SEATBELT ISSUES

TEXAS SEATBELT LAWS

Texas has enacted laws requiring drivers and front-seat passengers to wear seat belts. Tex. Transp. Code § 545.413. If you are injured in an accident but you were not wearing your seatbelt 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 seatbelt contributed to, or was a cause of your injuries.

DRIVER NEGLIGENCE

Many cases arise where serious damages are suffered by an accident victim who is not wearing a seatbelt. In some of these cases, a person is ejected altogether from the vehicle.

At The Ardoin Law Firm P.C., 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 seatbelt. 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 seatbelt 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 be more likely 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.

In all automobile accident cases it is essential that measures be taken promptly to preserve evidence, investigate the accident in question, and to enable physicians or other expert witnesses to thoroughly evaluate any injuries.