensation.
Speeding not only reduces your ability to maintain control of your vehicle, but also increases the severity of injuries and damage to the vehicle when an accident occurs. Popular Mechanics notes that the issue with speeding is simple math: two cars are traveling in the same direction, one at 70 miles per hour and one at 100 miles per hour. Both drivers see an obstacle ahead and slam on their brakes at the same time. The car traveling at 70 miles per hour stops just short of the obstacle, but the car traveling at 100 miles per hour hits the obstacle.
The reason why has to do with energy. The car traveling at 100 miles per hour has more than twice the kinetic energy as the vehicle traveling at 70 miles per hour. The slower moving car was able to stop, but the faster moving vehicle was not even slowed down to 70 miles per hour by the time it struck the object.
Some of the problems that speeding creates include:
Most people are at least somewhat aware that speeding is dangerous. So why do they do it? Some of the reasons drivers choose to speed include:
While it’s true that anyone can exceed the posted speed limit, there are certain categories of people who are more likely to speed, as well as places and times where speed-related accidents are more prevalent. The Federal Highway Administration has conducted extensive research into these trends, and the results were as follows:
According to information from AAA, one of the top deadly mistakes made by teen drivers is speeding. Teen drivers’ inexperience is already an issue, with motor vehicle accidents being the leading cause of death for U.S. teenagers. Teenage drivers are more likely to experience a car accident than any other age group. In a survey, about half of teenage drivers stated that it was acceptable to drive 15 miles per hour over the speed limit. Roughly the same percentage of teens participating in the survey believed that it was acceptable to drive 10 miles per hour over the speed limit in a residential area.
The risk of speeding, and crashing, increases for teen drivers with every teen passenger that they have in the vehicle with them. Half of all fatal crashes involving 16-year-old drivers with three or more passengers in the vehicle involve excessive speed—a fact that has some experts stating that society needs to consider speeding as dangerous as alcohol-impaired or distracted driving for teenagers and devote the same attention to preventing it.
One of the issues behind teen speeding is that it is not always an act of intentional risk-taking, but may actually reflect inexperience. Teens often struggle with knowing the appropriate distance at which to follow other cars, as well as how to manipulate their accelerator and brakes in stop-and-go traffic.
If a loved one died in a speed-related crash, you are likely facing both unexpected grief and unexpected expenses. A wrongful death lawsuit may provide the compensation you need to cover those expenses. A wrongful death lawsuit may be filed by family members of the deceased, including the deceased’s:
The damages that you may recover from a wrongful death lawsuit include funeral and burial expenses, the income that the deceased would have earned had they survived, and loss of companionship – the love, relationship, and enjoyment lost from losing a loved one. Wrongful death actions often go hand-in-hand with survival actions, which involve obtaining compensation for the deceased’s estate for damages that the deceased experienced after the accident but before death, including medical expenses related to their final injury and the victim’s pain and suffering that resulted from the injuries they experienced. In some cases, where the at-fault party’s negligence and recklessness were egregious, a court may also award punitive damages.
Gomez Auto Injury Accident Legal Team
For every person who is killed in a speed-related crash, many more suffer serious injuries. If you were injured by a speeding driver, you may also be eligible to receive compensation through an insurance claim or a personal injury lawsuit. You should first attempt to obtain a settlement from the at-fault driver’s insurance company.
An experienced attorney can help you file this insurance claim and can also help you to negotiate a settlement that provides fair compensation for the injuries and loss of a loved one you’ve endured. If a settlement is not forthcoming, your attorney can file a personal injury lawsuit on your behalf within two years after the accident. In this type of lawsuit, you may be able to obtain compensation for the following damages:
Your attorney will work to determine the value of your case as well as all potential sources of liability and all insurance resources that you may pursue to recover the greatest amount of compensation available. An experienced car accident attorney can talk with you about your accident and help you understand the legal remedies that may be available in your case.
John Gomez founded the firm alone in 2005. Today, John acts as President and Lead Trial Attorney. He has been voted by his peers as a top ten San Diego litigator in three separate fields: Personal Injury, Insurance and Corporate Litigation. Since 2000, he has recovered over $800 million in settlements and verdicts for his clients with more than 160 separate recoveries of one million dollars or more. A prolific trial lawyer, John has tried to jury verdict more than 60 separate cases.
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