Los Angeles Injury Lawyer Blog

As personal injury attorneys in Woodland Hills, we get too many phone calls from people injured in automobile collisions in the rain. Certainly there is nothing good about being in a crash. When it rains here in Southern California, you should take simple precautions to do what you can to make sure you are not injured in a car accident.

The most obvious tip is to slow down. Unfortunately, while everyone knows this is the safest suggestions, in our busy lives, it is also the tip we are mostly likely to forget. Leave a little earlier (after all, there is going to be more traffic) and drive a little slower.

This is especially true in the first rain following a dry spell. When it is dry, there is a build up of oil and grease from cars on the road. When the rain hits this, it makes the road very slippery. The first few hours are exceptionally dangerous.

Another good suggestion is to brake earlier than you normally would and use less force. Not only does this give you more time and distance to stop between you and the car in front of you, it lets the person behind you know what you are doing earlier and allows them to make sure they can stop without hitting you.

Some other valuable suggestions to help you from being involved in an auto accident on a rainy day are stay towards the middle of the road, do not use cruise control, avoid driving through large puddles, tap your brakes gently after crossing a puddle to help dry your brakes, turn on your headlights, and never brake suddenly.

One final suggestion that is often overlooked is to make sure your windshield wipers are in good condition. Wiping the windows with a wiper that leaves them smeared and worse than when you started only makes driving more dangerous and accidents more likely.

Be safe out there.

As a personal injury lawyer in Los Angeles, we are often asked this question whether a person can sue a grocery store if they have fallen. The answer is, it depends. Slip and fall cases, or trip and fall cases, are referred to as premises liability cases. Like most accident or injury cases, to prevail in a premises liability case we must be able to show that the property owner was negligent, or not careful, and that your fall resulted from that negligence. There are several ways we can do this.

However, we must know why you fell first. Many times people just fall. It may have been the person walking that was not careful. Kids fall all the time as they are learning to walk. As we get older, it happens less frequently, unless you are not watching where you are going, or someone has made it dangerous. So the first question is: “Why did you fall?” Were you careless, or did someone else create or maintain a dangerous condition?

If you were careless, then you do not have a claim or anyone else to blame. That makes sense and that seems fair.

If you were acting reasonably, but someone made it dangerous, then there may be a case. The first question is whether the condition was unreasonably dangerous. What is the likelihood that someone would be injured by that condition, and how difficult is it to eliminate that harm.

Also, we must show that the property owner either knew or should have known about the dangerous condition or created the dangerous condition.

Finally, where a condition is obviously dangerous and visible, you have a responsibility to avoid the dander and an owner can defend itself by claiming that even if it was dangerous, you should have seen it.

When you are not sure if you have a claim or not, often, the best solution is to talk to a personal injury attorney. Every accident attorney should offer a free consultation.