California Personal Injury Lawyers Blog
People contact our office just about every day regarding a Los Angeles car accident that they were involved in. Frequently, we hear them say something like, “I was making a turn and the other car came out of nowhere and hit me.” Or they might say, “I was stopped at a stop sign, then when I was proceeding through the intersection, I was struck by a car that came out of nowhere.”
Cars do not come out of nowhere and every accident has at least one cause, other than a car coming out of nowhere. Typically, if a person says a car came out of nowhere, that person was not paying enough attention to his or her surroundings. If you are stopped at a stop sign, it is very important that you look in all directions before entering the intersection. You need to look for vehicles, as well as pedestrians and bicyclists who may be crossing in front of you. If you look in all directions before entering and nobody is coming, then it should be safe to enter the intersection.
It is important to note that sometimes another car is speeding, so you may think you can enter the intersection safely based on the distance the car is away from you, but that car may hit you because it was speeding. Therefore, you must take into account not just the distance of an approaching vehicle, but also its speed. If you cannot safely completely cross through the intersection, you need to wait for the vehicle to pass before entering. If you have the stop sign and the other car does not, it is not enough that you are able to make it two-thirds or three fourths of the way through the intersection, you need to be able to make it entirely through for your actions to be deemed safe and reasonable.
If you are in an intersection accident, just because you had a stop sign and the other person did not, this does not always mean you are at fault. You need an experienced personal injury attorney to evaluate your case and see if the other person was speeding, or if the other person was coming from a parked position, or various other potential causes. We offer a free consultation on all injury and wrongful death cases, so please always feel free to call us.