San Luis Obispo residents might wake up and realize they’re late for work or late for a class at Cal-Poly. If you don’t own a car and aren’t within walking distance, you might decide to tap on your phone until you’ve found an Uber ride.
Finding a driver is as easy as opening an app. The trouble with this ease of use is that with everyone calling for an uber, the already busy streets of San Luis Obispo can suddenly become clogged with even more traffic. Those Uber drivers can have good records and be good drivers, but the sheer number of things they rely on their phones for can make them distracted and dangerous motorists.
Uber drivers can be looking out for a customer instead of checking out the road in front of them when they collide with your car. You can endure a painful injury and spend the next several days in the hospital. Who will help you with the cost of this stay and who will provide for care needed in the weeks and months to come?
It can be a stressful task trying to untangle just who should be held liable, and you will likely need an expert to help sort it out. Talking to a rideshare accident lawyer can be the best move when people are injured in a crash involving Uber that wasn’t their fault. Contact us today for a free evaluation of your case and your options.
Uber Accidents Around San Luis Obispo
You might be heading out to grab coffee or lunch downtown along Marsh and Higuera Streets when an Uber driver in a rush suddenly sideswipes or rear-ends your vehicle. Uber drivers travel with the same risks as other drivers, but they also have the added pressures of working from behind the wheel and being in competition with other rideshare drivers.
These minute by minute lapses in judgment only add to the numbers of car crashes seen over a year. San Luis Obispo emergency officials reported 198 vehicle collisions in the city across 2019. Tragically, the city lost three people in those accidents and an astounding 252 victims suffered an injury.
What’s more, The Zebra found that in 2019 distracted driving was a reported factor in 8.5% of fatal motor vehicle crashes across the country. Yet, that number is likely well below the actual toll distracted drivers take. Investigators at crash scenes don’t always know when a driver was distracted at the moment of a crash and drivers aren’t likely to admit to it.
Uber Driver Distractions
Traffic experts (NHTSA) studied crash factors and worked out the three main categories of distraction that rideshare workers and all drivers must guard against while behind the wheel.
These are the three biggest types of distraction:
- Visual Distractions – When the eyes are taken off the lanes. These days, the biggest culprit for visual inattention is the cellphone. An Uber driver must look at the phone every time they get a ride request. That glance may get longer as they decide if a request is in a convenient part of town or if they can handle the trip. Turning to people in the backseat or fiddling with a radio dial are also eye grabbers.
- Manual Distractions – Taking your hands off the wheel to pick up a phone, grab a snack, or smoke can be extremely dangerous for you, your passengers, and other drivers.
- Daydreaming – This falls under cognitive distractions. The mind can be on things other than driving. A lack of sleep can feed into this danger. A fight with a loved one or a previous rider can all occupy the brain and rob a driver of his or her focus on the road.
These three factors can combine in different ways to only add to the risk. As any rideshare driver will tell you, they can see wildly unexpected things on their trips and from their passengers each day. These are frightening distractions when someone’s work shift is entirely spent behind the wheel.
Does Uber Provide Insurance Coverage For Accident Victims?
You might be prepared to demand compensation from Uber after a collision and resulting injury caused by their driver. Unfortunately, you’ll first have to file a claim against the Uber driver’s personal insurance policy. This claim can get denied when agents find out their policyholder was driving for a rideshare at the time.
If the first claim fails, you can then file a claim against Uber, but their insurance protection is only available in certain circumstances. Uber’s one million dollar liability insurance only applies if the driver was en route to a rider’s location or already had a passenger in the car when the crash happened.
If the driver didn’t have a ride request but was logged into the app and on-the-clock, then an accident can earn up to 100,000 dollars for victims from Uber.
Contact an Uber Rideshare Accident Lawyer in San Luis Obispo
You may eventually be forced to file a claim with your own insurance company to get help with hospital bills and lost time at work. No matter whose insurance company you end up having to go through, having a rideshare accident attorney making sure you don’t get cheated out of fair compensation can be invaluable in your recovery.
If you or a loved one sustained a serious injury and the crash involved an Uber vehicle, contact us today for a free, confidential consultation and case evaluation. After you tell us what happened, we will go over all of your legal options.
Whether you were hit by a rideshare driver, injured as a rideshare passenger, or hurt as an Uber driver, call us today. Our goal is to help you get the maximum amount of compensation available to you for your injuries.
