If you weren’t wearing a seatbelt when you were injured in a car crash, you may worry about your eligibility to recover compensation through an insurance claim or car accident lawsuit. The good news is that you could still be entitled to compensation. The bad news is that not buckling up could affect the amount you receive in a settlement or award. Here’s what you need to know, as well as what an experienced car accident attorney can do to support your claim.
How Wearing a Seatbelt Affects Car Accident Claims
Most states, including Arizona, require vehicle occupants to wear seatbelts in many circumstances. Specifically, Arizona requires the front-seat occupants of a vehicle manufactured in 1972 or later to wear seatbelts while in motion. Seatbelts prevent occupants from jostling around the passenger cabin or flying through the vehicle’s windows in a crash. They also hold occupants in place, increasing the effectiveness of the vehicle’s airbags.
The use of seatbelts can affect car accident claims in specific ways. Although seatbelt use plays no role in causing a car accident, it can affect both whether occupants sustain injuries and how severe those injuries are. As a result, at-fault drivers and insurance companies might cite an accident victim’s failure to wear a seatbelt as a contributing factor to the occurrence and severity of their injuries.
Can You Recover Compensation If You Didn’t Wear a Seatbelt in a Car Accident?
Even if you did not wear a seatbelt at the time of a car accident, you can still recover compensation for injuries you sustained in the crash, including:
- Medical treatment and rehabilitation expenses
- Costs of long-term care
- Lost wages
- Lost future earning potential
- Pain and suffering
However, the failure to wear a seatbelt can affect the amount of compensation you recover.
How Comparative Negligence Laws Affect Car Accident Cases
Arizona follows a pure comparative negligence rule for car accident cases. Under this rule, an accident victim can still recover compensation for injuries they are partially responsible for causing. Even when the lack of a seatbelt makes a car accident victim 80 percent at fault for a specific injury, they can still pursue compensation from the at-fault driver. However, the percentage of fault attributed to the accident victim for their injury can proportionally reduce their financial recovery in a car accident lawsuit. So, if that hypothetical victim suffered $100,000 worth of losses, the most they could receive at trial is $20,000—that is, $100,000 minus their 80 percent share of fault.
Can Insurance Companies and Defendants Raise a “Seatbelt Defense”
Insurance companies and at-fault drivers may try to limit their liability for another person’s car accident injuries by raising a “seatbelt defense,” which argues that the accident victim would not have sustained certain injuries or would have suffered less severe injuries had they worn a seatbelt. Although some states have expressly prohibited insurers from applying a “seatbelt defense” in an insurance claim or barred the introduction of the defense in car accident lawsuits, Arizona is not one of them. The applicability of the defense may depend on several factors, including:
- Whether the accident victim possessed sufficient maturity and discretion such that their failure to wear a seatbelt makes them partially at fault for their injuries
- The unreasonableness of not wearing a seatbelt under the circumstances
- Whether the lack of a seatbelt made the accident victim’s injuries worse than they would have been otherwise.
A seatbelt defense may require opinion testimony from medical and biomechanical experts to establish that the accident victim suffered injuries they would not have had if they had worn a seatbelt or that the lack of a seatbelt caused them to suffer a more severe injury.
Contact Our Firm Today
If you’ve been hurt in a car accident in which you did not wear a seatbelt, you need experienced legal counsel to protect your rights and interests. Contact Gill Law Firm today for a free, no-obligation consultation with an experienced car accident attorney in Buckeye. We’ll discuss whether you can pursue an injury claim if you did not wear a seatbelt in a crash and explain what you could still be entitled to in compensation.