Did Road Maintenance Cause Your Accident?

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. - March 14, 2013 - PRLog -- Nowhere else in the world will you find more roads than in the United States. Americans traverse a huge network of pavement totaling 4,050,717 miles. Americans annually log over 3 trillion miles on the roads, which gives you an idea of how frequently those miles of highways and byways are used. Roads require good design, competent construction and regular maintenance in order to keep up safety standards for the millions of Americans driving every day.

In the case of public roads, it is the government’s responsibility to keep up with the demands of maintenance. Issues like potholes, uneven pavement, visibility, guard rails, etc. are important to help drivers stay safe on the roads. Car accidents are among the number one causes of death in the United States, so safety is not an issue that can be taken lightly.

In order to create a case for dangerous road conditions causing your car accident, you need to be able to prove negligence on the part of the government or one of its employees. Additionally, you must prove that the government had noticed the poor condition of the road and had sufficient time to fix this problem, but instead the problem was ignored.

There are a few ways to look at the negligence surrounding dangerous road conditions. Perhaps the design of the road is inherently flawed. This could have caused a problem with the construction and lead to the earlier deterioration of the road before the end of its predicted life. Every road has an expected amount of time, usually decades, before it must be replaced.

The problem could lie in poor maintenance and reparations to known problems on the road. For example, if the road had potholes and they were filled ineffectively then the potholes are still problem. Sometimes, poor drainage from the road can cause flooding and car accidents as a result. These issues must be properly addressed to prevent drivers from injuring themselves or worse.

Finally, there could be an issue with the signage on the road. Warnings for narrow bridges, no shoulder lane, end of pavement and numerous other problems are necessary to notify the driver of what lies ahead. Failure to do so could result in a number of issues from traffic congestion to car crashes.