Road Drop-off and Uneven Street Levels Can Cause Serious Injuries and Death: Injured Victims Deserve Compensation
I am sure many of you have had the experience driving your car when all of a sudden you sense a drop-off of the roadway to a different level of the highway. This often occurs in areas where paving has been laid and material has also been added during construction or when a road shoulder has been washed away due to weather or worn down by traffic.
Since 1979 as an experienced Philadelphia car accident attorney handling many road defect cases, we have all too frequently dealt with situations where an unevenly paved highway or street surface causes the driver of a car to lose control resulting in an accident avoidance or oversteer maneuver ultimately resulting in severe and catastrophic injuries or death.
According to the Federal Highway Administration, an estimated 11,000 people suffer injuries annually in crashes related to unsafe or uneven pavement edges. Highway or street drop-off crashes tend to result in more serious and catastrophic injuries than other car accidents. Studies have indicated that victims of highway drop-off crashes are 2 to 3 times more likely to suffer fatalities primarily because the vehicle rolls over or crashes into another object, such as an oncoming vehicle, when the driver attempts to regain control of the vehicle.
All roads should be designed in a manner that seeks to avoid rather than cause potential crashes and resulting injuries. Most drop off accidents involve an oversteer reaction when drivers feel they are out of control of the vehicle and panic. The accident avoidance maneuver of the driver often requires an over reactive turn at an unmanageable angle causing a loss of control. Research indicates that a drop-off of two inches or less can cause a vehicle to lose control.
In our office, we recently were contacted by a client whose vehicle got caught in a rut causing the vehicle to lose control, strike an embankment, and resulting in the death of one of the occupants. Statistics reveal that almost 20% of all vehicle accidents are due to defective and dangerous roadways and roadway design defects. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and other local Pennsylvania entities can be held liable for accident and/or injuries and death that occur as the result of improperly designed or maintained roadways.
The experienced Philadelphia defective roadway design and car accident law firm of Reiff and Bily has had extensive experience investigating defective roadway cases and have available to them the best team of road and highway design experts, engineers, surveyors, illumination and warning experts, and accident investigators necessary to expose negligence on the part of all responsible parties for roadway design defects.
If you or a loved one has been involved in an accident due to highway defect, please feel free to contact the experienced Philadelphia car accident and defective roadway design law firm of Reiff and Bily for a free no obligation consultation at 1-800-421-9595 or online at www.reiffandbily.com.
