Some of the best things to do in East Boston involve walking. Whether strolling Jeffries Point along the beautiful waterfront with great views of Boston’s skyline, walking downtown, walking to the T station, or even walking Orient Heights Beach – there are plenty of beautiful things to see and do.
East Boston pedestrian accidents are incredibly serious personal injury accidents that cause significant injuries and medical expenses. Pedestrian accidents are often the most deadly type of personal injury cases. They also commonly lead to broken bones, brain injuries, and paralysis. Unfortunately, these terrible accidents happen every day.
If you or a loved one were injured in an East Boston pedestrian accident, Spada Law’s pedestrian accident attorneys are available to talk about your legal options. In a free consultation, we can review your case, explain your rights, and discuss the next steps to help you recover compensation for your injuries.
Call for a free consultation today: (617) 889-5000.
How Common Are Pedestrian Accidents in East Boston?
From 2021 to 2022, the rate of fatal pedestrian crashes increased by a dramatic 35% in Massachusetts. Right now, the pedestrian death toll in Massachusetts is the highest it’s been since 2015 by a longshot.
More than 100 pedestrians were hit and killed by drivers in 2022, according to wbur. About 39% of those who died were adults 65 years old and older. Poor road design is what advocates blame for the rise in pedestrian deaths in Boston. The 101 fatal pedestrian injury crashes exceed the next highest year since 2002 by a full 20%, according to Walk Massachusetts.
In 2022, there were 12 fatal pedestrian crashes in Boston. In East Boston, in particular, a pedestrian was killed at the Boston Logan Airport by a bus in March 2023. The crash happened in Terminal B, on the lower level, according to wbur. The man hit was determined dead at the scene. Another pedestrian was killed in East Boston in May 2022 after 11 pm at 19 Bennington St.
An important safety note is that more than 60% of all fatal pedestrian crashes happened in the dark before sunrise or after sunset. This is a good reason to not walk in the dark if possible and to wear light-colored clothing or even a reflective vest if you must walk in the dark.
It’s important to note that these reported severe pedestrian injuries and fatalities involved collisions with cars and motor vehicles. Pedestrian accidents involving cars are the most serious and are the most likely to be reported in the news. Pedestrian injuries, however, can happen in many other ways.
Types of East Boston Pedestrian Accidents
- Pedestrian injuries include being hit by a car, motorcycle, or bike.
- Pedestrian accidents include being injured on a jog through your neighborhood. For example, we helped a young girl who was seriously injured by an obstacle in a neighbor’s yard.
- Pedestrian accidents encompass accidents that happen in a parking lot. This could be a slip and fall or being hit by a car.
- Pedestrian accidents can include a slip and fall on ice.
- Pedestrian accidents can include trips and falls on poorly maintained sidewalks and walkways.
Most commonly, the pedestrian accidents we see involve cars, parking lots, and crosswalks.
Pedestrian Safety Tips for Crossing East Boston’s Streets
- Use crosswalks: Use crosswalks because they heighten driver awareness and you are more likely to make it to the other side of the street safely.
- Looking left & right is not enough: Make sure cars are not turning onto the street you're crossing by looking in front of and behind you.
- Make eye contact with a driver: Make eye contact to make sure a driver sees you. Just because drivers stop or slow down does not mean they see you.
- Be alert if a car stops for you: Even if one car stops to let you cross, be cautious. Another car may be approaching in the next lane, or a vehicle may pass the car that stopped for you.
- NEVER walk in front of a truck, even at a red light: Wait for the truck to pass, even if you have to wait for a light cycle. Tall trucks might make it impossible for a driver to see you if you are right in front of a truck. If you’re crossing the street in front of a truck, and the light turns green, you might be hit because the driver could not see you at all. Unfortunately, we’ve had this happen to several clients.
- Put your phone away: We’ve seen many cases when a person stepped off a curb while looking at their phone, which contributed to their injury.
How Can a Lawyer Help Me with My East Boston Pedestrian Accident Case?
After a pedestrian accident injury, taking care of yourself and your health is the most important thing for you to do. Hiring an East Boston pedestrian accident attorney lets you focus on healing while we handle everything else related to your injury case.
Spada Law Group's East Boston pedestrian accident lawyers have considerable experience in all types of pedestrian accident cases. We’ve handled many types of pedestrian accident cases, including crosswalk accidents, runners injured by homeowner negligence, car vs. pedestrians accidents, parking lot accidents, and more. We understand how devastating pedestrian injuries are. We are here to support you and work to get you the best possible outcome on your East Boston accident case.
At your free consultation, we will listen to your story and all the details of your accident. Then, we will tell you about your legal rights, options, and the likely path your pedestrian injury case will take. Hiring us means we handle everything: from communicating with your insurance company and the insurance of the driver who hit you, to negotiating for a fair settlement, to advocating for you to ensure you get all the medical treatment and compensation you deserve.
Our East Boston Pedestrian Attorneys Investigate your Case, Find Out What Your Case is Worth, and Negotiate With Insurance Companies
We thoroughly investigate your East Boston pedestrian accident by looking into police reports, requesting any possible nearby surveillance footage that might have captured the accident, speaking with witnesses, accident experts, and more. All of this information helps us determine what your case is truly worth. Once we know the fair values of your case, based on our investigation and the severity of your injuries, we negotiate with the insurance companies to ensure you get what you deserve and have a legal right to.
Our East Boston pedestrian injury lawyers are skilled trial attorneys who can file a lawsuit and represent you in court if an insurance company doesn’t offer you a fair settlement amount.
How Long Do I Have to Contact an East Boston Pedestrian Accident Attorney?
In most cases, you have three years from the date of your East Boston pedestrian injury to file a claim. This means you have three years to either reach a settlement in your case or file a court claim to go to trial.
If you do not reach a settlement or file a lawsuit within three years, you lose your legal right to seek compensation for your injuries and damages from the person who caused the accident. This three-year period is what’s known as the statute of limitations for injury cases in Massachusetts.
While you technically have three years to file a pedestrian injury lawsuit, the best practice is to contact an East Boston pedestrian attorney as soon as possible after your accident. The sooner our team is on board, the sooner we can work for the best possible outcome. We can be more helpful and have the best opportunity to gather evidence for your case. For example, we often request security camera footage from local businesses which might have captured the accident on film. However, most businesses only keep this footage for a few months. If you wait to contact an attorney, it’s possible that strong evidence for your case may no longer be available.
Another benefit of bringing us on board to represent you sooner is that we will have more time to negotiate a favorable settlement on your behalf rather than needing to file a lawsuit under a tight time constraint.
What to do After an East Boston Pedestrian Accident
If you or a loved one were injured, or worse, killed, in a pedestrian accident, we are so sorry you and your loved ones are navigating this difficult path. We’re here to help.
3 Important Things to Do to Help Yourself after an East Boston Pedestrian Accident:
- Get Medical Care
- Document Everything
- Hire an Injury Attorney
1) Get medical care immediately after being hurt in a pedestrian accident. Once the adrenaline from the accident wears off, the pain usually sets in and worsens. It’s essential to go to the doctor even if you don’t think your injuries are serious because many injuries will worsen if not treated. Going to your doctor, urgent care, or emergency room will ensure you get the necessary medical treatment. It will also help prove that the accident caused your injuries, not something else.
2) Document everything from your accident if possible, and collect information from the accident scene. Write down everything you remember about what happened as soon as you can. An excellent way to do this is by sending yourself an email from your phone so you have a record of it. Take photos of where the accident happened. Ask if any witnesses can tell you what they saw. Ask witnesses if they are willing to give you their contact information. When you see your doctors, communicate honestly about your pain and symptoms. Honest communication will help your doctor correctly diagnose you, and it will help her create detailed and accurate documentation in their records about your injuries and symptoms.
3) Hire a pedestrian injury attorney to represent you. Never talk to an insurance company after you’re injured in an East Boston pedestrian accident. If an insurance agent calls, whether it is your own insurance company or the insurance of the person who hit you, tell them you are hiring an attorney and will not speak with them without your attorney present. Often, the insurance company of the person who hit you will call you to try and get you to admit fault for the accident somehow, or they may offer you a very low money settlement. Sometimes the insurance company will offer you what may sound like a lot of money – but still, beware. Whatever the insurance company is willing to offer you initially will likely be way less than what you’re owed. The insurance company is only offering you a settlement because they know it will be a “deal” for them if you accept it.
What Kind of Money Can I Collect After a Pedestrian Accident in East Boston?
If you were injured as a pedestrian in East Boston, your own Personal Injury Protection (PIP) coverage on your car insurance policy would cover up to $8,000 of your medical bills and a portion of lost wages. The total PIP policy limit is $8,000. Most of the time, however, the medical bills and other expenses after an East Boston pedestrian accident are much more than $8,000.
After a pedestrian injury, treatment can involve emergency medical care, x-rays, MRIs, stitches, treatment for broken bones, chiropractic care, physical therapy, other forms of rehabilitation, and more – the medical expenses add up quickly. To recover more than this or for other losses, such as your pain and suffering, you must file a claim or lawsuit against the person who caused the accident.
You are entitled to recover compensation for non-economic and economic damages after being injured as a pedestrian. Economic damages include monetary damages, such as any costs and expenses caused by your injuries. Non-economic damages include losses without a dollar amount, such as pain and suffering.
Economic damages include medical bills, lost wages, property damage expenses, and any other expenses related to the accident.
Non-economic damages include pain and suffering, the loss of quality of life, emotional or psychological trauma, loss of companionship, and more.
Suppose a loved one was killed in an East Boston pedestrian accident. In that case, you may file a wrongful death claim on their behalf to pursue compensation for losses, including their medical expenses, funeral costs, emotional pain and suffering, and loss of financial support.
Who Is Responsible for an East Boston Pedestrian Accident?
One of the first things an injury attorney will do in your case is determine who caused the East Boston pedestrian accident. There are many factors to consider when determining who caused the accident. Whoever caused the accident is the “at-fault” party.
If a car hit you while you were crossing the street in East Boston, you might think the driver is automatically at fault for the accident. This isn’t always true. It is possible for both you and the driver who hit you to share responsibility for the accident. An example of this could be if you decide to cross the street in a crosswalk while the signal indicates it is not time for you to cross the street. Sometimes, a third party may even be responsible for the accident. For example, another driver might have done something that forced the driver who hit you to swerve unexpectedly.
How Do I Prove a Driver Is at Fault for My East Boston Pedestrian Accident?
Pedestrians still have a valid pedestrian injury claim even if they are partially responsible for the accident. To recover compensation from the driver who hit you, you only need to prove that the other driver was more than 50% responsible for the accident.
In Massachusetts, a modified comparative negligence rule allows pedestrians to recover damages as long as they are not primarily at fault. So, as long as a pedestrian is 50% or less at fault for an accident, they can still recover damages.
East Boston pedestrians could be found partially at fault for causing an accident if they were texting while walking, jaywalking, unexpectedly running out in front of a car, or crossing the street without looking. If a pedestrian is found 20% responsible for the accident, for example, that means they can still recover 80% of their case’s total value from the at-fault driver.
Drivers are often at fault for pedestrian accidents by driving while distracted, speeding, not obeying traffic lights or stop signs, not stopping for a crosswalk, or being under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
How We Help People After Pedestrian Accidents in Massachusetts
Read our case results to learn how our Massachusetts injury attorneys have helped people recover after being injured in a pedestrian accident.
- Learn how Spada Law helped a pedestrian injured in a life-threatening Massachusetts accident while crossing a street settle for the maximum insurance benefit.
- Learn how Spada Law helped a woman Injured in a Parking Lot get a $200,000+ settlement.
Injured in a Pedestrian Accident in East Boston, Massachusetts? Reach out for a FREE Consultation with a Pedestrian Accident and Injury Lawyer
Pedestrian accidents are among the most severe cases we see. They almost always result in serious injuries or even death. Getting hit by a car while walking is challenging and stressful enough, but navigating the legal process and dealing with insurance companies doesn’t have to be challenging and stressful.
If you or a loved one were injured as a pedestrian in Massachusetts, you have rights and may be able to get compensation for your medical bills, time lost from work, pain and suffering, and more. Our pedestrian accident attorneys are here to guide you every step of the way.
Over the last three decades, we’ve helped thousands of people in Massachusetts get the recovery they need after a pedestrian accident injury. Recently, Boston Magazine named Attorney Spada one of Boston’s Top Personal Injury Lawyers. We’re here and ready to help.
We have three offices but proudly serve the entire state with the ability to meet with you remotely from the comfort of your own home. Contact us for a free consultation so we can learn more about your accident and injuries and see how we can help you get the recovery you deserve.
