How a Car Accident Lawyer Handles Pedestrian Injury Cases
Pedestrian cases look straightforward from the sidewalk. A person was walking, a car hit them, the driver must be responsible. The reality is rarely that clean. As a car accident lawyer, I’ve seen crosswalks without paint, traffic lights stuck on blinking yellow, delivery vans inching into crosswalks, and insurance adjusters circling every fact for a way to reduce a payout. The work starts at the scene and runs all the way through medical recovery, with a dozen judgment calls in between. What follows is how a seasoned car accident attorney approaches pedestrian injuries, step by step, with the pitfalls, options, and moments that truly matter.
The first hours matter more than people think
I tell clients that the first 48 hours after a crash often shape the value and trajectory of the entire claim. Evidence disappears quickly. Road crews repaint lines, rain washes away skid marks, the shop on the corner overwrites its surveillance footage, and witnesses go back to their lives.
When someone calls right after an impact, the priority is medical, always. Even if you feel “okay,” a pedestrian’s body absorbs forces that bones and soft tissues protest later that day or the next morning. Adrenaline hides symptoms. Emergency care creates a record that will be vital later, and it also catches the small fractures, concussions, or internal bruising that don’t introduce themselves until you bend over for coffee.
While the client receives care, the legal team starts chasing the evidence that evaporates first. We request 911 audio, canvass the block for cameras, and pull the driver’s insurance immediately so there’s no mystery about policy limits or whether this will be an uninsured motorist situation. If there’s serious injury, we bring in an investigator the same day, often within hours.
Building the story from the ground up
Every case becomes a story told with documents and images and measured distances. I’ve learned not to rely on the police report alone. Police reports can be solid, but they can also be a patchwork of driver statements and a few lines about weather and time. If an officer doesn’t list a witness or misidentifies a lane, it can create a false anchor that an insurance adjuster clings to for months.
We build our own file:
Photographs of the intersection and surrounding blocks, shot from the driver’s perspective and the pedestrian’s point of view, at the same time of day. Lighting changes everything, especially in winter with a low sun that creates glare just before dinner. Surveillance video requests to businesses, rideshare dashcams if a driver was nearby, and municipal traffic cameras when available. Most small shops keep footage for 7 to 30 days and then overwrite it. A prompt, polite visit and a written request often makes the difference. Measurements of crosswalk width, the timing of walk signals, and the speed limit on that stretch. If there’s road construction, we document temporary signage and detours. Jurors unfamiliar with the intersection need to be able to stand in that spot with their imagination.
I had a case where the central fact was whether a pedestrian started walking on a white “walk” symbol or the flashing red hand. A hardware store camera across the street caught just enough of the signal’s flicker to confirm the client stepped off on a walk. Without that, the insurer was pushing a 30 percent comparative fault narrative. The clip was 15 seconds long, grainy, and saved by a manager who could easily have ignored our request if it came two days later.
Understanding fault in pedestrian cases, beyond the crosswalk
People assume pedestrians always have the right of way. That belief helps with street safety but oversimplifies the law. Drivers have a duty to exercise due care, yes, and that duty heightens near crosswalks and intersections. Pedestrians also have duties, such as yielding outside of crosswalks and obeying signals. A car accident attorney knows the exact language of state statutes and how local courts interpret it. These details are the tools we use to beat back overreaching defenses.
Comparative fault matters. In many states, a pedestrian can still recover damages even if partially at fault. The percentage deduction depends on the state: pure comparative systems allow recovery even if the pedestrian is 90 percent at fault, while modified systems cut off recovery at 50 or 51 percent fault. Rigid rules meet messy facts at trial, so our job is to maximize clarity around what the driver should have done: reduce speed in a school zone, maintain a safe lookout, avoid encroaching into the crosswalk on a turn, and leave enough braking distance on rainy pavement.
Speed is a quiet villain. At 20 miles per hour, a pedestrian has a strong chance of surviving a hit; at 40, the risk of fatal injury climbs steeply. If a driver says they were going “with the flow,” we corroborate or challenge that with the car’s event data recorder when possible, or with skid marks and impact damage. A personal injury lawyer who knows vehicle dynamics can often counter a vague claim that “the pedestrian came out of nowhere.” People rarely teleport. Drivers who fail to see pedestrians often didn’t look.
The medical arc: from initial diagnosis to maximum medical improvement
Pedestrian injuries are usually complex, not neat. You see a mix: tibial plateau fractures from bumper strikes, wrist and forearm fractures from bracing on impact, concussions, pelvic fractures from hood or windshield contact, and knee or shoulder injuries from torsion and hard landings. A personal injury attorney’s job includes anticipating the healing trajectory and making sure the record reflects it accurately.
Emergency room notes tend to be short and focused on immediate life threats. Follow-up care matters. We help clients organize treatment with primary care, orthopedic specialists, neurologists for lingering headaches or cognitive issues, and physical therapy. If a client lacks insurance, we find providers who accept letters of protection so care doesn’t stall. Delayed or inconsistent treatment hands the insurer an argument that the injuries were minor or unrelated.
Documentation is not just test results. Functional losses carry weight. If someone used to walk two miles to the bus and now cannot make it to the corner without pain, that’s a compensable change in daily life. I encourage clients to keep a concise pain and activity journal for the first three months. Simple entries, dated, describing sleep quality, fogginess at work, and what happens after physical therapy, help tell the story of recovery.
The case valuation usually stabilizes around maximum medical improvement, the point where doctors say further recovery is unlikely without surgery or where progress plateaus. Settling too early leaves money on the table if a future surgery is likely. Waiting too long without good reason can stall momentum and invite suspicion. Experience helps find the right moment to negotiate.
Insurance coverage: where the money actually comes from
Pedestrian cases often involve multiple policies. The driver’s bodily injury liability coverage leads the list, but it may be low, especially if the vehicle is older or the driver bought a minimum policy. We want to know policy limits early, and in some states we can force disclosure. If limits are thin and injuries serious, we prepare for underinsured motorist claims under the client’s own auto policy. Many pedestrians are also drivers, and their UIM coverage follows them even when they were walking.
Health insurance reduces out-of-pocket expenses but expects reimbursement from settlement through subrogation. Medicare and Medicaid have strict rights and timelines, which a personal injury lawyer navigates carefully to avoid delays at the end. Some states offer pedestrian Personal Injury Protection or Medical Payments coverage that can promptly pay early bills without regard to fault. Each source interacts with the next, and the order of payment can affect the final net to the client.
I once handled a case where the at-fault driver carried only 25,000 dollars in liability coverage. The client’s surgeries pushed hospital charges beyond 120,000. We resolved the liability claim quickly for policy limits, then pursued underinsured motorist coverage through the client’s own policy and negotiated down the health insurer’s lien by documenting the risk of non-recovery and the client’s financial hardship. The outcome depended less on courtroom fireworks and more on knowing which levers to pull and when.
Negotiation strategy with the insurer
Insurance adjusters in pedestrian cases look for leverage points: a delay in seeking treatment, a disputed light sequence, a witness who says the pedestrian “wasn’t looking at traffic,” or a social media photo that seems to show the client hiking two weeks after the crash. The goal is to frame the case with the strongest facts and disarm the weak ones.
A well-prepared demand package changes the tone. A car accident lawyer includes a clean narrative, medical summaries with key imaging and doctor quotes, billing ledgers organized by provider, and a damages breakdown that ties numbers to lived experience. We add photographs of the intersection, signal timing data, and any video screenshots. Clarity breeds respect. In my experience, thoroughness can move a starting offer by 20 to 40 percent compared to a thin submission.
We also anchor expectations with a reasoned range, not a random high number. Valuation reflects liability strength, injury severity, treatment duration, wage loss, and future care. Comparable verdicts and settlements in the jurisdiction, adjusted for today’s dollars, provide a reality check. I’ve sat across from adjusters who knew the local jury tendencies better than some attorneys. It’s wise to show that you do your homework too.
If liability is hotly contested, we often stage the negotiation. First, establish fault through additional evidence or an expert opinion from an accident reconstructionist. Only then dive into damages. Trying to do both at once invites the insurer to blend disagreements about fault with lowball offers on injuries.
When to bring in specialists
Some cases turn on esoteric details. Low-light visibility can require a human factors expert to explain perception and reaction time. A crash reconstructionist can model the angle of impact and likely speeds using crush damage and scene measurements. An orthopedic surgeon or neurologist might offer an opinion on causation to link a herniated disc to the crash instead of an earlier degenerative condition.
Expert use is a strategic call. They are expensive and, in smaller cases, can eat up a disproportionate share of potential recovery. The question is whether the expert will move the needle: convince an insurer to pay policy limits, survive a summary judgment attempt, or persuade a jury on a close point. I’ve had reconstructionists turn a case that looked like a twilight “dart out” into a clear failure-to-yield by showing the driver’s available sight lines over several seconds.
The role of client credibility
Jurors and adjusters read people. A truthful client who admits what they don’t remember, corrects small errors, and stays consistent under pressure earns value the way compound interest grows over time. I spend time preparing clients for depositions. Not to script them, but to help them understand the process, slow down, listen, and avoid guessing. If they don’t know whether the light had turned green for cars, it is safer and more honest to say they don’t know than to reconstruct a memory that can be contradicted.
Social media discipline matters. Photos can be misunderstood. A smiling picture at a family event does not mean a person is pain free, but an adjuster will happily pretend it does. We talk early about privacy settings, avoiding posts about the case, and resisting the urge to correct the world online.
Filing suit and what discovery really looks like
Many pedestrian cases settle without a lawsuit. But when liability is disputed, the injuries are significant, or an insurer simply won’t engage in good faith, a car accident attorney files suit. The complaint frames the claims. From there, discovery begins: written questions, document requests, depositions, and occasionally site inspections.
Expect to produce medical records from before the crash, not just after. Defense counsel will explore prior injuries or conditions. We prepare for that by gathering old records ourselves, so we’re not surprised by a forgotten chiropractic visit two years ago. If a client had a prior knee issue, we draw clear lines about what changed after the crash. Sometimes we embrace preexisting conditions, using the “eggshell plaintiff” principle, which holds that a defendant takes a victim as they find them. If a person was vulnerable, and the collision aggravated that vulnerability, the law compensates for the aggravation.
I encourage clients to visit the intersection with me or with our investigator, to refresh their memory from a safe vantage. We mark distances, time signal cycles, and rehearse the timeline. The point is to let the client’s testimony be grounded and specific, not movie-like but anchored in the physical space.
Mediation and the push to resolution
Mediation is common in litigated cases. A neutral mediator shuttles offers and reframes risk for both sides. It is not therapy, but it does create a space where reality can land. By mediation, we aim to have all key facts pinned down: expert reports exchanged, depositions completed, liens quantified, and a present-tense understanding of the client’s medical status.
The most effective mediations are the ones where both sides fear trial for legitimate reasons. If we have a strong liability story and a sympathetic client, the defense needs to consider runaway verdict risk. If we have a gap in evidence about the exact light sequence, we need to consider how a jury might react. The settlement number sits where these risks overlap.
Trial, if that’s where the path leads
Not every case goes to trial, but preparing as if it will often improves the settlement. Pedestrian trials focus on a few central questions: what each party saw, when they saw it, what they should have done, and what the injuries did to a real life, not an abstract person. Jurors respond to visuals: a scaled diagram of the intersection, a short video of the signal timing, radiology images annotated to show a fracture line.
Damages testimony should feel like a life, not a ledger. A spouse describing how the injured person now uses a cane to get down stairs communicates loss better than a stack of physical therapy bills. That said, numbers matter. Lost wages, future medical costs, and the translation of pain and suffering into a verdict amount require careful guidance from the court and clear argument from counsel.
A personal injury attorney must keep an eye on post-verdict realities too. High verdicts attract appeals and coverage disputes. Knowing policy limits, excess exposure, and the insurer’s appetite for risk lets us advise clients realistically about whether to accept a high pretrial offer or trust a jury.
Special issues that often surprise people
Hit and run. If the driver flees and is not identified, the claim can still proceed through uninsured motorist coverage. Prompt police reporting and quick outreach to nearby businesses for video increases the chance of identifying the vehicle.
Government defendants. When a pedestrian is struck by a city vehicle or alleges a dangerous condition on public property, strict notice deadlines may apply, sometimes as short as 60 or 90 days. The standards for liability can differ, and damage caps may limit recovery. A car accident lawyer watches these timelines like a hawk.
Children and school zones. Drivers have enhanced duties near schools and buses. A child’s age matters for comparative fault, and juries judge children differently than adults. Evidence about signage, crossing guards, and roadway design often comes into play.
Dark clothing at night. Defense attorneys love to highlight dark clothing. It matters, but it does not absolve drivers from their duty to maintain a lookout and adjust speed for conditions. Visibility experts and realistic night photographs help jurors assess what a careful driver should have seen.
Rideshare or delivery drivers. Multiple layers of insurance may apply depending on whether the driver was logged into an app, waiting for a ride request, or actively transporting. We document the driver’s status early and request electronic logs.
The economics behind the scenes
Clients often ask how fees and costs work. Most personal injury lawyers work on contingency, a percentage of the recovery, plus case costs advanced during the matter. Costs include filing fees, records retrieval, expert fees, deposition transcripts, and investigation. On a modest case, costs might be a few thousand dollars. On a complex case with several experts, costs can climb well into five figures. We review costs with clients before incurring significant expenses and weigh likely return on investment. Spending 12,000 dollars on experts to improve a case value by 10,000 is bad economics. Spending 12,000 to open the door to policy limits ten times higher makes sense.
Lien resolution at the end can be tedious but important. Negotiating a health plan’s repayment, confirming provider balances, and allocating funds so the client’s net makes sense, that’s the last mile. Clients care about what lands in their pocket after fees and costs. A careful car accident attorney can often improve the net by thousands simply by handling liens properly.
What clients can do to help their own case
A client’s actions can either reinforce or erode the evidence. The essentials are straightforward:
- Seek prompt, appropriate medical care and follow through on recommended treatment without large unexplained gaps. 2) Keep a simple record of symptoms, missed work, and out-of-pocket expenses, with dates and receipts in one folder. 3) Avoid discussing the case on social media and be cautious about posting photos or check-ins that can be misconstrued. 4) Share prior medical history honestly with your lawyer so surprises don’t surface during discovery. 5) Save physical evidence like damaged clothing or a broken phone, and note the names of any witnesses while memories are fresh.
None of this is about building a false narrative. It is about preserving reality in a system that defaults to skepticism.
A brief case study that ties it together
A middle-aged client was struck while crossing a four-lane road at dusk. The crosswalk paint was faded to a ghost, and the nearest streetlight was out. The driver, a delivery van operator, said the pedestrian stepped off the median suddenly. The police report called it a “no crosswalk” crossing, and the insurer opened with a 70 percent fault assessment on the pedestrian.
We photographed the scene at the same time of day, two days later, and discovered a faint but still present crosswalk. We pulled the city’s maintenance records and found the streetlight had been reported dead for six weeks. The delivery company’s van had a forward-facing camera. After formal demands and a court order, we obtained the footage. It showed the van gradually drifting right, not the pedestrian darting. The driver’s phone records suggested a text came in moments before impact.
Medically, the client suffered a pelvic fracture and a concussion. The concussion symptoms were subtle but real: trouble focusing, word-finding lapses, headaches worsening with screen time. We referred to a neuropsychologist who documented deficits consistent with mild traumatic brain injury. Treatment spanned nine months, including vestibular therapy.
We negotiated first for liability, then for damages. The defense moved from 70 percent pedestrian fault to accepting primary responsibility. With policy limits of 250,000 and significant medical bills, we pressed the underinsured motorist carrier as well. By the end, the total recovery exceeded 600,000. The biggest shifts came from evidence that could have easily gone missing: the van video and the maintenance log for the dead streetlight. Neither existed in the police report. Both changed the case.
The human side of pedestrian cases
Behind the documents and the posture of negotiation, pedestrian injuries disrupt real lives in quiet ways. People stop walking the dog because the corner feels dangerous. They avoid evenings out because crossings feel like a gauntlet. Sleep changes. Work slows. I’ve sat in kitchens with clients who cry not from pain, but from the way fear leaks into ordinary days. A good personal injury attorney sees that whole picture, not just the billing codes.
Empathy does not weaken the legal case. It clarifies it. Damages are not abstract. They exist so that people can regain function, replace wages, pay for care, and find some measure of peace. The law can’t rewind the light cycle or make the car stop in time, but it can hold drivers and insurers to the standards that keep pedestrians from becoming collateral damage.
How to choose the right lawyer for a pedestrian injury
Credentials help, but fit matters. Look for a car accident lawyer who will explain the strategy in plain language, answer your specific questions instead of reciting a script, and show you examples of similar cases they’ve handled. Ask about communication: who will give you updates, Atlanta Accident Lawyers - Lawrenceville car accident lawyer how often, and what happens when you have a new symptom or a billing problem. If an attorney seems to rush you toward a quick settlement before your medical picture settles, that is a yellow flag. If they downplay the chance of comparative fault without analyzing the intersection, that’s another.
An experienced car accident attorney knows traffic law, insurance practices, and the rhythms of healing. A thoughtful personal injury lawyer will protect evidence immediately, value the case honestly, and push when pushing helps. Most important, they will listen. The details you remember matter, even the small ones, and sometimes especially those.
Pedestrian cases live at the intersection of physics, human attention, and city design. They require legwork, patience, and judgment. With the right approach, the legal process can support recovery, not add to the harm. That is the measure I use for my work.