Hi my name is Bob Snyder and I’m here today to ask you a question…”who’s responsible in a hit and run and how do you enforce that responsibility?”

Recently, I had a case where a pedestrian was walking down the road in the evening, and although she was on the right side of the road over near the curb, she was struck by a car coming up behind her without any warning.

The first question you want to ask is “why is she in the road?”

In this case it’s easy– there wasn’t any sidewalk, so where she was walking on the highway there wasn’t any shoulder and was permissible as long as she stayed to the far right. Since the car that struck her kept going where and how can she recover any damages for the injuries she suffered which were very serious?

The answer which you may not have been aware of is she is entitled to recover damages under the “uninsured motorist” coverage of her own policy, or any policy of any member of the household she resides that’s a family member. This can end up being a substantial amount of money if there is decent coverage against uninsured motorist that’s been purchased. Similarly, the coverage can be multiplied by the total number of vehicles of the household if the person has purchased that coverage, which they should always. The cost of uninsured motorist coverage is very very low compared to not having that coverage when you need it.

That’s all we are going to talk about in this video…we’ll have more in other videos on the topics of “hit & run”.

Call us at (610)265-8050 if you have any other questions concerning this or any other aspects of the law.