Speeding alone does not prevent a driver from filing an injury claim in Texas. When you look at a Houston crash report, you will notice that there are many boxes that may be filled in as to each driver involved and many different numbers that can be filled in several of the tiny boxes. Some of those numbers indicate the “contributing factors” that each driver may be responsible for. You may or may not even receive a ticket for them. To decipher these codes, you need to compare the Texas peace officer’s crash report code sheet with your police report.
While contributing factors may be weighed by a jury in determining percentages of negligence, they do not preclude you from making an injury claim if the other party is more liable than you are. Whether you may still make a claim, even when you were in an accident involving speeding, is determined by which driver is primarily responsible for the collision.
Contributing Factors and Liability
an investigating officer looks into the causes of an accident, he may place contributing factors on one or more drivers. However, not all factors weigh the same. The value of the contributing factors is often relative to the facts of the case. For example, failure to yield while turning across traffic is generally going to be viewed as a more serious contributing factor than the other driver speeding. However, if the speeding driver is going 110 mph in a 30 mph zone, that might be considered a stronger contributing factor than someone failing to yield the right of way while turning. Because the significance of every contributing factor and traffic violation is relative to other people’s conduct, Texas uses a relative standard to determine liability for an accident known as modified comparative negligence. This standard allows the jury to place fault on multiple people and compare the degree of fault. So long as your degree of fault is less than other parties, you may recover for that degree of damages that they were responsible for. So, if the jury finds you 40% and the other driver 60% in a two-car accident, you may recover 60% of your damages from the other driver. If your degree of fault exceeds theirs, you cannot recover anything.
What Must You Prove to Win if You Were Speeding?
In order to win your case even though you were speeding at the time of the accident, you need to produce evidence that the other driver’s conduct contributed even more to causing the wreck. Evidence of an act that is absolutely prohibited is stronger evidence for your case than evidence of an act that requires judgment. For example, evidence that the other driver ran a red light will almost certainly convince a jury there is more responsibility on the part of the other driver than on you if you were simply speeding. However, a defendant who stops but then pulls out from a stop sign will have a stronger argument that they misjudged the distance because you were traveling at an excessive speed. In the end, you will want to gather information from any eyewitnesses who can support that the other driver’s conduct was more unreasonable than yours.
Talk to a Car Accident Attorney
If you were in a wreck and speeding was the only contributing factor placed upon you, this does not necessarily tank your case. Most everyone speeds at some point. If an insurance company tries to deny your claim solely on this basis, you need to talk to a Houston car accident attorney to discuss your legal options. You may have the right to recover all or part of your damages regardless.
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