Tampa Car Accident Attorney Discusses Seat Belt Law

According to an article posted on TBO.com, the Florida Highway Patrol recently held a news conference on car accidents and seat belt safety. The conference comes on the heels of a new law in Florida that allows law enforcement to pull people over and ticket them for not wearing their seat belt. Prior to the law change, law enforcement could only ticket someone not wearing their seatbelt in an automobile if the car had been pulled over for another reason.

As a Tampa car accident attorney, I always consider whether a client was wearing their seatbelt when deciding whether a settlement offer appears reasonable. The reason is that the Florida Safety Belt Law described above also allows a jury to consider the failure to wear a seat belt as evidence of comparative negligence of the injured person in an auto accident personal injury lawsuit. This means the amount of money awarded to a person that was not wearing a seat belt is reduced by the percentage of responsibility the jury decides to assign to that person for not wearing the seat belt.

Scott Distasio
Clearwater car accident attorneys

DISTASIO LAW FIRM
HELPING INJURED PEOPLE
OFFICE: TAMPA
888-595-0022