Failure to Maintain Lane Accidents

In most states, the rule about staying within one’s own lane until it is safe to change lanes has been codified. For example, under Tennessee Code section 55-8-123, when a road has been divided into clearly marked lanes, drivers are supposed to drive as nearly as practicable wholly within a single lane.They should not move from that lane until they have first verified that the movement may be safely made. Whenever there are three lanes, Tennessee law requires that drivers not drive in the center lane except to overtake and pass another vehicle when the road is clearly visible, and there is no traffic within a safe distance, or when the center lane is allocated only to traffic moving in the direction in which the driver is going. Sometimes there are signs that direct slow-moving traffic to use a particular lane, and drivers are expected to obey these signs. If passing is unsafe, slower vehicles that are followed by five or more cars are supposed to turn or pull off to allow the following vehicles to proceed. A slower vehicle is a vehicle that is going 10 miles per hour or more below the permitted maximum speed. People who fail to obey these laws may be cited and fined. If you were injured because someone failed to maintain their lane, you may be able to bring a lawsuit under a theory of negligence or negligence per se. When trying to establish negligence, you will need to show that the other driver’s breach of the duty to drive within their lane and otherwise drive safely caused your injuries. With negligence per se, you will need to show that the other driver’s violation of the specific safety law that regulates maintaining lanes in the state where the accident happened caused you injuries of a type that the law was designed to prevent.

Sometimes, a failure to maintain lane accident is a result of multiple acts of negligence. Your damages may be reduced by an amount equal to your degree of fault, if any. For example, if you are found 10% responsible for an accident because you were not paying attention as another car drifted into your lane, and you could have avoided it, you would be able to recover up to 90% of your damages.

Depending on the state, you may be barred from recovery if you reach a certain percentage of responsibility for the accident. In Tennessee, for example, you may only collect damages if the jury decides that your fault for the injuries was 49% or less. If it finds that you were 50% responsible or more, you will not be able to collect any damages, no matter how devastating the accident was. This is an important reason why you should seek legal counsel from a knowledgeable car accident lawyer early in the process.