Injured by Road and Highway Defects?

Transcript: Hi. I’m Indiana personal injury attorney David Holub.

Roads and highways are supposed to be constructed and maintained according to official government standards, but people constructing and maintaining highways can make mistakes.

Suppose, for example, you’re riding a motorcycle and hit a deep pothole and are thrown from the motorcycle and are injured. Or suppose that the standards call for a left turn lane, but the highway is designed without one, and because of the absence of a left turn lane lots of accidents start to happen day after day.

Defects in a roadway can be for multiple reasons.

One can be defective design. Another can be defective maintenance.

Another can be defective construction. There also could be problems like inadequate signage or the wrong signs or inadequate traffic control safety devices, like stop lights and turn lights. Roads, generally, are the responsibility of towns and cities and counties and states; however, private roads like those in a shopping center or subdivision sometimes are controlled by private groups. In municipalities in Indiana, like cities and towns and counties, the obligation of those entities is to keep the streets open and safe for the use of the public.

Plus, Indiana requires that cities, towns, and counties have an obligation to construct and design and maintain a roadway according to official government standards of safety. In other words, they have to exercise reasonable care in the maintenance and construction of their roadways and the signs that go along with the roadways.

We hope this information has been helpful. If you have further questions on this subject or on other subjects regarding an injury, please give us a call.