Waukegan Pedestrian Accident Lawyer

As a pedestrian, you should always be careful and watch for vehicles on the road. However, if a negligent or reckless automobile driver still hits you, you may suffer serious injuries that could impact your life forever.

Were you or a loved one injured in a pedestrian accident that could have been prevented had someone not been distracted?

At the law offices of Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, LLC, our Waukegan personal injury attorneys are legal advocates for injury victims harmed by another’s negligence.

Call our Waukegan pedestrian accident lawyers at (888) 424-5757 (toll-free phone number) or use the contact form today for immediate legal advice and schedule a free consultation. All confidential or sensitive information you share with our accident lawyers remains private through an attorney-client relationship.

Catastrophic Car Accidents Involving Pedestrians

A pedestrian accident can be highly traumatic. Accident victims may suffer severe injuries or even die due to the collision. With a car, you have hard steel and safety features to protect you from harm if an accident occurs.

Pedestrians lack this protection, making them more vulnerable to collisions with automobiles. If they are hit by a vehicle going at high speeds, their bodies could easily be crushed by the impact force of the crash.

In some cases, pedestrians may also sustain fatal injuries after being struck by a car moving slowly or stopped on the side of the road because they were distracted and did not see it coming.

Because pedestrians lack protective gear such as seat belts and airbags, serious injuries can occur when involved in car accidents with another motorist who fails to yield right-of-way or otherwise violates traffic laws while operating their vehicle.

Waukegan/Motor Vehicle Accident Statistics

According to the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT), pedestrian accidents involving motor vehicles are rising in Northeast Illinois.

The data show that from 2010 to 2018, motor vehicle accident deaths jumped from 15 percent to 22 percent in Lake County alone. It also shows that across the state of Illinois, fatal pedestrian accidents rose from 248 cases in 2010 to a total of 551 fatalities by 2018.

IDOT also cites a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that reveals that an average of 52,000 pedestrians are injured annually in the United States. It also states that about 4,400 pedestrians die yearly from motor vehicle crashes.

Pedestrian-auto accidents are common because many people walk across streets and roads daily for work, school, or daily routines.

In such cases, pedestrians need to understand their legal rights if they are involved in a crash with an automobile.

What To Do If You Are Involved In A Car/Pedestrian Accident

If you or someone you love has been injured as a pedestrian following a car accident, you must take the necessary steps to protect your legal and civil rights.

Consider keeping the following things in mind:

• Seek medical treatment immediately – If you or someone else has been injured in a pedestrian/car accident, you must seek immediate medical attention. The injuries you sustained could be life-threatening and need proper diagnosis and immediate treatment to ensure your condition does not worsen or get more complicated.
• Collect evidence – While receiving medical treatment, you should try to gather evidence and witness statements at the accident scene and your surrounding area. For example, it would help if you collected pieces of debris that may have come from the vehicle that hit you or pieces of clothing with blood on them.
• File an official report – If there are witnesses to your pedestrian accident, ask for their contact information. Furthermore, you should also file an incident or traffic collision report with local law enforcement or the Illinois State Police.
• Gather personal injury evidence – You should gather as much documentation of injuries you received from the accident. Documents might include medical bills, doctor notes, x-rays, and other evidence.
• Notify your insurance company – You should also contact your auto insurance provider to see if you are covered for injuries you sustained after being hit by a car or motor vehicle while walking on a public thoroughfare. In the state of Illinois, pedestrians have certain rights when it comes to car/pedestrian accidents. The law requires drivers to be cautious and care reasonably while operating their vehicles. If they fail, pedestrians may file a personal injury claim against them for damages resulting from the accident.
• Speak with Waukegan personal injury attorneys – If you have been injured in a car accident with a motor vehicle, an experienced personal injury attorney will explain your legal rights and work to ensure you are protected.

By speaking with an experienced Waukegan pedestrian accident lawyer about your case, you can determine your next course of action after suffering injuries.

The sooner you take action to protect your rights using the best legal representation, the better chance you will receive all the compensation owed to you for your injury case.

How Personal Injury Attorneys Can Help

The Waukegan pedestrian accident attorneys at Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers, LLC, work tirelessly to find justice for those who have lost loved ones or suffered catastrophic injuries from negligent drivers.

When you’ve been struck by a vehicle while crossing the street or walking on the sidewalk, you will likely endure life-changing injuries. While healing, it is only fair that you can recover fair compensation to pay for medical expenses, lost wages, adjusting to a lowered quality of living, and more.

Our personal injury law firm is prepared to help you hold the person at fault for your injuries accountable and secure what you are owed on your behalf.

How We Can Prove the Driver Is at Fault for Your Waukegan Pedestrian Accident

The success of your case depends on proving that the driver was at fault for your injuries. While collecting as much evidence immediately following an accident is essential, your primary focus will be receiving the immediate medical attention required.

Some ways we can gather the evidence we need to prove fault include the following.

• Obtain police reports detailing the events leading to the accident and all witness accounts, including information on the witnesses themselves. We may contact the witnesses later to see if we can learn any new information they may not have provided during the accident. The other details in the police reports will let us know where to focus our investigative efforts.
• Request access to cameras and other recording devices near the accident. Many intersections now have traffic cameras, and your accident could have occurred near a store or building monitored through a closed-circuit security camera system. The information we can glean from these recordings is invaluable, as video evidence cannot be disputed.
• Send a team of accident reconstruction specialists to the crash scene. This team can help recreate the events both before and after the accident. We can learn from accident reconstruction, including the vehicle’s trajectory and speed, indicating whether the driver was distracted or made any effort to avoid the collision.
• Obtain the driver’s phone records to determine if they were in place at the time of the incident or whether they were texting while driving. Using a phone while driving is extremely dangerous and against the law, proving that a distracted driver can establish fault.
• Use 911 call information to put together events and help us investigate further. Like video evidence, the recorded 911 calls of people at the scene can offer nearly irrefutable evidence of how events occurred.
• Produce a three-dimensional recreation of the accident that can be presented to the court, establishing our argument to a judge and jury.

Options Available to Pursue Compensation Following Your Pedestrian Accident: Negotiating with Insurance Companies

Once we have determined that the driver is at fault for your accident, we will open a dialogue with their insurance company.

Since the insurance company is often the primary source of compensation, we pursue this avenue first and recognize that policy limits may make it impossible to recover all the compensation you are entitled to.

When this happens, we look in the following directions.

• Access your auto insurance— we may be able to recover compensation through your insurance by using the underinsured or uninsured clause to make up for any gaps in the driver’s coverage. In addition, going after insurance coverage allows us to negotiate a settlement, spreading the burden to multiple companies liable for less overall while covering the total.
• Access your health insurance— We can leverage your health insurance policy to cover costs that were not covered through other avenues so that you can cover all of your expenses.
• Go after the assets owned by the driver— should we learn that the driver has assets that can be used to pay off their liability to you, we will look at filing a lawsuit against the at-fault party against those assets. Acquiring the support is usually a last resort, as we will look to the insurance companies first. Still, it is a viable way to ensure you are awarded the damages you deserve.
• File a civil strict liability lawsuit— Sometimes, the accident resulted from a defective vehicle component that would hold the part designer or manufacturer financially accountable for your damages under strict liability laws. We can file a lawsuit to seek the compensation you require.

We will resolve your case using accident reconstruction, searching phone records and other data, negotiating with insurance companies, and filing a civil suit against those liable for your injuries. We will ensure you receive the required compensation to get the help you need to recover.

Recent Waukegan Pedestrian Accident Cases

Our Waukegan, IL, personal injury law firm has represented many injury victims in personal injury cases and wrongful death lawsuits involving pedestrian accidents.

Additionally, we have reviewed many cases throughout the Waukegan area, including:

• In May 2021, a DuPage County woman was severely injured when struck by a train crossing railroad tracks. Although the details of what happened to this woman are not clear, it is known that she suffered injuries in her right leg and was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital for care via ambulance following this accident.
• In May 2021, an SUV struck a pedestrian near Mark Avenue at 11 pm. According to reports, the pedestrian was walking on the sidewalk when the dark-colored SUV struck her before accelerating and driving away. The woman suffered injuries across her entire body and traumatic brain injuries, but her condition is unknown now.
• In 2018, a forty-two-year-old woman was killed after being struck by a car in an intersection. Police say the accident occurred at the corner of Washington Street and Green Bay Road around 5:30 pm when a twenty-seven-year-old man drove through a red light and hit the woman crossing the street.
• On March 26, 2020, a fifty-eight-year-old woman was struck by two vehicles while walking across Route 45 near Hunt Club Road around 7 pm. The woman attempted to cross the road when she was hit first by an SUV; this vehicle stopped after striking her, but another car ran over her and dragged her body a few yards before stopping.

According to reports, this woman suffered injuries across her entire body, but her condition is unknown now.

• In December 2021, a twenty-eight-year-old Cook County man died after being hit by a truck while walking across Illinois Route 43 in Gurnee. According to the auto accident reports, the man was walking south on Route 120 when he attempted to cross the four-lane road at Grand Avenue around 12:30 AM, but he never made it across and was run over by a white Ford truck heading in the same direction as him.
• In September 2019, a forty-four-year-old Crystal Lake woman was crossing a street in Waukegan when she was struck by a car and thrown seventy-five feet. Although the woman’s condition is unknown, she has been reported to have suffered injuries to her head, leg, spine, pelvis, shoulder, scapula, broken bones, and spinal cord injuries.

According to reports, this woman suffered injuries across her entire body, but her condition is unknown now.

• In June 2017, a man was walking across a Waukegan street when he was struck by a white SUV and thrown thirty feet. Although the details of what happened leading up to this accident are not clear, it has been reported that the pedestrian suffered injuries, including a fractured skull, broken left femur, and lacerated spleen.
• In December 2019, a woman was crossing Route 176 near Fountain Square Mall when she was hit by a car and thrown up to twenty feet. Although the woman’s condition is unknown, it has been reported that she suffered injuries to her arms, right leg, lower back, and head.

You must act immediately if you have been injured in a pedestrian accident. Our experienced Waukegan personal injury attorneys are ready to help you get the compensation you deserve for medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering caused by someone else’s negligence.

If your loved one was killed due to an accident, our Waukegan, IL, wrongful death attorneys could help you get fair compensation for funeral costs and the pain of losing your loved one.

Contact a Waukegan Pedestrian Accident Lawyer for a Free Case Review

Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers LLC is a leading advocate for families losing loved ones in accident victims severely harmed in pedestrian/motor vehicle accidents.

To learn more about how we have helped thousands of people like you and what our law offices can do on your behalf, our law firm invites you to review your personal injury claim free of charge.

Contact a Waukegan, IL personal injury lawyer at (888) 424-5757 (toll-free phone number) or use the contact form today to schedule a free consultation.

In addition, please speak with an award-winning Waukegan pedestrian accident attorney so we can review your legal options together and discuss how to receive compensation.

Your pedestrian/car accident attorney accepts all personal injury cases on a contingency fee agreement. This promise ensures that our services will cost you nothing should your Lake County personal injury lawyer not recover damages on your behalf.

Waukegan Pedestrian Accident Lawyer Resources:

• NIH – Pedestrian accidents: adult and pediatric injuries
• NIH – Motor vehicle-pedestrian accidents in adults