Insurance companies and lawyers categorize cases by type. A pedestrian accident claim usually involves a person that is walking or running and another moving object including a car, truck, motorcycle, golf cart or bicycle.
Common Locations for Pedestrian Accidents
Pedestrian accidents usually happen in areas where there is a high volume of vehicles and people walking. We see pedestrian accidents in parking lots, city streets, mixed paths and trails, sidewalks and cross-walks.
Common Injuries in Pedestrian Accidents
We see a wide variety of injuries associated with pedestrian accident claims; however, injuries to the lower and upper extremities are the most common. This usually happens because the vehicle actually hits the legs, and causes the client to fall to the ground injuring the shoulder, collar bone, elbow, wrist and hand.
Over the years, I have seen spinal cord injury because of broken vertebrae and torn blood vessel. Additionally, because the pedestrian is subject to quick and violent forces, there is a propensity to injure the brain. The brain injury can be the result of direct force trauma to the skull, which is called a traumatic brain injury – to a whipping or bruising of the brain on the inside of the skull, which can cause injury to brain cells and is sometimes called a mild traumatic brain injury.