County: Clark County, Ohio

City: Bethel Township, Ohio

Date: September 4, 2010

Type: Hit-and-Run / Wrongful Death
 
Ohio State Patrol is currently investigating a hit-and-run accident that occurred on Lake Road September 4. A 49-year old female was killed after she was struck by a car while trying to cross the street. The driver of the vehicle did not remain at the scene, however authorities have detained a car and charges are pending.  As an Ohio wrongful death attorney, I am in the unfortunate position to learn about so many of these cases.

Hit-and-run accidents are especially horrible on Ohio roads. As a general rule, a driver, after injuring another, callously takes off and leaves the injured person to suffer in pain. Sometimes the driver claims they did not know they hit another car. It is more plausible if they hit a person, but still in my experience, any attentive driver should know if they hit a person. Of course, the driver of a large truck may not know they hit a person, but that is another story. 

If you cause an accident and leave the scene, you have not only committed a crime if you are sited for the accident, but you have committed a more serious crime by leaving the scene. This fact can be used to make a jury punish the person causing the accident, thereby getting more money for the injured party all things being equal. Juries like to punish drivers who injure others and then ignore what they did and take off.

Luckily in this case the hit-and run driver appears to be caught. If the hit-and-run driver was unknown, then the injured party would have to file claims with their own auto insurance company. While your company would pay for medical bills up to the medpay limit, they may not pay for pain and suffering and additional bills not covered by medpay through your uninsured motorist policy. Most companies require you to have independent corroborative evidence BOTH that someone hurt you and that they were at fault in the accident to use your UM coverage. The law hurts many people who are injured by phantom drivers but have no witnesses to what happened.  This seems unfair to me. I know the law is designed to avoid people running off the road then claiming they were forced off the road by a phantom driver and try to collect lost wages and pain and suffering from their uninsured motorist policies, but in many counties, even if you have physical damage to the back of your car, it is not enough corroborative evidence that you are innocent and you cannot file a successful uninsured motorist claim. In fact, different counties allow different evidence of what is independent corroborative evidence that a phantom driver was at fault, so whether you get to use your uninsured motorist policy may turn on where you live and bought the auto insurance policy and where the accident occurred. You could conceivably file suit in one county and collect UM benefits but if you file in another county, you could not. Since you can often file suit in one of several counties, it is important to talk to an experienced personal injury lawyer before believing your own auto insurance adjuster that you cannot use your uninsured motorist coverage in a seeming phantom driver situation. Remember, you usually need a witness only if you have no idea who the person was who caused the accident. If you know who they are, even if they have no auto insurance, they are not a phantom driver, so you don't need a witness and you should be able to use your uninsured motorist coverage assuming no other exclusions apply.
 
Clark County, Ohio (population 144,742) had a total of 3,320 reported accidents in 2008, with 25 of those being fatal. 872 of the total reported crashes were injury crashes, with 1,278 total injuries. Bethel Township, Ohio (population 18,962) had a total of 214 reported accidents in 2008, with 3 of those being fatal. Clark County saw a decrease in total reported accidents in 2009 (3,304).
 
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the lady’s family and friends.


If you've been seriously injured or have lost a loved one in a Bethel Township horse-and-buggy / car accident, call a Ohio wrongful death attorney at Chester Law Group at 1-800-218-4243 or order your FREE BOOK entitled The Insider’s Guide to Handling Ohio Accident Claims at www.ChesterLaw.com.