No one expects to wake up with a car smashed into their living room. The idea of losing control that badly feels ludicrous—almost laughable. Yet it happens more often than you’d think. From cafés to party stores to family homes, no building is off-limits when intoxication, distraction, or pure bad luck come into play.
While this type of crash might seem absurd, the aftermath is anything but funny. According to storefront crash expert Robert Reiter, “Each year in the US, as many as 16,000 people are injured and as many as 2600 are killed in vehicle-into-building crashes.” An accident like this can leave a financial and legal mess that proves challenging for even the most experienced car accident lawyer to sort through.
In this blog, we’ll outline what Macomb Michigan building owners, drivers, and pedestrians need to know about their options for coverage, counsel, and compensation following accidents like these.
Building Owners
Some things you just can’t plan for as a business or homeowner – no matter how attentive you are. A car or truck crashing straight through your front door is most certainly one of those things.
Prevention: Preventing a collision of this nature from happening is hard, but some options do exist. Traffic bollards are one of the most effective ways to help mitigate the likelihood of your home or business taking a serious impact from a rogue automobile. Putting these concrete or steel pillars along the perimeter of your building (especially bordering parking areas) is a great option for protection.
While bollards are a highly effective way to protect your property from collisions (especially at low speeds), there are some limitations and drawbacks. For starters, these heavy concrete and metal posts are expensive. The posts alone can cost upwards of $300-400, and that isn’t even factoring in the cost of installation.
In addition to being costly, these posts can be a bit of an eye sore. Many homeowners don’t want these giant barriers in front of their home, driveway, or yard. On top of that, some municipalities simply do not allow them on residential property. Business owners may be deterred from installing bollards for similar aesthetic reasons.
Coverage & Compensation: Even if completely surrounded by a wall of bollards, your home or business may still be vulnerable to collisions. High speeds can render bollards ineffective – not to mention the fact that small vehicles can slip past the gaps between them.
If the worst case scenario plays out and you find yourself with a car-sized hole in your residence or place of business, your options as a building owner are fairly straight forward.
Chances are you aren’t liable for someone running into your building. It’s not like you weren’t paying attention or didn’t move out of the way in time. Even with the most talented attorney in the world, very little can be done to shift the blame away from the driver in a situation like this.
If your property does sustain damage, the driver’s auto liability insurance is usually the first line of coverage. That policy should pay for structural repairs, cleanup, and any other direct property damage caused by the crash.
However, auto coverage isn’t always enough. If the driver is uninsured, underinsured, or coverage limits are too low, your own property insurance policy (homeowners or commercial) will likely step in. For business owners, this may also include business interruption coverage, which can help recoup lost income if you’re forced to close temporarily.
Drivers
Unlike an accident with two cars, crashing into a building really doesn’t leave anything up to the imagination as far as who caused the accident. Chances are if you end up covered in a pile of building debris and rubble while driving, you weren’t following the rules of the road.
Prevention: As mentioned above, crashes into buildings are typically solely on the driver. As hard as the driver’s attorney may try and argue otherwise, there are very few preventative measures a building owner can take to keep a car from barreling through their establishment.
So, what can a driver do to avoid a scenario like this? For starters, avoid distracted driving at all costs. Distracted driving is amongst the leading causes of accidents in the United States. Making sure your full attention is on the road in front of you is a great way to prevent accidents and stay safe while driving.
Similarly important to avoiding distracted driving is familiarity with your vehicle and driving procedures. Many accidents involving storefronts and other buildings happen as the result of pure operator errors. Whether it’s shifting into the wrong gear, mistaking the gas pedal for the brake, or just general incompetence behind the wheel, these types of accidents frequently happen – often starting from a standstill in a parking spot. To prevent such driver errors, get familiar with your ride!
Coverage & Compensation: Your options for coverage in a situation like this are fairly limited – assuming there wasn’t another car that forced you off the road. If there was another driver who might have been liable, you can potentially try to obtain compensation from their auto liability insurance and/or initiate a lawsuit against them.
If there were no other vehicles involved, your primary safety net is your auto liability insurance. This would cover the cost of any property damage caused by the accident and applies before the building owner’s insurance (which typically only kicks in if the driver is uninsured, underinsured, or if their coverage limits are completely maxed out).
For any damage to your vehicle, your auto insurance collision coverage is likely your first means of compensation. Any injuries sustained in the accident are often covered through PIP benefits, depending on the extent of your coverage.
Pedestrians
Pedestrians make it out worse than any other group involved in such accidents. While drivers face potential injuries and dealing with thousands in property damage, the real victim of car-on-building accidents are the unassuming, completely unprotected pedestrians.
Coverage & Compensation: Not only is there potential for serious physical injuries, but the likelihood of psychological trauma is very high for bystanders following a car-on-building accident. PTSD, acute anxiety disorders, and depression are all potential results, not to mention to the physical ailments that accompany getting rammed into by a vehicle weighing thousands of pounds.
As mentioned above, bystander pedestrians (in addition to the building owner who may have been present at the time of the accident) are the real victims in cases like these. If you find yourself unexpectedly getting bulldozed by a car on your next grocery run, you almost certainly will be able to recover a very sizable amount of compensation.
Options for compensation include:
- At-Fault Driver’s Auto Liability Insurance: Primary source of compensation for physical and psychological injuries
- Personal Injury Protection (PIP): Sometimes you can receive PIP benefits, even if you weren’t driving.
- Health Insurance: Often the first line of defense for treatment, though health insurers may later seek reimbursement (subrogation) from the at-fault driver’s auto policy.
- Workers’ Compensation: If you were working at the time of the accident, recovering workers’ compensation may be an option.
- Civil Lawsuit: If insurance is not enough, you can seek additional compensation by suing the at-fault driver.
All of these options are potentially viable following an injury of this nature, however, navigating these choices can feel completely overwhelming on your own. The good thing is – you’re not alone. The team of collision lawyers at Femminineo Law has your back!
Get David Get Paid
Don’t face the stress of piecing your life back together after an accident alone. Get a personal injury attorney who treats every case with respect and urgency. Get an attorney who cares as much about seeing you recover as they do about getting paid. Get Femminineo Law.
David and the team at Femminineo Law have the knowledge and experience to not only secure your compensation, but help you get your life back on track. Get David, Get Paid is not just a slogan, it’s a promise to our clients that they will be treated with care, integrity, and respect.
Give us a call at 855-65-CRASH for a free auto accident lawyer consultation, today!
