Maryland Accident Lawyer Blog

USAA claims in auto accident cases are less predictable than claims that claims against the three insurance companies with the most market share (GEICO, State Farm and Allstate) in Maryland.

On our website, we recently added a page discussing our Maryland accident attorneys' experience with USAA and how we believe USAA approaches auto accident claims.

Certainly, informed plaintiffs want to know what their best case scenarios are. Plaintiffs' car accident lawsuits (and settlements) in Maryland are limited by (1) Maryland's cap on non-economic damages, or (2) as a practical matter in most passenger car accident cases, the upper limits of the available insurance coverage.

How much money does the insurance company have available to settle your claim? Unless the insurance company offers the policy limits, in which case they certify the amount of the policy, the only other way to know is to file a lawsuit. They are required to provide this information in discovery. Here is an example of a response from Erie:

Random car accident statistics:

• Car crashes are the leading cause of teenage deaths, ages 15-20, in the United States
• Teenagers are three times more likely to be involved in a fatal car accident than any other driver (incredible statistic that underscores the need to raise the minimum driving age in the country, inconvenient as that may be)
• In 2008, elderly people were the cause of 18 percent of all pedestrian fatalities and 15 percent of all car accident fatalities
• In good news, there were about 33,963 fatal car accidents in 2009, compared to the 37,261 fatal car accidents in 2008, showing a decrease of about 9 percent.
• Seatbelt usage is higher among women then of men and it was lower when a person was driving alone versus when they were driving with passengers. (Another surprising car accident statistic.) Is this because a good brand of peer pressure pushes you to put on your seatbelt?)
• Seatbelts saved over 75,000 lives from 2004 to 2008
• Someone dies from auto accident injuries every 15 minutes.
• In the UK, 7 percent of drivers have either lost control or had an accident due to sneezing. (This is still negligence, by the way, no matter how you slice it.)
• In 2009, 650,000 teens under the age of 21 were involved in a car accident
• Car accidents are most likely to occur in the summer time because people are more likely to be drinking and driving
• The leading cause of car accidents is a distracted driver
• 60 percent of fatal teen car accidents are related to alcohol
• 73% of fatal car accident victims are men, making men two times more likely to die in a car accident
• 1,550 people die yearly due to drowsy driving and 71,000 are injured (I wonder how many of these are truck drivers driving long days)
• I've read this a thousand times and I still can't believe it: the middle back seat is the safest place to ride in a car
• Most car accidents occur 1.4 miles away from the home
• There are approximately 6,000,000 car accidents in the United States every year.

More Car Accident Statistics and Information

• More Car Accident Statistics
• Car Accident Claims (an overview)

Red light/green light cases are maddening to take to trial. Sometimes, an accident lawyer just knows the defendant is lying... but can't prove it. Often, there is no solution to this problem in red light/green light or other liability dispute car and truck accident cases. There are no witnesses and all you have is the police report. But in some cases there is proof out there that the defendant is lying because the light sequence report is mutually exclusive of the defendant's version of how the car accident occurred.

The solution by now for Maryland accident lawyers is obvious: if you have a liability dispute where light sequencing is an issue, get a copy of the traffic sequence report from the state of Maryland.

• Sample Light Sequence Report
• Sample Request Letter for Sequence Report
• Maryland accident claims: an overview