Contact Us
Call it whatever you want – a multi-vehicle accident, chain-reaction crash, pile-up accident, or multi-car crash – it does not change the fact that every year, thousands of people get injured and die in this type of car accident in Pennsylvania and all across the U.S.
Chain-reaction accidents refer to any motor vehicle collision that involves more than two vehicles. Our Pittsburgh multi-vehicle accident attorney from Shenderovich, Shenderovich & Fishman says that you are more likely to cause or get involved in a pile-up crash on highways, freeways and high-speed roads.
Given that multi-car crashes involve multiple vehicles, it is no surprise that they are one of the deadliest types of motor vehicle collisions in Pennsylvania. In fact, in some cases, chain-reaction crashes can involve hundreds of vehicles.
As you can only imagine, determining liability in a multi-vehicle accident is almost always impossible without an experienced car accident lawyer by your side. Any skilled multi-car crash attorney in Pittsburgh or elsewhere in Pennsylvania will hire a team of accident reconstruction experts to determine fault in your particular case.
“Why do pile-up accidents occur in the first place?” some of you might wonder. Well, there can be many causes, including but not limited to:
More often than not, multi-vehicle accidents occur when one car stops abruptly or crashes into something, and it triggers a chain reaction, because the cars behind that car do not have enough time to stop in time to avoid a collision, they begin to “pile up” by rear-ending one another.
In the event of a chain-reaction car crash, swerving is often not the best option, as you can hit cars in adjacent lanes or oncoming traffic, resulting in even more injuries and fatalities. The number of cars involved in a pile-up crash almost always depends on the amount of traffic, the time of day, the speed, and the reaction time and skill of the drivers involved.
As we have mentioned earlier, determining fault in a pile-up car crash is impossible if you do not have the following:
Although the vast majority of multi-car crashes are caused by cars rear-ending one another, the usual determination of fault applicable in the classic scenario in which only two cars are involved does not apply here. While the driver in the back will be at fault in the vast majority of cases in the classic rear-end collision involving two vehicles, the rear-ending vehicle is rarely at fault in pile-up crashes (after all, the driver could not have been reasonably expected to react in time to avoid a collision).
Obviously, when the police arrive and listen to all parties involved (this process alone can take a few hours), each driver will have a different view of how the chain-reaction crash occurred. But as any experienced pile-up accident lawyer in Pittsburgh and elsewhere in Pennsylvania knows, the importance of the investigation by accident reconstruction experts always outweighs the importance of police reports in multi-vehicle accidents.
Also, it does not make matters less complicated that Pennsylvania follows the modified comparative negligence rule, which bars plaintiffs from recovering damages if their own negligence was greater than that of the defendant (in other words, your negligence cannot exceed 50 percent if you want to recover damages).
Get a free consultation from our best multi-vehicle crash attorneys in Pennsylvania from Shenderovich, Shenderovich & Fishman. Contact our law offices to discuss your case. Call at 888-98-TWINS(89467) today.