Am I at fault automatically if I was texting before an accident?

On Behalf of | Oct 5, 2018 | Motor Vehicle Accidents

When a car accident occurs in the state of Ohio, one of the first priorities after ensuring the safety of those involved is establishing fault. This can be a very difficult thing to do because there are often many different causal factors that lead up to an event such as a car accident.

If you are worried about being found responsible for causing a car accident, it is important to remember that usually a car accident is not caused by one single factor. It is important that you do not admit fault straight away, as there may have been other causal factors that you do not know about yet.

Texting and driving and car accident causation

It is true that texting while driving is banned and that it has been found to be highly distracting for drivers. At the same time, studies have shown that children in the back seat can be even more distracting than phone use. Therefore, you cannot know for sure that your texting caused the accident. It may be the case that the other driver was distracted and made a dangerous decision as a result.

Proportional liability

In more complex car accident claims, more than one party will be found to be responsible for the accident. It may be the case that you contributed to the crash slightly, but the other driver exhibited more negligence. In this instance, each driver will be assigned a percentage of how much they contributed to the crash.

If you are worried that you might be to blame for a car accident in Ohio, it is important that you take action to defend yourself.

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