by Diana » Thu Jun 11, 2009 06:55 am
I was in an accident where I made an illegal U-turn and someone hit me. It was determined by the police report as being my fault. The car that hit me was a newer model, and I recieved a letter from my insurance company stating that the damages to the other party might be above my limits. I only had basic liability coverage as I am a very broke 20 year old college student who was driving an older car. Does this mean that the other party is definitely going to sue me or can sue me? If that is the case, I will be unable to pay them so would they garnish any wages I earn? Would I need to file bankruptcy?
Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 11:20 am Post Subject: car accident/ car accident/state road sweeper
if a friend was driving two girls to work and they drove in to dust at 45 mph and there was a car in the dust that she rear ended and shoved the other car in the state of P.A. . into a state sweeper and the state had no safety warning signs out and no follow truck and no tickets were issued and the owner of the car was totaled and the two passengers in the rear car were hurt to be mercy flighted and the total bill of was 80.000 of both girls . Also can the passengers get pain and suffering on the related health issues ?.Can the policy holder of the rear driver be sued by the insurance company for not having enough coverage? .
Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 01:11 pm Post Subject:
Proper punctuation would have helped.
The state is not required to know exactly when and where dust storms are going to happen, drive out ahead of time and place signs up to let people know about the obvious (by obvious I mean, what the person can easily see for themselves). As a driver, if you can't see in front of you then you don't drive 45mph.
Everyone can hold the at fault driver liable for their property damage and injuries. Insurance companies don't sue their insured's for having too low of limits. I suspect this comes up as the driver's limits are no high enough to address everyone's loss. If that is the case then the insurance companies does the best they can do to settled all the claim for within the person's policy limits. If any of the other people don't want to sign a release for this amount then they are welcome to sue the at fault driver. At the end of that day (years) they will have spent a lot of money to obtain a judgement against the driver. They then get what the insurance company offered to start with and the right to go after the driver personally. Unless the driver has some major assets, they won't see a dime from the driver. This is why attorneys almost always (99.9999% of the time) just accept the insurance policy limits and don't pursue the driver.
Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 01:12 pm Post Subject: TOMMYBOY/ ACCIDENT
The dust was not a dust storm it was created from the state road sweeper. Can the state of P.A. be found the one at fault?
Posted: Fri May 23, 2014 05:09 am Post Subject:
Highly unlikely. Generally, the state is immune from such legal action unless there was gross negligence involved. From your original description of the incident, it was the driver who rear-ended the others involved who was the negligent party.
Motor vehicle laws in all states require drivers to drive at a speed which is not unsafe for the current conditions. If there was a dust cloud -- whether caused by wind or a sweeper -- and the visibility was greatly impaired, the driver should never have proceeded into that cloud at 45 mph. I assume, like every judge and member of a jury, that the dust cloud was visible from a distance.
Nevertheless, if the at-fault driver want to sue the state, he/she must first file an administrative claim for damages. Expect that claim to be denied. Then he/she will have to find an attorney dumb enough to want to try to sue the state in this situation. It's a loser.
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