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Auto Accident LawyerLawyerFinder.com is a FREE consumer service. We are NOT a law firm. We assist consumers in locating Auto Accident Lawyers and law firms in specific regions. We provide comprehensive law firm profiles so that you can review, screen and learn more about our members prior to contacting an attorney. In many cases our Auto Accident Lawyer members provide useful articles and example cases to aid you in intelligently choosing the most appropriate legal representation for your unique situation. To locate a Auto Accident Lawyer, simply choose a state from the form to the top right or choose the link from the left hand menu of this page. Car accidents are unintentional damaging events involving automobiles. Car accidents can damage one or more autos, people, or structures. Car accidents—also called traffic accidents, auto accidents, road accidents, road traffic accidents (RTA in many police forces' terminology) and motor vehicle accidents—cause thousands of deaths and hundreds of thousands of disabilities each year. Worldwide, car accidents kill an estimated one million people each year (a 2002 statistic). Trends in accident statisticsRoad toll figures show that car accident fatalities have declined since 1980, with most countries showing a reduction of roughly 50%. This drop appears to confirm the efficacy of safety measures introduced thereafter, assuming that driver behaviour has not changed significantly. In the United States, fatalities have increased slighty from 40,716 in 1994 to 42,643 in 2003. Some expected greater improvements. Several explanations have been proposed:
Whatever the reason, it has been noted that road fatality trends closely follow the so-called "Smeed's law" (after RJ Smeed its author), an empirical rule relating injury rates to the inverse square of car ownership levels. The road safety establishment is dismissive of this, preferring to claim the credit for lives saved. An analysis by prof. John Adams can be found [here]. [edit]
Types of accidentsCar accidents fall into several major categories (whose names are self-explanatory):
Collisions can occur with other automobiles, other vehicles such as bicycles or trucks, with pedestrians, and with stationary structures or objects, such as trees or road signs. 
In a collision between two cars, the occupants of a car with the lower mass will likely suffer the greater consequences. See: crash incompatibility. [edit]
Legal consequencesCar accidents often carry legal consequences in proportion to the severity of the accident. Nearly all common law jurisdictions impose some kind of requirement that parties involved in a collision (even with only stationary property) must stop at the scene, and exchange insurance or identification information or summon the police. Failing to obey this requirement is the crime of hit and run. Most car accidents can be settled without using an attorney. Parties involved in an accident may face criminal liability, civil liability, or both. Usually, the state starts a prosecution only if someone is severely injured or killed, or if one of the drivers involved was clearly intoxicated or otherwise impaired at the time the accident occurred. Charges might include driving under the influence of alcohol, assault with a deadly weapon, manslaughter, or murder; penalties range from fines to jail time to prison time to death. As for civil liability, automobile accident personal injury lawsuits have become the most common type of tort. Because these cases have been litigated often in the developed First World nations, the legal questions usually have been answered in prior judgments. So, the courts most usually decide solely the factual questions of who is at fault, and how much they (or their insurer) must pay out in damages to the injured plaintiff. Another element of civil liability involves the administrative fines or license suspension/revocation that may be imposed by a civil authority when a driver has violated the rules of the road and thus the terms of a driver's license. Such complaint may be filed by a police officer or sometimes by other witnesses of an incident. (this article compliments of Wikipedia) Related Practice Areas Personal Injury Find Auto Accident Lawyers. Click on the state below:
Our goal with the Auto Accident section of LawyerFinder.com is to try and help legal consumers get in touch with legal professionals practicing Auto Accident law, such as: Auto Accident lawyers, Auto Accident law firm or Auto Accident attorneys. Auto Accident News
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