If you or a loved one suffered an injury in a motor vehicle collision, contact the experienced Louisville car accident lawyers at Gray & White. Our dedicated personal injury team has recovered millions for clients injured by dangerous drivers in Kentucky.
Call (502) 210-8942 or connect with our legal professionals online for your free and confidential consultation today.
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Louisville Car Accident Guide
- Most Common Motor Vehicle Collisions in Louisville
- Serious Car Accident Injuries
- Determining Liability in Kentucky MVA Cases
- Options for Recovering Financial Damages After Louisville Traffic Accidents
- Damages Available to Personal Injury Claimants in Kentucky
- Retain the Dedicated Louisville Car Accident Attorneys at Gray & White
Most Common Motor Vehicle Collisions in Louisville
In Kentucky, there are nearly 130,000 reported motor vehicle accidents each year. Most collisions resulting in serious and fatal injuries occur on public roadways, and nearly 1 in 153 Kentucky residents suffer an injury in traffic crashes annually. Most serious injuries occur in multi-vehicle collisions.
Kentucky requires drivers to carry auto insurance to cover minor MVA injuries, but the state minimum of $25,000 is seldom enough to compensate serious car accident victims in Louisville.
Our lawyers frequently represent clients involved in the following types of Kentucky car accidents.
Head-On Collisions
Head-on crashes have a high fatality rate and primarily occur due to driver error. They most often involve a negligent, reckless, or drunk driver who crosses the median or turns into the wrong lane of traffic.
Head-on crashes also occur when drivers take the wrong exit onto the highway or drift over the center line due to fatigue.
Poorly designed intersections and highway ramps can also contribute to head-on collisions, which can trigger public liability. In some cases, confused elderly or teen drivers can also make fatal mistakes.
Rear-End Crashes
Fender-benders and related rear-end collisions account for nearly 40 percent of all car accident injuries but have a lower fatality rate than head-on crashes.
Rear-end accidents commonly occur due to driver distraction, including:
- Texting/emailing
- Eating
- Drinking
- Daydreaming
- Rubbernecking
- Smoking
- Adjusting the radio
Kentucky traffic law requires drivers to keep a safe distance between vehicles to account for sudden slowdowns. Commonwealth authorities recommend a 3 to 4-second stop gap, but heavy traffic often makes this distance difficult to maintain.
Our attorneys can hold rear drivers 100 percent liable for speeding, distraction, and failing to keep a safe distance if they hit you from behind.
Sideswipes
Merging accidents often involve unsafe lane changes, failure to check blind spots, drunk driving, drifting due to driver fatigue, and aggression (road rage).
Many serious sideswipe accident injuries in Louisville occur on I-65 and I-264 when aggressive drivers weave between lanes at high speed. They may easily clip other drivers, sending the safe driver’s vehicle spinning.
This type of reckless driving can result in major pile-up accidents, injuries, and fatalities.
T-Bone/Intersection Accidents
T-bone accidents account for nearly 50 percent of all traffic crash fatalities in Kentucky. These are more common in big cities, such as Louisville, with numerous high-volume intersections.
T-bone or angle accidents generally occur when one driver fails to obey a traffic control device, such as a stop light or stop sign. These crashes often result in serious injuries and fatalities because negligent drivers may accelerate through intersections to make the light.
This results in powerful intersection collisions injuring both drivers and passengers.
Our dedicated car accident lawyers may immediately request traffic camera footage and red-light data to determine whether another driver disobeyed a traffic device.
Serious Car Accident Injuries
Motor vehicle crashes are a leading cause of fatal and serious injuries in the United States. Kentucky requires vehicle owners to carry a minimum of $25,000 in bodily injury liability insurance for traffic accident injuries, but this barely covers the cost of emergency surgery.
If you or a loved one sustained one of the following catastrophic car accident injuries in Louisville, call our personal injury attorneys immediately to discuss your options for recovering compensation:
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): This broad medical term describes various head injuries commonly sustained in car crashes, including concussions, skull fractures, brain bleeds, and diffuse axonal injuries. Sudden head trauma causes many car crash fatalities or long-term cognitive, behavioral, and physical symptoms.
- Burns: High-speed accidents, especially those involving large trucks and SUVs, can damage the smaller vehicle’s gas tank. Car fires ignite quickly and may cause long-term lung damage and severe third-degree burns. Our lawyers can recover compensation for your burn injuries, including the cost of cosmetic restoration surgeries not otherwise covered by insurance.
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD): Anxiety disorders such as PTSD commonly occur after serious car accidents. Both drivers and passengers may suffer from recurrent nightmares, flashbacks, and generalized anxiety, preventing them from working or driving. You may recover compensation for psychological as well as physical injuries.
- Slipped/Ruptured Spinal Discs: Back and neck injuries are often associated with Kentucky car accidents, as the spine primarily absorbs the impact force. This force pushes delicate intervertebral discs out of alignment, causing extreme pain and nerve damage. It can also strain back and neck tendons, resulting in whiplash.
- Paralysis: High-speed vehicle impacts can send enough force through passengers’ bodies to permanently damage the spinal nerves, preventing brain signals from traveling below the damaged area. This causes paraplegia or tetraplegia.
- Miscarriage/Premature Birth: Severe car accidents may cause the uterus to rupture or trigger premature labor. Pregnant women involved in Kentucky car accidents have a higher risk of maternal death and miscarriage, as well as pregnancy complications.
- Fractures/Dislocations: Car accidents often cause musculoskeletal injuries such as shoulder dislocations and broken bones. Though seldom fatal, fractures and dislocations – especially in complex areas such as the ankle or wrist – often prevent claimants from working for extended periods. Our legal professionals can recover substantial lost income if a car accident causes a long-term disability.
The severity of your injuries determines the overall value of your car accident case in Louisville. However, even slipped discs may result in substantial cumulative medical expenses and lost income. If you suffered an injury in a car crash, call our personal injury team today for your free case evaluation.
Determining Liability in Kentucky MVA Cases
Most car crashes involve driver error, which the law calls negligence.
Our lawyers can prove negligence by showing that the other driver did not exercise reasonable care when operating his car or violated an applicable Kentucky vehicle or traffic law.
If a legal violation, such as speeding, caused or contributed to the crash, we might obtain accelerated personal injury settlements in your case.
The following traffic and vehicle equipment violations often contribute to devastating car accident injuries in Louisville:
- DUI
- Speeding
- Failure to obey traffic control devices (running red lights)
- Failure to yield
- Unsafe lane changes
- Unsafe passing (overtaking) slower-moving vehicles
- Obstructed windshields
- Following too closely
- Driving too fast for weather conditions
When two or more traffic violations occur together, such as speeding and unsafe lane changes, this can support reckless driving claims. Our car accident attorneys can obtain additional compensation from drivers who acted with reckless or criminal disregard for your safety.
Options for Recovering Financial Damages After Louisville Traffic Accidents
At Gray & White, our personal injury attorneys will analyze every available avenue of compensation after your car crash, including:
Bodily Injury Liability Insurance
Vehicle owners must carry auto insurance, and most car accident cases settle with the liable insurance company. If the driver only carried a small policy, insurance adjusters might immediately offer a full policy settlement. However, seriously injured claimants can require additional compensation.
Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Insurance (UM/UIM)
If you carry UM/UIM insurance, our Louisville lawyers can demand additional compensation from your private insurance carrier.
However, UM/UIM is not no-fault insurance. It stands in the place of the liable insurance company if the negligent driver fled the scene or did not carry sufficient coverage. An attorney must still prove fault and fight for your right to financial compensation when making UM/UIM claims.
Municipal Liability
If the City of Louisville caused or contributed to a motor vehicle accident, you must act quickly to preserve your public liability claims.
Our legal professionals can file administrative claims with the city if negligent roadway designs, dangerous road conditions, or traffic signal malfunctions contributed to the car crash.
Driver’s Employer
Employers are legally liable for the negligent actions of on-duty employees. If you suffered an injury by a working driver, such as a delivery person, you might obtain damages directly from the driver’s employer and any umbrella liability insurance policy.
Litigation
In some cases, our car accident attorneys can sue the liable driver and vehicle owner in court. This may result in more substantial jury verdicts or accelerated insurance settlements.
We can also litigate cases involving reckless or drunk drivers, as these claims might entitle victims to additional damages.
Damages Available to Personal Injury Claimants in Kentucky
Personal injury law helps victims injured in accidents, including car crashes, obtain necessary compensation for their losses.
Because this area of law involves accidental (as opposed to intentional) injuries, damages attempt to put you back into the financial position you were in before the accident.
As such, our attorneys will fight to maximize the compensatory damages available to you after a Louisville motor vehicle accident. These damages generally fall into three categories.
Medical Expenses
Legal counsel will demand compensation for all medical and related expenses resulting from the accident. These damages might include past expenses, such as emergency surgery fees, and cover future anticipated medical costs.
Your medical damages award can include compensation for:
- ER and ambulance bills
- Doctors’ fees
- Chiropractic, massage, and acupuncture costs
- Home modifications (ramps and shower bars)
- Medical equipment
- Medications
- Medical transportation
- Home nursing fees
- Household help
- Physical rehabilitation
- Occupational therapy
- Mental health counseling
Gray & White can retain trusted medical and economic experts to calculate the value of your anticipated medical expenses. This allows our attorneys to demand fair car accident settlements now to cover you in the future.
Lost Income
Many claimants don’t consider the true value of their lost income and employment benefits before speaking with a personal injury attorney.
We can demand the value of your direct lost income – including bonuses, commissions, and lost business opportunities – as well as lost benefits.
Our lawyers can request compensation for lost health insurance, retirement contributions, and paid vacation time. We can also demand the value of lost promotional opportunities and earning capacity.
Pain and Suffering
Catastrophic injuries often result in a combination of physical pain and emotional suffering. Relying on help to perform daily activities and dealing with numerous weekly medical appointments also causes extreme frustration and inconvenience.
In many cases, a serious car accident injury can prevent you from enjoying previous activities, such as playing with your dog, working out, or lifting your children.
Our experienced personal injury lawyers can demand financial compensation for these non-economic damages. We recommend keeping a detailed journal of your daily pain threshold, emotional struggles, and frustrations.
Wrongful Death
If you lost a loved one in a fatal car crash, our dedicated wrongful death team can obtain compensation for eligible family members. This can include demanding damages for your suffering, lost financial support, loss of spousal companionship, and funeral expenses.
Retain the Dedicated Louisville Car Accident Attorneys at Gray & White
If you suffered an injury in a devastating motor vehicle crash in Louisville, the compassionate Louisville personal injury lawyers at Gray & White can represent you without any upfront legal fees or costs.
We accept car accident cases on a contingency fee basis, meaning you get access to dedicated legal representation regardless of your ability to pay. Our experienced legal professionals only get paid if they recover the compensation you are owed, including substantial damages for your lost income, medical expenses, and suffering.
Do not leave money on the table after a serious Louisville car crash. Call Gray & White today at (502) 210-8942 or connect with their personal injury team online to schedule a free and confidential case evaluation.
Request Your Free Consultation
Gray & White, PLLC – Louisville Office Location
Address: 2301 River Rd #300, Louisville, KY 40206, United States
Contact N0: +15026221484