Charlotte Personal Injury Lawyer

Personal Injury Lawyer Charlotte, NC

With several months still to go in 2021, North Carolina has had more fatal auto accidents than 45 other states. We’ve seen 1,437 people die in 1,321 fatal crashes so far this year. As the largest city with the highest number of residents, Charlotte has more car crashes and traffic fatalities than any other North Carolina city. In 2019, there were 85 people killed in Charlotte auto accidents alone.

If you or your family member were injured in a motor vehicle accident in Mecklenburg County, you need the help of an experienced Charlotte personal injury lawyer to ensure you receive the maximum financial compensation possible for your physical, emotional, and property damages.

The Clauson Law Firm is the attorney you should call when you go on Google and search for a “personal injury lawyer near me” in Charlotte or anywhere in Mecklenburg County.

Charlotte leads North Carolina in these tragedies

Thankfully, the number of deaths from auto accidents is smaller than it could be. However, the same year 85 people were killed in Charlotte motor vehicle crashes, 17,857 others were injured, just in Charlotte. How could almost 18,000 people suffer personal injuries in Charlotte in a single year?

The Charlotte Mecklenburg area ranked #1 in North Carolina in these types of auto accidents:

• alcohol-related fatalities
• unrestrained driver or passenger fatalities
• speed-related fatalities
• young driver fatal crashes

These horrible statistics are more tragic because three of the four statistics on the list are easily avoidable. Alcohol-related and speed-related crashes are the direct results of negligence, and it’s usually an innocent motorist and passengers who suffer the life-altering consequences of an alcohol-impaired driver. The speed-related injuries and death are equally avoidable, needlessly threatening the lives and safety of everyone in the community.

Seatbelts Save Lives

Despite the uncontradicted research, many people either forget to wear seatbelts or choose not to do so. More than half (53%) of all the people who were killed in motor vehicle crashes between 2010 and 2020 were not wearing seatbelts. Unrestrained drivers and passengers are far less likely to survive a serious collision than those wearing seatbelts.

Drivers and front-seat passengers wearing seatbelts are 45% less likely to be killed in collisions and 50% less likely to suffer a serious injury.

In rollover or other crashes where people are ejected, people not wearing seatbelts are 30 times (or 2,900%) more likely to be ejected. Of those who are ejected, 75% die.

At Clauson Law, we are committed to fighting for the maximum settlement amounts for Charlotte's personal injury victims, but we would much prefer that you and your family remain safe and uninjured.

Common Causes of Auto Accidents

The impact of serious auto accidents on the lives of Charlotte injury victims and their families is more devastating than anyone who has not experienced it can imagine. Those who negligently cause the damage suffered by traffic-related personal injury victims must be held accountable for the life-changing results of their carelessness.

The root cause of almost all Charlotte auto accidents is Negligence.

After years of working with personal injury victims as Charlotte injury lawyers, the Clauson Law Firm attorneys and staff have learned the cause of most of these accidents.

Distracted Driving: Operating a car or a truck has become so routine to drivers that their attention is often drawn away from the road by some other minor distraction. Something as innocent as changing a radio station can turn an average day into the worst day of your life.

Another term for distracted driving is what accident researchers call “divided attention.” Driving is an extremely complex task. Although we drive routinely, as you operate a motor vehicle your brain is required to act with precise hand-eye coordination, scan for pedestrians, observe and adapt your speed and distance in relation to other drivers, brake or accelerate as appropriate for the general conditions while remaining poised to react instantly to any sudden danger, check the road surface, and more, all simultaneously.

Divided attention requires a driver’s brain to do at least two things at once. When that occurs, the driver’s reaction time is decreased, and even a split-second delay in applying your brakes can be the difference between avoiding a collision or slamming the car into another vehicle.

When a driver’s attention is divided further, the challenge can result in a momentary lapse of judgment. Drivers who engage in any of the following behavior behind the wheel risk injuring themselves, their passengers, and every other driver, cyclist, or pedestrian they encounter:

• dialing or answering a cell phone
• speaking on a cell phone, even while hands-free
• using GPS or navigation
• reading
• writing
• losing yourself in thought about something (daydreaming)
• eating
• smoking
• reaching or glancing into the rear seat
• holding or managing an unrestrained pet
• adjusting music
• talking with passengers
• applying makeup

Texting:Texting while driving is as dangerous as writing a note to someone with a pen and paper while driving. No one thinks writing while driving is safe, but tens of thousands of drivers continue to text messages or read messages on their phones as they drive. Every year nearly 390,000 people suffer serious injuries because of texting drivers.

Drunk or Drugged Driving: When your brain is impaired by any substance, whether it is a prescription drug you thought was safe or it’s excessive amounts of alcohol, your brain’s reaction time is decreased significantly. The awful death toll from drunk or drugged drivers torments the victims’ families but also haunts the drivers who sober up and see what they’ve done.

Aggressive Driving: Aggressive driving includes speeding, tailgating, weaving in and out of traffic at a higher speed, or running red lights and stop signs. Each of these behaviors increases the danger of serious accidents and injuries because it reduces or eliminates time for the driver to react to unexpected events. By reducing or eliminating the time in which a driver can react to danger, aggressive drivers are leaving accidents and injuries purely to random chance.

Speeding: The laws of physics dictate that a 2,000-pound car or an 80,000-pound tractor-trailer traveling at a speed of 60 miles per hour will require different distances to stop once the brakes are applied. The faster the vehicle goes, the longer the distance it travels before it can stop. And the higher the speed of the vehicle, the shorter the reaction time for the driver before a collision. Finally, the faster the vehicle is driving the more likely a severe or fatal injury will be suffered.

What types of Charlotte injury cases does Clauson Law handle?

Your Charlotte injury lawyer should be experienced in all kinds of accident and injury cases to earn your trust that they will win you the highest compensation possible under the law. At the Clauson Law Firm, our expert personal injury lawyers and skilled investigators, paralegals, and administrative staff work exclusively for injured and disabled people just like you.

Charlotte Auto Accidents:

Most serious Charlotte accidents involve crashes between cars, SUVs, or pickup trucks. At Clauson Law, we know that the most frequent type of accident is a rear-end collision. This type of accident almost always causes back and neck injuries related to whiplash, the sudden snapping back and forth of the victim’s head, and wrenching of the body’s cervical spine. Even at relatively low speed, rear-end collisions can cause serious, disabling injuries.

Head-on collisions produce devastating damage to the human body because the speed of the collision is the combined speed of both vehicles. If two cars collide head-on when each one is traveling at 50 miles per hour, the force of the collision is the same as if a car hit a solid wall at 100 miles per hour. The survivability of such an accident is among the lowest of all crashes, and those who do survive often suffer life-long injuries.

Charlotte residents who are seriously injured in side-impact crashes, T-bones, and angled collisions caused by one driver's negligence at an intersection will also find expert representation at the Clauson Law Firm.

Charlotte Truck Accidents:

The injuries sustained in a truck accident can be severe even at slower speeds. Every truck is tens of thousands of pounds heavier than the average car or SUV:

• delivery box truck
• refrigerator truck
• tank truck
• garbage or trash collection truck
• dump truck
• auto-hauler truck
• cement mixer truck
• 18-wheeler, tractor-trailer, or semi

The Clauson Law Firm represents victims who were injured in any Charlotte truck accident. Our truck accident lawyers know how to handle the special circumstances and investigatory tasks involved in an accident with a large truck. Many of the trucks are owned or operated by heavily regulated businesses that need to retain detailed records of the truck’s maintenance dates, tire checks, brake checks, driver history, hours-operated logs, and other important documents that can be key to winning large settlements for Charlotte truck accident victims. Truck accidents are much more complex than typical traffic accidents and require the expertise of an experienced truck accident lawyer.

Charlotte Bicycle Accidents:

Cyclists are entitled to “share the road” with cars and trucks but are often squeezed to the curb or disregarded by other drivers. When a motor vehicle strikes a bicycle rider, the force of the crash causes severe injuries.

Common bicycle crash injuries include a fractured skull, spinal injury, broken and crushed legs, ankles, shoulders, arms, traumatic head injury (TMI), and other brain damage.

Most serious automobile-bicycle accidents are caused by the negligence of the driver who didn’t look for a bike or who failed to respect the cyclist’s right to the road. The accidents occur when the driver of the car commits one of these mistakes:

• turns right at a corner-cutting off a cyclist to his right
• turns left at a corner in front of a cyclist approaching in the opposite direction
• passes too closely to a cyclist on the road
• stops at a stop sign but advances into the intersection despite the cyclist’s approach
• passenger door opening in front of a cyclist approaching from the rear

Charlotte Pedestrian Injured by Vehicle

Any pedestrian who is struck by a motor vehicle traveling at virtually any speed will suffer an injury for which Clauson Law will seek maximum compensation for our client.

Injuries suffered by pedestrians in Charlotte accidents are often life-threatening. The most severe damage can include a brain injury so profound that the injured pedestrian’s life will never be the same.

Any Charlotte pedestrian struck by a vehicle will need every financial resource available for many years to reach full recovery or to pay for the expenses required to meet the challenges of their new disability.

The Clauson Law Firm has no greater responsibility than to win every possible compensation for victims whose bodies are so damaged by a driver’s neglect that their days will now be filled with wheelchairs, hospital beds, in-home nursing care, or surgically placed feeding tubes.

Tragically, many victims of pedestrian accidents are children whose lives are forever altered.

Why Hire a Charlotte Personal Injury Lawyer?

If you or your family member needs the legal services of a personal injury law firm, you want a lawyer who will be accessible to you and who is available to meet or speak with you on short notice. Our Charlotte personal injury attorneys work with investigators who can quickly respond to the scene of your accident to photograph any evidence that will help prove the merit of your injury claim.

As aggressive personal injury lawyers, we often schedule witness depositions to verify the facts through witness testimony. As an established Charlotte injury law firm, Clauson Law’s attorneys and staff may have worked with and gotten to know the doctors and therapists providing your ongoing treatment. This prior professional relationship often makes obtaining records and other information easier and allows your lawyers to better support your claim for the highest settlement offer.

Charlotte is a special city with a community that we care about at Clauson Law. Don’t go to strangers for help when you search for “personal injury lawyer near me.”