Primary enforcement seat belt laws allow police to stop and ticket a driver for not wearing a seat belt, just like any other routine traffic violation. Approximately twenty states and the District of Columbia have enacted these laws. The majority of states have secondary laws that allow law enforcement to ticket a driver for not belting up only after the person has been stopped, or ticketed, for another violation. Although some lawmakers are pushing for it, New Hampshire is the only state that does not impose any seat belt law.
If you are injured in an accident but you were not wearing your seat belt at the time of the collision, insurance companies and their defense lawyers will attempt to argue that you would not have been injured - either not at all or significantly less so - if you were properly buckled in. In making this argument, the defense seeks to prove that you were "comparatively negligent" in causing the injuries that were suffered during an accident. To use this defense, however, the other driver's insurance company must prove that your unbuckled seat belt contributed to, or was a cause of your injuries.
Many cases arise where serious damages are suffered by an accident victim who is not wearing a seat belt. In some of these cases, a person is ejected altogether from the vehicle. At Dover Law Firm, we seek every means available when appropriate to attempt to prove that your injuries were caused by the negligent driver, not from your own failure to wear a seat belt. Working together with expert biomechanical engineers and accident reconstructionists, we are often able to demonstrate that serious injuries - and often worse injuries - would have occurred even if a seat belt was worn at the time of an accident. Knowing who to contact and how to go about proving the cause of injury in these difficult cases enables us to make a difference for our clients in need of substantial compensation for serious injuries. Of course, you should always use your seat belt for safety reasons as well as legal ones.
If you or a loved one is a victim of an automobile accident, call Dover Law Firm now at 770-518-1133.