The bottom line is that you cannot effectively represent yourself against an insurance company whose sole objective is to make a profit by saving every penny they can – even it if comes at your expense.

Insurance adjusters are trained to handle claims to their advantage.  While they might seem to be on your side and helpful, their ultimate goal is to settle your case for as little as they can get away with.  Once you settle you cannot come back and ask for further compensation.

The adjuster knows that his or her job security is based largely on the overall amount of all the cases he or she has settled throughout the year. Accordingly, the adjuster will want to settle your case for as little as possible as save the company money.

Don’t guess about the value of your case or let the insurance company and their army of lawyers take advantage of you.  Call an experienced personal injury attorney today about your case.

The statutory limits of $15,000/$30,000 were set decades ago, when they actually meant something. To protect yourself, we strongly encourage you to have uninsured and underinsured motorist insurance coverage on our own policy.

Medical expenses, as we all know, are outrageously high, and after you have been involved in an automobile accident, you may find the doctors wanting to do CT scans, MRIs, a night of observation in the hospital, and other high-cost procedures to ensure you didn’t suffer a brain injury or broken bones. These procedures cost thousands of dollars and if the person who hit you didn’t have sufficient insurance to cover the costs, then you may find yourself paying thousands of dollars out of your own pocket.

Therefore, you should contact your automobile insurance company immediatelyand see about getting adequate uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage. If you ever need it, you’ll be glad to have it.

So what are the leading causes of automobile accidents?

1. Distracted drivers – Drivers who are not paying attention to the road in frontof them and the traffic around them. They may be talking on a cell phone (a hands-free cell phone does not reduce the amount of accidents as opposed to holding a cell phone up to your ear), texting, rubbernecking (slowing down to gawk at another accident), looking at scenery, talking with other passengers or tending to a child in the back seat, adjusting the radio or CD player, applying make-up, using an electric razor, or reading a map, book, newspaper, or other document.

2. Driver fatigue, especially between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m.

3. Drunk driving – during the week, drunk drivers are responsible for about30 percent of automobile-related deaths; this figure increases to 53 percenton the weekend. According to Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD),someone is killed by a drunk driver every 40 minutes. Most of the people whoare involved in drunk-driving accidents are repeat offenders who have been convicted of an alcohol-related crime or have driven while under the influence before.

4. Speeding – speeding reduces the amount of time you have to react to a hazard in the road or increases the length of road surface you need to stop in to avoid hitting the car in front of you. Not only does speeding increase the chances of getting into an automobile accident, it increases the severity of the accident.

5. Aggressive Driving – This is defined as operating an automobile in a selfish, bold, or push manner, without regard for the rights or safety of the other users of the street or highway. This includes such behavior as tailgating; flashingyour lights at other drivers because they irritate you or you are speeding and want the car ahead of you to speed up or change lines; aggressive or rudegestures; disregarding traffic signs and signals; changing lanes frequently or in an unsafe manner; and failure to yield the right of way. “Road rage” is anothercause of automobile accidents.

6. Weather conditions – rain, snow, ice, heavy fog and other weather conditionscontribute to a number of automobile accidents; in such situations, the driver

should slow down and leave extra room between the car in front of him or her.In severe conditions, the best thing is to stop at the side of the road and waituntil the weather conditions improve.

7. Driver Carelessness – This can be caused by several factors: age (young andold), inexperience, fear of the road, driving too fast or too slow, tending tochildren, talking to passengers, and eating while driving.

8. Unsafe lane changes – Changing lanes without properly signaling or lookingat the lane you are moving into to make sure there are no cars or motorcyclesthere.

Drivers engaged in any of the above behaviors who cause an accident may be held monetarily liable for the personal injuries, deaths, and property damage they inflict. If you have been injured in an automobile accident, contact a personal injury lawyer as soon as possible so that he or she can begin to gather

Often times, the driver turning left is not paying sufficient attention to traffic coming towards it from the other side. Others misjudge the speed of the on-coming cars and feel they have enough time to make a safe left turn, only to be struck by the on-coming car in mid-turn.

A driver making a left turn has the legal duty not to make the turn until it is reasonable and safe to do so.

This means that the left-turning driver must be alert for on-coming traffic and their relative rate of speed.

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In most left-turn cases, a police officer will take a report and issue a traffic citation to the party turning left for failure to yield the right of way. However, in disputed left-turn accident cases, it is often necessary to employ an expert in accident reconstruction to prove who was at fault for the accident.  Perhaps the car making the left turn was doing so safely and the other driver runs a red light.  These are situations and instances where having the right attorney can make all the difference.

The expert accident reconstructionist will visit the scene, read the police report, measure any skid marks that may be remaining (or get these figures off the police report), look at where the damage to the cars occurred, assess the various damage to the cars, and take into consideration otherfacts that will help him or her determine who was at fault for the accident.

With such a thorough investigation, the accident reconstructionist will be able todetermine the speed of the oncoming car and the failure of the left-turning car to wait until the oncoming car has passed through the intersection and it is safe to make a left turn.

Studies show that texting while driving – impairs the drivers ability moreso that if you were intoxicated.

Cars are dangerous weapons weighing several thousand pounds, and it is up to the driver to keep the car under control and protect others from being injured due tonegligent operation of the vehicle. Spending time on a cell phone, whether hands-free or not, eating, putting on make-up, or doing another task that takes away your full attention from driving can have disastrous results. Not only may you run into another car, you might run over an innocent pedestrian you did not see crossing the street.

The bottom line is that driving a several-thousand-pound vehicle requires all ofyour attention, and you will be civilly liable – and sometimes criminally responsible – for injuries you cause while attending to things other than driving.

California law permits the award of punitive damages where there has been evidence that the defendant engaged in conduct that was guilty of oppression, fraud, ormalice. Malice is defined as “conduct which is intended by the defendant to cause injuryto the plaintiff or despicable conduct which is carried on by the defendant with a willful and conscious disregard of the rights or safety of others.” “Oppression” means despicable conduct that subjects a person to cruel and unjust hardship in conscious disregard of the person’s rights.

The adjective “despicable” means conduct that is so vile, base, contemptible, miserable; it means wretched, or loathsome conduct that would be looked down upon and despised by ordinary decent people.

Punitive damages are appropriate if the defendant’s acts are reprehensible, fraudulent, or in blatant violation or law or policy. The mere carelessness or ignorance of the defendant does not justify the imposition of punitivedamages. Punitive damages are proper only when the tortious conduct rises to levels of extreme indifference to the plaintiff’s rights, a level which decent citizens should not have to tolerate.

A person who becomes intoxicated knowing that he or she will get behind the wheel to drive home or to some other place acts with callous disregard of the right of others on the road or sidewalk, and should be liable for punitive damages in addition to the standard general and special damages.