How many times has this happened to you? You are driving down the interstate when the car in the lane beside you suddenly drifts into your lane as if your vehicle were not even there. When that happens, the outcome usually falls into one of a few scenarios:
- You spot the other vehicle in time and safely steer away before any contact.
- You see it coming, but as you try to move away, you either strike a third vehicle or one strikes you.
- You see it, but there is no time to react, and a crash follows.
- You never see it at all, and the other vehicle slams into you.
Almost every driver has, at some point, changed lanes too quickly. It is an easy mistake to make, and a potentially deadly one. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, roughly 539,000 two-vehicle lane-change crashes occur in the United States each year. If you have been injured in one, you may be wondering how fault is established. A Norfolk car accident lawyer from Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp can help you answer that question and pursue the compensation you are owed.
What Virginia Law Requires of Drivers
Virginia law places the burden squarely on the driver who wants to change lanes. Under Virginia Code § 46.2-804, a driver on a roadway divided into marked lanes must stay within a single lane and may not move out of it until the driver has first determined that the movement can be made safely. The driver initiating the maneuver is responsible for checking mirrors, clearing blind spots, and confirming the adjacent lane is open. When a driver merges without doing so and causes a crash, that driver is typically at fault.
The Insurance Information Institute reported that 3,381 people were killed in a single recent year in crashes caused by drivers who failed to keep in their proper lane. Behind that number are countless more sideswipe collisions and blind-spot wrecks that leave people seriously injured.
The Four Elements of Negligence
To recover compensation after a lane-change crash, an injured person generally has to prove that the other driver was negligent. Negligence has four elements, and a Norfolk car accident lawyer will work to establish each one:
- Duty: Every driver owes others on the road a duty to drive responsibly and safely.
- Breach: The driver failed to meet that duty. Changing lanes without checking a blind spot clearly shows a breach.
- Causation: The driver's actions actually caused the crash, and the crash caused the victim's injuries rather than something unrelated.
- Damages: The injuries can be documented through medical records, bills, and other evidence.
Each element is important to your case. A claim can fall apart if any one of them cannot be shown, which is why building the case carefully from the beginning is so important.
Why Lane-Change Liability Can Be Hard to Prove
Lane-change accidents are often more difficult to prove than they might seem. Frequently, there is no independent witness, and the two drivers give conflicting accounts of who drifted into whom. Physical evidence can be ambiguous, and the at-fault driver rarely admits to failing to check a blind spot. Insurance companies know this, and they often use the uncertainty to dispute or minimize a claim.
Overcoming those challenges takes a thorough investigation. An attorney can gather and use several forms of evidence to establish liability, including:
- The official police or crash report
- Photographs of the vehicle damage and the accident scene
- Statements from any independent witnesses
- The location and pattern of the damage on each vehicle, which can indicate who was where
The point of contact on the vehicles often tells the story. Damage along the side of one car and the front corner of another, for instance, can help show which driver crossed into the other's lane. Assembling this evidence quickly, before it disappears, gives an injured person the strongest possible footing.
How We Approach These Cases
Because fault in a lane-change crash so often comes down to evidence and credibility, the work that goes into documenting the collision is where these cases are won or lost. Our approach centers on securing the physical proof, witness accounts, and medical documentation needed to connect the crash to a client's injuries and counter the arguments insurers reliably raise.
That effort produces results. In one matter, we secured a $675,000 settlement for a driver who was struck while exiting Interstate 64 in Virginia Beach and suffered a serious spinal injury when the crash activated a previously dormant condition. Results depend on the specific facts of each case, but an outcome like that reflects the care we bring to proving both liability and the full extent of a client's harm.
Injured in a Lane-Change Crash? Contact Us Today
If you or a loved one has been injured in a lane-change or merging accident, a Norfolk car accident lawyer at Shapiro, Washburn & Sharp can review what happened, determine who was at fault, and pursue the full compensation you may be owed. Contact us at 833-997-1774 for a free consultation with one of our dedicated Norfolk car accident lawyers. We have offices in Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Hampton, Norfolk, and Chesapeake, and we are ready to put our experience to work for you and your family.
