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The more drivers who are involved in a car crash, the more people could potentially be to blame for what happened. Any driver who is found to have contributed to a North Carolina multiple-car accident will have to pay for their share of the damage.
Typically, after a car accident, everybody points the finger at someone else. An experienced car accident lawyer at The Law Offices of John Drew Warlick, P.A., can thoroughly investigate your crash and work with you to determine a clear chain of events and whose mistakes set the crash in motion.
What Are Common Causes of Multiple Car Accidents?
Common causes of multiple car accidents in North Carolina include the following:
- Tailgating, or following other vehicles too closely
- Distracted driving, or not paying sufficient attention to the road
- Speeding or driving too fast for conditions
- Unsafe lane changes and not looking before merging
- Poor weather conditions, which reduce visibility and traction
These crashes are particularly common on major highways with heavy traffic and at complex intersections where vehicles pass one another.
How Is Liability Established in a Multi-Car Crash in North Carolina?
Someone who causes a car accident in North Carolina is liable for the consequences. However, the more people involved in the crash, the more difficult it is to determine who’s at fault. As such, multi-car crashes are more complex to investigate and will require considerable evidence to prove liability, such as the following:
- Police accident reports taken at the scene
- Photos of the accident scene, including of debris fields and skid marks
- Video from nearby traffic or security cameras, or from vehicle dashboard cameras
- Testimony from the involved parties and any eyewitnesses who saw what happened
- Post-accident inspections of the vehicles and their impact sites
- Information pulled from vehicles’ electronic data recorders (“black boxes”)
- Medical records, including toxicology reports
Accident reconstruction experts are particularly important in multi-car crashes. Attorneys work with them to recover evidence, which these professionals then use to create a visualization of the likely chain of events leading up to the crash, including how each involved party’s actions may have contributed to it.
Could More Than One Person Be at Fault for the Accident?
One of the most complex aspects of multi-car accidents is that they often involve many different people, each making errors that contribute to the final wreck. For example, Driver A might merge into Driver B’s lane without looking, causing an initial accident that Drivers C and D hit because they were following too closely to react in time. North Carolina’s pure joint and several liability law applies in this pileup situation.
Here’s how the law works. In our above scenario, Driver B is the only person who is completely without fault in the crash. They sue Driver A, who’s responsible for the entire sum Driver B receives at trial. It’s up to Driver A to identify Drivers C and D as “non-party tortfeasors,” meaning people who are at fault for the accident but who were not named as defendants in the case. Driver A can then file claims against them to offset what Driver A had to pay to Driver B. Because of the pure joint and several liability law, Driver B doesn’t have to worry about any of this.
How Can an Experienced Car Accident Lawyer Help Me Prove Liability?
Any car accident in North Carolina can be overwhelming, but multi-vehicle collisions are uniquely challenging. Fortunately, you don’t have to sort out the aftermath on your own, because you can turn to the team at The Law Offices of John Drew Warlick, P.A. for help. We can do the following for you:
- Preserve, collect, and analyze evidence from the crash
- Consult with accident reconstruction professionals and others to determine negligence and who’s liable
- Identify all available sources of compensation
- Negotiate aggressively for settlements from those at-fault parties
- File a car accident lawsuit and take your case to trial if the at-fault parties and their insurers won’t make you a reasonable offer
- Charge you nothing unless we recover compensation for your case
While the results we’ve achieved for others do not guarantee what we can accomplish for you, they speak to our ability to come through on behalf of the seriously injured, such as the following:
- $5,030,000 for a commercial motor vehicle collision
- $3,200,000 for a car accident resulting in death
- $1,800,000 for a tractor-trailer accident that left our client paralyzed
Behind these numbers are real people like April Janowsky, who had this to say about her experience working with us:
“Mr. Warlick was wonderful during my car accident case. He went over and beyond for me, very professional through the whole process, when I had questions he always called back, or I was able to schedule a meeting with him. I would highly recommend Mr. Warlick he truly cares about his clients! Thank you Mr. Warlick!”
Ready to find out what we can do for you? Then contact us today for a free, fully confidential consultation with a chain collision car accident lawyer in North Carolina.
What Damages Are Available in Multiple-Vehicle Crashes in North Carolina?
Damages is the legal term for the compensation paid out in a personal injury claim. Here are the three most common types of damages:
- Economic damages, which account for financial losses like medical bills, lost income, and property damage
- Non-economic damages, which account for personal losses like pain and suffering
- Punitive damages, which are rarely awarded and serve to punish an at-fault party’s egregious behavior rather than compensate an accident victim
What If the At-Fault Driver’s Insurance Doesn’t Cover Your Damages?
Don’t panic if you discover that the at-fault driver doesn’t have insurance. North Carolina requires that all auto insurance policies in the state include uninsured motorist (UM) coverage. Your UM provision will step in to replace the at-fault driver’s missing policy, up to your own policy limits.
Can You Recover Damages If One Driver Flees the Scene of the Accident?
Another all-too-common scenario in multi-car crashes is a driver fleeing the scene of the accident. Uninsured motorist (UM) insurance will also apply if that driver was at fault for the accident, as the law treats an unidentified at-fault driver as the same as an uninsured at-fault driver.
North Carolina’s joint and several liability law holds any at-fault driver liable for the full cost of a car accident claim. That means that if another party is also at fault for the accident in addition to the driver who fled the scene, you can file your suit against that person. It’s their problem to find the other driver.
Contact a North Carolina Car Accident Lawyer
Are you dealing with the aftermath of a multi-car collision in North Carolina? If so, you need help from a full-service law firm that has been protecting the rights of accident victims for three generations. Contact The Law Offices of John Drew Warlick, P.A. for your free, no-obligation consultation with a compassionate car accident attorney in your area.
