Parking Lot Accidents Can Result in Severe Injury
Parking lots are areas of congestion in many situations. These are one of the few locations where you can expect to regularly find pedestrians weaving around vehicles, shopping carts showing up out of nowhere, and vehicles traveling in every different direction. Accidents happen. Unfortunately, accidents in parking lots can also lead to significant injuries for those involved.
What to do After a Parking Lot Accident
Accidents in parking lots can result in severe injuries, including broken or dislocated bones, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, road rash or significant lacerations, internal organ damage or bleeding, and more. If you or somebody you care about has been injured in a parking lot accident, you need to seek medical care immediately.
After your injuries and the scene have been stabilized, you need to consider speaking to a skilled pedestrian or vehicle accident lawyer in Georgia who can investigate every aspect of the situation and help you recover complete compensation for your losses. The at-fault party in these parking lot accidents should be responsible for paying medical expenses, lost wages, property damage expenses, and pain and suffering damages.
How a Parking Lot Accident Can Occur
Accidents in parking lots can occur in a wide variety of ways. It can be confusing to understand who has the right of way inside of a parking lot, but you can safely say that pedestrians are going to be the most protected individuals in these areas when it comes to the law.
Vehicles traveling in a parking lot must yield to pedestrians. This includes pedestrians walking towards a building or coming out of a building as well as those walking down individual parking lot aisles. Even if a pedestrian is not necessarily crossing in a marked crosswalk area in a parking lot, they are going to have the right of way.
Unfortunately, pedestrians are often the victims most severely injured as a result of parking lot vehicle accidents. Vehicles coming around corners, speeding through the parking lot, or backing out of parking places often do not see pedestrians in time to stop.
Additionally, it is not uncommon for there to be parking lot vehicle versus vehicle accidents. These happen much in the same way that the parking lot pedestrian accidents occur, often due to drivers speeding or backing up and not checking their surroundings.
Who is Responsible for a Parking Lot Accident in Georgia?
In general, we will find that a driver’s negligence resulted in a parking lot accident, but the fault may not always be clear. First, any driver operating a vehicle in reverse that strikes another vehicle or pedestrian is likely going to be at fault for the incident. Vehicles going in reverse are responsible for yielding the right of way to other vehicles inside of the parking lot aisles and to pedestrians in the parking lot.
If a pedestrian is struck inside of a parking lot, it is very likely that the driver of the vehicle that struck them will be held responsible, so long as the pedestrian was not doing anything absurdly out of line (jumping in and out of traffic, walking while intoxicated, walking while distracted, etc.).
Call us today to speak with an Atlanta pedestrian accident lawyer.