Walking is a healthy and environmentally friendly way to get around Des Moines. However, pedestrians face risks when sharing the road with vehicles. If you’ve been hurt in a pedestrian accident, it’s important to know your rights and how to protect yourself. This guide will help you understand pedestrian accidents in Des Moines and what steps to take if you’re involved in one.
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Why Pedestrian Safety Stays Challenging in Des Moines
Despite efforts to improve road safety, pedestrian accidents remain a serious concern in Iowa’s capital city. Des Moines continues to face challenges in protecting those who travel on foot. Understanding these challenges is crucial for both pedestrians and drivers. If you’ve been involved in such an incident, consulting a qualified pedestrian accident Lawyer in Des Moines can help you navigate the legal complexities that follow.
Increased Traffic Volumes
Population growth expanding roadway congestion in Des Moines breeds impatient driving mentalities focused on shaving commute minutes despite endangering walkers worthlessly.
Prevalent Distracted Driving
Pandora playlists, Snapchat, and Facebook status scrolling divert driver diligence, which requires spotting pedestrians along streets or approaching crosswalks, leading to horrific crashes consistently.
Reckless Driving Behaviors
Speeding, ignoring traffic signage, and erratic lane changes all impose catastrophic dangers for pedestrians who follow walking signals properly yet are still vulnerable to hazardous vehicle operations nearby negligently.
Insufficient Pedestrian Infrastructure
Many Des Moines arterial crosstown thoroughfares lack sufficient crossing countdown timers, visible streetlight illumination after dusk, or median refuge islands that protect multiple lane spans traversed unpredictably hazardously. Walking the streets safely requires help beyond one’s control fully.
By responsibly addressing these solvable societal flaws and bolstering pedestrian protections ahead, urban mobility improves preserving human life first beyond prioritizing commute convenience carelessly for some but not all equally. The choice remains local – act now to save lives!
Common Pedestrian Accident Injuries
Even at low speeds, vehicle impacts cause traumatic damage to vulnerable human athletic anatomy. Expect one or a combination of harms through:
Broken Bones
Powerful bodily blows break forearms that brace falls, crush lower legs that absorb bumper strikes or collapse rib cages catastrophically, often requiring corrective bone graft surgeries.
Traumatic Head Injuries
Forceful knocks against unsympathetic pavements deliver concussions or cause severe brain bleeding, endangering cognitive functionality devastatingly.
Spinal Cord Trauma
Twisting car strikes pivot victims midair before gravity slams against streets fatally. Data shows over one-third of crashes sever spinal nerves, paralyzing normal mobility.
Internal Organ Damage
Despite no visible surface wounds early, days later, extensive internal bleeding complications hospitalize patients dealing with deadly kidney lacerations, spleen ruptures or collapsed lungs arise stealthily but seriously through imaging tests later.
By understanding common severe injury patterns beforehand when educated through legal teams or healthcare providers, quicker care connects to preventing complications, disabilities or loss of life regrettably. But what first steps should recent victims take before lawyers or appointments become available?
Taking Post-Accident Next Actions
In traumatic post-crash moments with panic rising, follow these common-sense yet critical steps to protect yourself:
Seek Prompt Medical Assistance
Call 911 immediately, even if you are feeling no symptoms initially due to short-term natural adrenaline-masking pains. EMT evaluations prove pivotal in documenting wounds before delayed onset. Consider ambulances even if appearing unharmed, protecting personal health insurance rights.
Photograph Accident Conditions
Use smartphone cameras to capture vehicle damage extent, exact collision points of impact, driver accountability and wider hazards like poor lighting or faded crosswalk conditions endangering safety even when walking lawfully defensively. Document everything thoroughly, creating robust evidential records later.
Record Witness Account Observations
Other passerby perspectives often reinforce claims one remains lawfully crossing versus accused illegally jaywalking claims threatening just injury compensation outcomes differently. Get good Samaritan’s names/numbers willing to vouch for lawful crossings dutifully!
File Timely Police Report
Confirm that investigative officers meet and document negligent factors like cell phone records, officially determining fault for insurance representatives down the line. Video footage requests also document turning timelines irrefutably.
Consult Trusted Pedestrian Injury Law Experts
Too often, accident patients minimize trauma, failing to understand long-term healthcare necessities or permanent vocational disability costs arising afterward. Skilled pedestrian accident lawyers in Des Moines prevent insurance shortfalls through experienced legal tactics advancing rightful case resolutions beyond bedside manners lacking legally.
How Pedestrian Accident Lawyers Help Maximize Claim Values
Trauma recovery remains priority number one always. Yet steep medical bills and lost wages compound stresses unbearably soon thereafter. Thankfully, attorneys alleviate burdens substantially through:
Conducting Thorough Investigations
Gather police reports, vehicle telemetry recordings, weather data, schematic mapping and camera footage establishing fault irrefutably confronting insurance denial, disputes or delays callously.
Negotiating Optimal Claim Settlements
Level devastating damages costs alongside culpabilities objectively calculating appropriate claim values reflecting painful suffering, lifetime care needs and lasting lifestyle limitations warranting higher payouts fighting for fair results passionately.
Litigating Courtroom Cases Skillfully
If insurers refuse to acknowledge case merits reasonably through evidence and precedence, successful litigation wins become necessary, although undesirable. Trusted lawyers navigate proceedings smoothly and prevent additional headaches.
Leveraging Networked Medical Specialists
Top attorneys collaborate with reputable physicians, quantifying treatments required, disability durations, and medications expected and providing juries with tangible bills/burdens that are tallying understandably while seeking damages.
Streamlining Bureaucracy Burdens
Throughout overturned lives following accidents, seasoned attorneys tackle insurance paperwork, court deadlines and healthcare logistics compassionately, leaving clients focused on healing, not hassles perpetually.
Understanding Iowa Pedestrian Accident Laws
Iowa laws establish civil code protections upholding safe walkways and intersections plus dictating motorist and pedestrian responsibilities, minimizing mishaps through:
Right of Way Priorities
Statutes require drivers to yield at all marked midblock crossings and intersections without signals, permitting pedestrians safe passageways legally. Failure to abide risks deadly negligence charges criminally plus financially.
Jaywalking Prohibitions
Whenever ignoring activating cross signals or neglecting searching active oncoming traffic both ways before crossing, pedestrians shoulder liability, mishandling mobility dangerously at unmarked intersections midblock without legal protections provided.
Adherence Pedestrian Control Signals
Whether flashing red stop hands or walking white silhouettes displayed, pedestrians must follow signal directives explicitly cross-directing safely, avoiding accidental straying that violates vehicle rights of ways conserved necessarily to uphold order.
High Visibility Apparel Requirements After Dark
Iowa mandates pedestrians wear reflective items or bright clothing, ensuring optimal nighttime visibility every time while walking roadways or crossing near vehicles steered by drivers with limited sight lines after dusk. Being seen prevents dire accidents repetitively.
Measures To Prevent Pedestrian Accidents
While pedestrians maintain significant control by preventing avoidable collisions by adopting smarter practices like using crosswalks properly, driver choices impose greater catastrophe risks demandingly requiring increased regulation through:
Punishing Distracted Driving Penalties
Iowa holds all motorists strictly accountable. Strict laws help motorists avoid distracted device usage altogether while operating vehicles, removing the temptation to view notifications.
Red Light Traffic Enforcement Expansion
Broadening monitoring of traffic signal adherence through updated photographic technology identifies speeding violators blowing red lights threatening unwary pedestrians within legal crosswalks, then transfers citation responsibility fiscally directly charging insurance policies linked undeniably. Violating drivers saves nobody time but can waste lives heartbreakingly.
Protective Infrastructure Overhauls
Utilitarian roadways lacking sufficient reflective median strips replacing dangerous gravel shoulders endangering pedestrians without reliable refuge during multi-phase crossings demand sensible infrastructure overhauls implemented through proactive transportation planning aligned consciously around vulnerable user protections. Everyone using public byways deserves safe, unobstructed access.
Pedestrian accidents can be life-changing events. If you’ve been hurt while walking in Des Moines, remember that you have rights and options. Taking the right steps after an accident can make a big difference in your recovery and any legal case.
Stay safe by following traffic laws and staying alert. But if an accident does happen, don’t face it alone. A qualified pedestrian accident lawyer can be your strongest ally in getting the help and compensation you deserve.