You may have encountered many negligent or even reckless drivers in Louisiana and been able to avoid a crash up until now. But then things changed, and perhaps you were injured in an accident, partly through the other driver’s fault but also partly through yours.
There is still the chance of filing a personal injury claim and achieving a fair settlement, but the process can be difficult. First, it would be good to know how the other side will try to blame you for the crash. For example, did you brake hard to try and avoid the accident whether it was a rear-end collision or a sideswipe crash? This could show that you were being inattentive.
What a recent Allstate report says
Every year, Allstate releases the America’s Best Drivers Report that ranks the 200 largest US cities by the rate of hard-braking events and car collisions. Collisions are defined as crashes that lead to a property damage claim. The company’s 2019 report clearly shows a correlation between the two rates.
So, for example, the least safe city was Baltimore, Maryland. Drivers there brake hard more than 30 times per 1,000 miles, and they experience a collision every four years. This is worse than the national averages, which came to 19 hard-braking events and a collision every 10.57 years. Brownsville, Texas, was determined, for the second year in a row, to be the safest with drivers crashing once every 15 years.
Data from Allstate’s telematics program
The auto insurer has a telematics program called Drivewise that drivers can voluntarily enroll in to improve their safety skills and earn insurance discounts. Allstate used this telematics data to determine the rate of hard-braking events. Collision data spanned from January 2016 to December 2017.
Hiring an attorney for your injury case
The MVA you were involved in has left you dealing with severe injuries. While you focus on recovering, you may want an attorney to take on the filing of the claim. Third-party investigators may gather all the evidence available that proves how the defendant bears most of the blame.