Red light/green light collisions make for textbook tort cases. But a recent collision in Overland Park, Kan., was anything but typical after the defendant failed to appear and the plaintiff was rendered unable to remember the wreck due to a severe head injury. With no independent witnesses to the accident, the case came down to the timing and triggering of the intersection's traffic lights.
Our client, an engineer, was driving to work at about 6 a.m. when another car slammed into him near the right front wheel. No independent witnesses were found. Our client was taken by ambulance to the hospital with a fractured left clavicle and was later diagnosed with a traumatic brain injury.
At the scene, the defendant told police that our client had run a red light. The investigating officer said that without any witnesses, he could not determine who had the green light. Our client had driven through the intersection each morning on his way to work and had no prior accidents or citations for running red lights.
Lynn Johnson and David Morantz pursued a claim against the defendant driver and against our client's insurance carrier, which had a sizeable uninsured/underinsured policy. The defendant driver did not appear for a deposition, so the case proceeded without any admissible account from either party about who had the green light.
The intersection was not part of the City of Overland Park's coordinated traffic system, meaning the timing of its lights was not tied into other intersections. Rather, traffic approaching the intersection triggered changes in the lights. The street our client was driving on was considered the primary of the two streets, so the lights dwelled on green for our client as the default setting unless traffic from the cross street triggered a change.
Based on damage to the two vehicles and where they ended up after impact, our accident reconstruction expert was able to determine that both vehicles were travelling more than 30 mph when they entered the intersection, indicating that neither car had been stopped at the intersection during a red light.
If there were no other vehicles at the intersection when the accident occurred — as indicated by the lack of witnesses — the speeds of the vehicles and the timing of the traffic lights meant that the defendant would have entered the intersection on a red light, because the lights were set to default to green for our client.
Despite his injuries, our client was able to return to work and continue a promising career. The case settled for $755,000.00 in uninsured/underinsured funds.
