Located about seven miles from the Pacific Ocean, Vista is home to over 100,000 residents. People often travel through it on Highway 78 between Carlsbad and San Marcos. Whether you are driving on the freeway or on a local road, such as Santa Fe Avenue or Bobier Drive, you may be cut off by a driver who fails to yield. This can cause a serious crash at a traffic light or a stop sign, or near on-ramps or off-ramps on the freeway. All drivers must obey the rules of the road and yield to other drivers when those rules require. Failure to yield accidents can result in substantial harm to other drivers. If you are injured as a result of another driver's failure to yield, you should consult an experienced Vista car accident lawyer at Rubinstein Law Group.
Pursuing Compensation for Accidents Caused by a Failure to YieldFailure to yield accidents can result in a collision at an intersection or freeway interchange. This may be a side-impact accident or a rear-end collision, depending on the circumstances. All drivers should be driving defensively. They must obey signals and signs, including those that require them to yield to other drivers. If you are injured in a failure to yield accident, you may be able to recover damages by filing a personal injury lawsuit. Usually, you must prove negligence by showing: (1) the other driver owed you a duty, (2) breach of the duty to use reasonable care, (3) causation, and (4) actual damages.
Applying these elements, a failure to yield generally constitutes a breach of the duty to use reasonable care. For example, if a driver speeds through a flashing yellow at a crowded intersection, this would be a failure to yield that constitutes a breach of the duty to use reasonable care. To provide another example, when a distracted driver making a left turn does not yield to traffic driving straight through an intersection on Vista Village Drive or Santa Fe Avenue, this would be a failure to yield that would likely constitute a breach of the duty to use reasonable care. Similarly, if a driver merging onto Highway 78 fails to yield to the traffic going his way, this may be a breach of the duty to use reasonable care. On the other hand, if a driver has the right of way through a stop sign and does not have time to yield to a speeding driver that does not have the right of way, this is not a failure to yield and is not likely to be considered a breach of the duty to use reasonable care.
You can only recover damages when the failure to yield actually and proximately causes the crash that produces injuries. The proximate cause of an accident is the legal cause of the accident.
In some cases, both drivers bear some responsibility for the accident. For example, at an uncontrolled intersection, both drivers should use reasonable care, but if both are speeding and fail to yield, both may have some fault for the resulting crash. The other driver may allege your comparative negligence was to blame for the accident. In that case, the jury would look at the evidence and arguments for both sides, calculate the total damages, and assign a percentage of responsibility to both you and the defendant. Your damages would be reduced by your percentage of responsibility. For example, if the damages are $100,000, and you are 40% at fault for speeding and the other driver is 60% at fault for failure to yield, you can recover $60,000 from the other driver. An injury attorney can help you determine if this might be an issue in your case.
After an accident involving a failure to yield, some drivers photograph the damage to both vehicles, the position of the vehicles on the street, debris, skid marks and the injuries suffered. Sometimes liability is complicated, and all of the evidence gathered on the date of the accident may help an accident reconstruction specialist determine who was at fault, and to what extent.
Consult an Experienced Accident Lawyer Serving VistaIf you were injured or a loved one was a victim of a fatal accident due to a failure to yield at a stop sign, traffic light, or other location in the Vista area, you should consult our experienced personal injury attorneys. For a free consultation, please call 760.804.2790 or contact us through our online form.