What Causes Sideswipe Accidents in Nevada?
Sideswipe collisions are one of the most common types of accidents on Nevada’s roads. These accidents occur when the sides of two vehicles rub or collide while traveling in the same or opposite directions in adjacent lanes. While frequently less severe than head-on or rear-end crashes, sideswipes can still result in devastating injuries and vehicle damage.
Inattentive and Negligent Driving
Many sideswipe accidents in Nevada are caused by drivers failing to pay attention to the road and vehicles around them. Distracted driving from mobile devices and onboard infotainment systems often leads to drivers wandering out of their lane and striking vehicles beside them. Fatigued driving can also slow reaction times and make it difficult for motorists to maintain their lane position. Additionally, negligent behaviors like unsafe lane changes, speeding, and improper turning amplify sideswipe risks. Drivers who do not properly check blind spots and mirrors before changing lanes or merging often wind up striking adjacent vehicles in the process.
Poor Lane Discipline
Weak lane discipline also results in avoidable sideswipe accidents on Nevada highways. When motorists fail to drive centered within their travel lane, drift between lanes, hug lane markers too closely, or crowd adjacent lanes, sideswipe crashes become much more likely. Keeping a vehicle properly positioned within a single lane at all times requires focus and skill from drivers. Unfortunately, many motorists struggle with this aspect of vehicle control.
Dangerous Road Conditions
Hazards on Nevada’s roads themselves also trigger sideswiping accidents for even responsibly operated vehicles. Debris like tire treads or spilled cargo within lanes can make staying centered difficult. Grooved concrete roads play tricks on steering, causing wandering. Slick road surfaces from rain or snow lead to loss of traction and vehicle control. Furthermore, crosswinds can push vehicles toward road edges and sideswipe hazards. When road conditions make lane position hard to maintain, sideswipe risk heightens dramatically.
Unsafe Combination Vehicles
The prevalence of tractor trailers, buses, RVs and other large combination vehicles on Nevada highways also creates sideswipe dangers. Long trailers and multiple vehicle units are inherently harder to control and keep centered within lanes. Their large surface areas also make them more vulnerable to crosswind impacts. The size differential between smaller passenger vehicles and massive trucks can make collisions extremely dangerous for lighter cars and their occupants as well. When driving near combination vehicles, extra caution is required to avoid sideswipe catastrophes.
How to Prevent Sideswipe Crashes
While numerous hazards conspire to cause sideswipes, motorists can take preventative actions to reduce risks:
- Maintain complete focus on driving without distractions
- Stay centered within travel lanes at all times
- Increase following distance around combination vehicles
- Get plenty of rest before driving to avoid fatigue
- Check mirrors and blind spots carefully before changing lanes
- Adjust driving to account for slick roads or strong winds
Liability Complexities
In sideswipe accident cases, determining liability often proves complex. While one vehicle may appear responsible for invading the lane of another, closer investigation frequently reveals shared fault between the two drivers involved. Both inattention and wandering by the striking vehicle and failure to evade by the struck vehicle often contribute. Unless evidence clearly shows sole negligence by just one motorist, comparative fault frequently applies in Nevada sideswipes.
Where sideswipe accidents involve tractor trailers, liability questions become even more complicated. While passenger vehicles may bear some responsibility for drifting into a truck’s path, the immense size and weight of commercial trucks often imposes greater duty of care on their professional drivers. Trucking companies also share liability when inadequate driver training, overloaded trailers, faulty equipment, or lack of maintenance contribute to loss of control. Reconstructing angles of impact, exact travel paths, and pre-collision actions requires extensive professional accident investigation and physics calculations.
Getting Compensated for Injuries
Unfortunately, sideswipe accidents often produce severe trauma for occupants as vehicles collide at angles that override many occupant safety features. Side curtain airbags may fail to deploy correctly. Seat belts can actually heighten certain injury mechanisms as the body twists or slides laterally. Occupants often suffer grave impact wounds from direct contact with harmful interior surfaces and components. Spinal distortions, traumatic brain injuries, partial ejections, and even decapitation can occur depending upon speed, weight differential and exact geometry of vehicular crash components.
Recovering proper compensation for debilitating injuries suffered in Nevada sideswipes requires identifying all liable parties and quantifying both economic and non-economic damages accurately. This necessitates working with specialized traffic collision investigators to prove fault percentages between drivers.
Expert vocational assessments, life care plans, and actuarial calculations prove essential as well to tally lifetime medical costs, lost income, and other economic damages stemming from disabilities suffered.
Only Nevada personal injury lawyers like Karns & Karns Personal Injury and Accident Attorneys with resources to fund complex sideswipe crash reconstructions and damages evaluations can maximize claim values for seriously injured victims.
Statute of Limitations
Following sideswipe accidents on Nevada roads, injured victims face strict deadlines for filing injury claims with either insurance companies or civil courts. Per Nevada Revised Statutes 11.190, negligence suits must commence within two years of an accident or be barred forever after. Additionally, victims must notify appropriate insurance companies of potential injury claims within as little as 14 days from collisions in certain policies, but make sure you speak to an attorney first.
Failure to provide timely notice of claims can preclude recovery rights entirely later. To avoid jeopardizing future compensation through missed deadlines, retaining an experienced personal injury accident lawyer from Karns & Karns Personal Injury and Accident Attorneys immediately after collisions proves critical.
Suffering devastating losses in sideswipe wrecks hardly seems fair when other motorists’ negligence or misconduct precipitates catastrophe. Fortunately, a dedicated can accident injury lawyer Nevada can help injured victims and grieving families pursue maximized legal compensation and accountability through exhaustive investigation, litigation, mediation or settlement negotiation. No one should face economic ruin just for driving responsibly on Nevada highways around distracted truckers and wandering motorists.
Experienced accident injury lawyers from Karns & Karns Personal Injury and Accident Attorneys can shift the burden back to those who cause harm.
