What to Do After You Have Been Hit as a Pedestrian in a Parking Lot

When we think of pedestrian accidents, only the most obvious situations come to mind. Perhaps someone blow a red light at a crosswalk, clipped a roadside walker at night, or maybe a car even accidentally swerved onto a sidewalk. However, while those can be common pedestrian accidents, it is probably more likely that you will be struck by a car as a pedestrian simply when walking through the parking lot to your favorite store.

Unfortunately, parking lots are often where vehicles and pedestrians most often intersect. There will always be an abundance of both, and accidents are bound to happen. Furthermore, drivers, even safe drivers, tend to not register a parking lot with the same diligence for safety as an actual road. You may find drivers doing behavior they otherwise might not do on the road such as setting up a GPS, sending a text, adjusting their to-do lists, or posting on social media – all while backing out of their parking spot or driving the lanes.

It is this penchant for distracted driving that leads to thousands of pedestrian accidents in parking lots every year. While these accidents often happen at very low speeds, they can still be devastating to the pedestrian that doesn’t have a heavy metal shell to absorb the impact. Broken bones, soft tissue damage, and serious head injury from being knocked down by a slow-moving, but large vehicles, are all common. A pedestrian that has endured the pain of a parking lot collision deserves compensation for it.

What to Do After a Parking Lot Accident?

If you were a pedestrian struck by a vehicle in a parking lot, you are not without options. Your first course of action should be to seek medical attention, but after anyaccident it is also important to collect the pertinent details such as the driver’s name and insurance information. It is also crucial to call a police officer to file a report of the accident to better pursue a civil case later to receive compensation for your injuries.

As parking lots are very public places, you may find that there will be no shortage of witnesses that saw what happened. The store in question may also have parking lot security cameras that caught the whole incident on tape. This will make receiving compensation for your injuries go more smoothly as everyone involved will be able to clearly see that the vehicle struck you due to their own distracted driving or pure negligence.

While being struck by a slow-moving car doesn’t always manifest immediately severe injuries, it is still to your benefit to seek medical attention. Often after accidents, adrenaline is high and we don’t feel the injuries until the day after. However, the longer you wait to seek medical attention, the worse off your case will be. Furthermore, if you opt to just “walk it off,” it is likely that the driver that hit you will just disappear into the wind with no way to contact them to recover compensation for any of your injuries.

Need Help?

If you have been in any kind of pedestrian accident, be it in a parking lot or otherwise, you will need the help of a skilled attorney to navigate the personal injury process. If you have been struck and have any kind of injury, contact us today to see how the Law Office of Freeman & Freeman can help you recover the compensation that you need for your injuries. Like many areas of the law, personal injury suits can get complex, and we can make sure you get every penny of compensation that your injury deserves.