Road Rage Accident Lawyer in Phoenix

If a driver with road rage caused your Phoenix car accident and injuries, you have the right to hold them liable and recover damages. Let the team from Zanes Law Injury Lawyers review your case at no cost to you. We can help you understand your rights and take legal action on your behalf.

In Phoenix, call 866-499-8989 today to get started. An injury lawyer for accidents due to road rage in Phoenix, AZ, can evaluate your case and pursue a payout at no out-of-pocket cost to you.

Common Causes of Phoenix Road Rage Accidents

There is never any excuse for road rage. Other drivers make mistakes but reacting with aggressive or reckless driving is never the answer. Still, it occurs all too often.

Common types of road rage actions include:

Purposefully tailgating other drivers
Yelling at other drivers
Honking out of anger
Making angry gestures
Blocking another vehicle from changing lanes on purpose
Cutting off another vehicle on purpose
Leaving a vehicle to confront another motorist
Bumping or ramming another vehicle out of anger

As you can imagine, many of these actions can cause serious accidents and injuries.

The Arizona Department of Public Safety offers this legal definition of road rage: “an assault with a motor vehicle or other dangerous weapon by the operator or passenger(s) of another motor vehicle or an assault precipitated by an incident that occurred on a roadway.”

This is not the same as aggressive driving, which is speeding, tailgating, or improper lane changes. With road rage, there is a deliberate attempt to harm or intimidate other drivers based on something that happened on the road. Aggressive driving is bad enough, but road rage is arguably much worse.

One major difference between the two infractions is how the law punishes them. Aggressive driving is a traffic offense, even when the driver receives a severe penalty. Road rage charges get filed under Arizona’s criminal laws.

Road rage will usually mean a combination of penalties for violating traffic laws and other criminal statutes.

Some common laws under which prosecutors can punish road rage drivers include:

Assault
Battery
Assault with a deadly weapon
Endangerment
Manslaughter

These incidents endanger not just the driver who faces an attack but other drivers in the vicinity and their passengers. Some people suffer injuries when the attacker is targeting someone else.

Road rage can go beyond actions that people take with their cars or inside their cars. Road rage damages also include incidents when a driver commits some type of assault against another. These are criminal actions for which the driver can face charges.

Regardless of whether you press charges, you can bring a civil lawsuit for a road rage assault. Battery is a tort for which a person can be liable to pay for damages, even if they also received a conviction for their actions in a criminal case. You can also obtain civil damages. This is true, even if the person faced charges for a crime and received a conviction. The legal test is the same one as in any personal injury case.

Arizona keeps statistics on road rage incidents throughout the state. The numbers are truly alarming and show a problem of state drivers being out of control. For example, in a recent year, the Arizona Governor’s Office of Highway Safety tabulated 256 incidents of road rage throughout the state. These incidents had varying degrees of seriousness, although any incident in which a driver loses control of their emotions to that extent in a car is arguably serious.

People can also lose their lives in road rage incidents. Recently, the problem got even worse. In the first four months of the year alone, there were 155 road rage incidents in Arizona. These numbers may even be a low estimate of the total number of incidents because they reflect an older reporting system. Further, many drivers may not even report the incident to law enforcement.

There have been numerous fatalities in the area.

Some of the more serious road rage incidents in Phoenix recently include:

A ten-year-old girl was shot to death after she and her father were followed home by an angry driver.
Police arrested a man after he hit the car of another man that he was arguing with and then ran over the man. He was legally drunk at the time of the incident.
Police arrested a Phoenix man for firing shots at another driver on I-10 after an incident.

These are just a few of the many incidents in the Phoenix area. Tempers are especially short on I-10 in the downtown area. There are many lanes of traffic on this road, and drivers make frequent lane changes. Those who feel that they have been “cut off” may get angry and try to retaliate against the other driver.

If it seems like Arizona drivers are more aggressive than your average motorist, and statistics back it up. Arizona drivers have been named as the most aggressive in the country in at least one study. In another study, Arizona has the seventh-highest fatality rate in the country when drivers fail to obey the rules of the road. Add to that the fact that tempers may be short in hot Phoenix summers, and the situation in the area is ripe for road rage.

However, this does not in any way excuse a driver who makes a conscious attempt to intimidate, attack or harass another driver after a road incident. Both parties are best letting the incident go because nothing is worth it. Even if another driver has wronged or threatened you, it is best not to acknowledge them or stop unless there has been an accident.

Other aggravating factors that can cause road rage incidents are alcohol and drugs. These can inflame a person’s emotions, making it more likely that they will lose control of their temper. Some drugs, such as heroin or amphetamines, can cause paranoid and aggressive behavior.

There are many reasons why road rage incidents are on the increase.

They include:

Roads now have rideshare drivers who are stressed out and working late nights for little pay
In general, drivers are more careless and inattentive, causing more incidents that anger other drivers
Aggressive driving is also on the rise, leading to more confrontations between drivers
Traffic and road conditions are worse, causing tempers to fray more easily
Hostile and aggressive conduct toward others in public is on the rise in our society
The entire country is more stressed out, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic

One survey even showed that one in every 50 drivers admit to trying to run another driver off the road after a dispute.

The most common cause of road rage is when one driver cuts someone else off in traffic. Other causes are two drivers fighting over a parking spot and one driver traveling very slowly in front of another motorist.

After a road rage incident, someone has likely called the police to the scene and obtained a police report.

After the immediate accident, a victim should:

Get the medical attention necessary to both document and treat the injuries
Call an experienced attorney to help them fight for the legal compensation that they deserve

Get medical help shortly after the incident. First, you need to know exactly what you are facing and get treatment to help you recover. Second, you do not want to give the defendant an excuse to argue that your injuries were made worse by or caused by your failure to see a doctor after a traffic accident.

Zanes Law Injury Lawyers Can Pursue Compensation in Your Phoenix Road Rage Accident Case

If you suffered injuries in an accident related to a road rage incident, the team from Zanes Law can build a strong case and pursue a payout on your behalf. We know what it takes to prove these cases, such as showing another driver was following too close when you had to stop quickly.

An injury lawyer for accidents caused by road rage in Phoenix, AZ, will represent you to the insurance company and present evidence to show the other driver’s road rage caused your accident. Your lawyer will help compile witness statements, police reports, and any other relevant, supporting evidence to your case. If we cannot recover the payout you deserve through an insurance claim, we can take the case to court and present evidence demonstrating the at-fault motorist’s anger to the jury.

We want to recover compensation for you. Call Zanes Law today at 866-499-8989 to learn more about how we can help you win a payout in your Phoenix road rage accident case.

For a free legal consultation with a road rage accidents lawyer serving Phoenix, call (866) 499-8989

Recoverable Damages in a Phoenix Road Rage Car Accident Today

While holding a road rage driver legally accountable for their actions is satisfying, the primary reason we pursue an insurance claim or personal injury lawsuit in these cases is to recover the compensation the victims need to pay their accident-related expenses and cover the losses they suffered.

These expenses and losses, called damages, can vary from case to case based on many factors. We will explain the possible value of your case after we have a better understanding of the losses you suffered. Valuing a case is difficult for you to do on your own. There are so many contingencies and future considerations that require someone with experience in these types of cases.

Phoenix Road Rage Accident Lawyer Near Me (866) 499-8989

You May Pursue Both Economic and Noneconomic Damages

You may recover these common damages in car accident cases:

Ambulance transportation
Medical care costs
Ongoing and future care
Lost wages and benefits
Diminished earning capacity
Repair or replacement of your vehicle
Other property damages
Related out-of-pocket costs
Pain and suffering damages
Other non-economic damages

One special form of damages you might recover in your road rage accident case is punitive damages. These are not usually available in traffic accident cases. The usual traffic accident case involves a careless or inattentive driver. In a road rage case, the at-fault driver has made a conscious decision to attack or intimidate someone else. This is something that would anger a jury. Punitive damages are reserved for extreme situations when the jury wants to punish or send a message to the defendant for outrageous conduct. Road rage is something that may just fall into this category of conduct.

If the driver who engaged in road rage was a truck driver or someone else who was on the job at the time of the incident, you may be able to sue their employer. This could magnify the size of your award because the employer likely has a larger insurance policy.

An employer is responsible for the actions of their employee committed within the scope of their employment. The company may try to argue that road rage incidents are outside the scope of employment, especially since they may face a very large verdict. This is why you need an experienced lawyer to argue your case.

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You May Seek Wrongful Death Damages

If a member of your immediate family passed away in a traffic accident caused by road rage, or if a motorist with road rage took other actions that led to your loved one’s death, you may be eligible to hold that motorist liable. Wrongful death damages differ significantly from the losses available in most personal injury cases following a car accident. These cases pay the family back for their damages when they lose a loved one. This includes things like the wages that the deceased would have earned and the family’s trauma from losing their loved one.

A member of the team at Zanes Law can explain how this type of case works during your free consultation. Call 866-499-8989 for your case review today.

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