ATV Accidents Cause Serious Bodily Injury and Life-Altering Trauma
ATV accidents can easily cause life-altering injuries. Unfortunately, paralysis and injuries resulting in amputation are very common with extreme ATV accidents. It is important to have an attorney who is familiar with types of recovery for injuries sustained as a result of an ATV accident, as well as the legal strategies and recourses. Members of Goodnow|McKay are experienced with these claims and are here to help. We are committed to helping our clients recover fair compensation. We are often able to negotiate reasonable settlements with the responsible insurance companies, but we are willing to fight for our clients through trial if necessary.
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Common Injury Scenarios
Data released by the Consumer Product Safety Commission revealed two common scenarios regarding fatality-involved ATV-incidents:
Scenario 1: A driver and a passenger are on a single ATV. The ATV crashes or rolls over without hitting another ATV. Often times this is caused by driver error or negligence. Data reveals that in accidents resulting in fatalities it is overwhelmingly likely the passenger is the party who dies. In fatality-involved ATV-incidents that include a passenger, this scenario occurred approximately 83.5% of the time.
Scenario 2: The second most common scenario occurs when more than two riders, a driver and two passengers, are on a single ATV. Over 80% of these scenarios involve three individuals on an ATV and it is overwhelmingly likely a passenger, rather than the driver, is fatally injured. In fact, 67.4% of incidents resulted in a passenger’s death. 27.9% of these cases resulted in driver death.
Common Legal Issues with ATV Accidents
The biggest difficulty with ATV accident cases is finding a source of recovery to compensate the victim. Unfortunately, ATV accidents can easily result in a wrongful death or potentially massive medical bills. Most people do not carry insurance for their ATV specifically and homeowner’s coverage and general liability coverage often does not extend to ATVs. However, under Arizona state law, auto insurance and the injured party’s own underinsured motorist coverage can potentially be used to compensate victims.
Often times the liability, uninsured, underinsured and medical payments portions of car insurance may be applicable. Sometimes insurance companies will attempt to deny the claim by relying on the policy language.
Although terms and provisions of an insurance policy are usually valid, the contracts must conform to the laws regulating insurance of the state. There are specific laws regulating these policies and any policy that does not conform to those laws may not exclude coverage.
