On Wednesday night, a pedestrian was struck as she tried to cross Crane Highway through gaps in traffic. She was with a group of friends when she attempted to cross the highway. A car had just merged onto the southbound portion of the highway when it struck the girl. As a result of the impact, the pedestrian was thrown forward and landed in the middle of the road. She suffered life-threatening head injuries and remains in serious condition after being transported to Shock Trauma. The driver of the car was not injured, and police determined there was no fault on the part of the driver. The teenage girl tried to cross the highway without yielding the right of way to oncoming traffic, which is required when someone is crossing a road outside of any crosswalk. This is commonly known as jaywalking.
Pedestrian accidents occur on a daily basis throughout Maryland and the rest of the country. The most important thing to keep in mind if you or someone you know is injured in a pedestrian accident is whether you or the person you know was lawfully crossing the road. Lawfully crossing the road means that the pedestrian was inside of a marked crosswalk and there is a crossing signal illuminated. If not, and you or someone you know is crossing outside of a crosswalk or crossing the street when the signal is telling you not to cross, then you can be found to be contributorily negligent, which means your actions contributed to the accident and the resulting injuries. Maryland is a contributory negligence state, which means that if you are even just 1% negligent in causing the accident, you cannot recover any compensation for injuries suffered.
There are so many pedestrian accident cases where a pedestrian is hit by a car, but the pedestrian was partly at fault because he was texting on his cell phone, crossing against the signal, or crossing the street where there is no marked crosswalk. In these circumstances, the pedestrian cannot recover anything. Nighttime is the worst for pedestrian accidents because the darkness makes it extremely difficult for drivers to spot pedestrians. This accident happened at night, and the pedestrian tried crossing the street even though she was not in a crosswalk and there were oncoming cars traveling at a high speed.
If you or a family member have been injured or killed in a Maryland pedestrian accident and would like to consult an experienced personal injury attorney for free, contact our office at (410) 995-1515 to schedule an appointment at one of our office locations in Annapolis or throughout Maryland or visit us online.
