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Lawyers in the House with Montlick - Your Legal Podcast
066 Wrong Way Accidents

066 Wrong Way Accidents

Lawyers in the House with Montlick

Attorneys in Podcast: Nives Juric, Esq.| Aaron Monick, Esq.

Montlick Injury Attorneys Aaron Monick and Nives Juric shine a light on wrong way driving accidents, the severe consequences that result and ways to stay safe on the roads.

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The purpose of this show is to provide general information about the law. Our guests will not provide any individualized legal advice. If you have a personal situation and need legal advice, contact us for your free legal consultation with a Montlick attorney.

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00:04	ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Wish you had a lawyer in the family? Now you do. Here’s your host, Veronica Waters. VERONICA: Hey, welcome to the House. Lawyers in the house with Montlick on WSB. I’m your host, Veronica Waters. Happy to have you back with us for another fabulous episode.
00:28	VERONICA: Hope you’re going to like this one because I am already so excited because two of my very favorite Montlick Injury Attorneys are back in the house with me. I can’t wait to introduce you to them. So, let’s start off right now. First up in the chair, Lady in Blue Nives Juric is joining us here. She is a Montlick Injury Attorney who’s been with the firm as an attorney since 2018. Correct. VERONICA: And before that, she spent many years as a paralegal. She attended Georgia State. She attended Georgia State.
00:58	VERONICA: She graduated John Marshall Law, and she was top 10 in her class. And she has been fighting for the rights of injured people for a very long time. Sitting next to Nevis is Montlick Injury Attorney Aaron Monick, and he’s been with the firm for about a decade now since 2013. As we sit here today, Aaron attended Michigan State, did law school at UC Berkeley, and he is one of these guys who knew early on that you wanted to be an attorney?
01:28	AARON: I did. Definitely. And so, it’s been a lifelong thing. VERONICA: Yeah. What lit that fuse? AARON: Wanting to help people. You know, there are a lot of different ways to help people in this life. And this is a good career to do that because you can use the things that you learn and use it directly in service of people. VERONICA: Aaron, you have a quote that’s next to your name on the Montlick site. It says, “With personal injury claims, you’re not just presenting a lawsuit, you’re presenting someone’s life.” AARON: That is true.
01:59	AARON: That is absolutely true. And it’s one of those things that you realize when you become an attorney because you deal with people, you deal with people when they’re at their lowest. Someone who calls you up, who says, I need help, they need help because they’ve had something bad happen to them. And it’s affected them. A lot of times it’s affected their ability to make a living. It’s caused them a lot of pain. And so, when you’re dealing with them, you’re dealing them in a situation where they need your help. And it’s not just a transaction. It’s their life.
02:29	VERONICA: Yeah. Nevis Juric and her family immigrated from Bosnia when she was just a tiny, tiny tot. And she comes from a family of attorneys. She followed in her parents’ footsteps. And did you know that you wanted to be a lawyer when you were VERONICA: little too? NIVES: Not really. I think after working for many years as a paralegal, it kind of gave me more motivation to do it myself.
02:58	NIVES: And the fact that I had that background, my parents, you know, of course they would have loved for me to follow in their footsteps, but working as a paralegal and doing that for quite a long time is what lit my fuse. Essentially, I knew that I could do it and I wanted to do it in a capacity of an attorney. So, I never looked back since then. VERONICA: Nevis says as an attorney, I bear the responsibility to fight for my clients like I would for my family. NIVES: Yeah, it’s a great honor and a great responsibility that we bear.
03:30	NIVES: People come to us in their worst times, their families and livelihood is dependent on the outcomes that we help make possible. And I take that very seriously. And I would want them to be treated like I would treat my family or someone else would treat my family. So yeah, VERONICA: has either one of you done law other than personal injury? NIVES: In a capacity as a paralegal, I did and law clerk.
03:59	NIVES: I worked in a commercial real estate law firm. I worked for Atlanta Legal Aid. So, there we did a lot of like, you know, temporary restraining orders and HOA issues and landlord tenant issues and some domestic issues. So, I’ve done other things than PI, but PI is kind of what I love to do, and I can’t imagine doing anything else. And it’s actually a lot of fun. VERONICA: It’s a lot of fun. NIVES: It’s so much fun. VERONICA: I know because you really are a fighter. You’re sort of like a Sherlock Holmes over there at Montlick.
04:30	NIVES: I mean Well, thank you. VEROICA: Seriously, you’re digging out the facts. You’re the one doing accident reconstructions in the middle of the night. I mean, that is some true dedication. So, I know you really like figuring out those puzzles. VERONICA:What about you, Aaron? Did you do anything other than PI? AARON: If you have ever seen the TV show Suits, then that is the beginning of my career. Basically, I went from law school at Berkeley, and then I went across the Bay to San Francisco and went to go work for a big law firm.
05:00	AARON: And so 23rd floor of a 50 California, one of these big office buildings in the middle of San Francisco, and our firm handled all sorts of corporate litigation at the highest level, patent lawsuits, all sorts of stuff, big firm, big windows, big egos, all that sort of stuff. And it was fun, and it was a great introduction to the law. For me, it was a little bit unfulfilling in the sense that when you work for companies, you’re kind of aware that the people you work for, mostly it’s just money changing hands.
05:36	AARON: And the thing that I like about the job that I have now with Montlick is that you get to work for people. And it is really a difference in that the suits world is interesting and intellectually stimulating, but it’s a little bit divorced from the regular world.
06:07	VERONICA: On Today’s episode of Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB is going to talk about why it’s probably a good thing that Bugs Bonnie didn’t make that left turn at Albuquerque. In recent years, wrong way crashes have seen a 34% increase on the nation’s divided highways, especially. And Nevis and Aaron are here to talk about just how bad those crashes are. They’re, you know, not large in number, but they’re really big in impact.
06:35	VERONICA: And have you guys seen this increase in wrong way crashes in a real way? NIVES: I think in our everyday practice, we see these wrong way crashes and they manifest in different ways. Sometimes it’s on the divided highway, which means that there’s actually a vehicle that’s crossing the median or the grass sea area. Sometimes they involve a driver crossing over the double yellow line and going into the opposing lane of traffic.
07:05	NIVES: Sometimes it’s, you know, people entering the wrong way, one way lane. You see this in the city a lot, downtown area where you have one-way roads. So, there’s a myriad of ways that we see them take place. But I suppose in our practice, we’ve seen a rise, just like many other accidents since COVID has kind of died down. VERONICA: Interesting. Do they come at certain times of day? Are they more when are they most likely to happen?
07:33	VERONICA: Do you guys see commonalities when you get these cases? AARON: You will get wrong way accidents the most at night. And that’s a product of a couple of things, one of which is just visibility. So, a lot of wrong way accidents happen because people can’t really see where they’re going or if they’re going too fast. You can’t navigate a curve. And suddenly you end up on the other side of the road. But I will say this, the biggest cause of these things, and the one that jumps out to you the most as an attorney is that a lot of wrong way accidents are caused by drunk driving.
08:06	AARON: And that drunk driving happens late at night. And so, people who should not be on the road, who are impaired, end up somehow in the wrong lane. VERONICA: Yeah, AAA has done an analysis of wrong way crashes, and they found that the odds of being a wrong way driver went up with alcohol impairment, also older age and driving without a passenger. Now, I was looking at the stats from AAA talking about wrong way crashes and something jumped out at me.
08:33	VERONICA: Six in 10 were legally impaired with a blood alcohol content of over 0.08%. But more than a third, 36%, guess what their blood alcohol content was? Less than 0.01, far from impaired. It’s really incredible that you could have such those were the two hugest groups. That was almost 100% of the data. So, you don’t have to be drunk to go the wrong way on the road. NIVES: Yeah.
09:01	NIVES: And I think when you mix those two factors together, intoxication with lack of visibility, it is the culprit of some of the most dangerous accidents we see out there that a lot of times result in fatalities, actually. AARON: It’s useful to think about wrong way accidents as kind of the worst-case scenario for bad driving. And when I say bad driving, what I mean is either getting AARON: behind the wheel when you’re impaired or drunk or getting behind the wheel and not concentrating.
09:34	AARON: A lot of the people who get into wrong way accidents, especially the ones that you just referenced, who have zero alcohol in their blood, end up that way, maybe because they were looking at their phone. VERONICA: Distracted driving. AARON: Distracted driving, or they were going too fast for the conditions. I’ve had a lot of calls from people that said, hey, I was just going down the road and someone was going 20 miles over the speed limit on a two-lane country road. They couldn’t make the curve, and they ran right into me. VERONICA: Wow.
10:01	VERONICA: What about do you guys see a lot of the cases where there is somebody who just missed the signage, maybe not going too fast, but actually just literally some problem at an intersection, an on-ramp, off-ramp, whatever. And they ended up going in the wrong direction. NIVES: Yeah. Yeah. I think, again, that happens a lot in urban areas because people are not familiar with that area.
10:28	NIVES: You know, maybe the signage is not as visible, but just simply not knowing the area that they’re driving through, they’re following, let’s say, Google Maps. And that’s not always super accurate and up to date. I think that in my experience, I’ve seen that. I don’t know about Aaron. AARON: The easiest way to miss a sign is to be drunk. And that is, honestly, a lot of times you’ll see someone, how do you end up going the wrong way on a highway?
10:57	AARON: You know, there are a million signs. You have to go literally the wrong way of direction, but people will find themselves, you know, 70 mile an hour highway, and they’re literally going the wrong direction. And when that happens, unfortunately, people can often get seriously hurt or killed. VERONICA: We’re talking about personal injury. So, I have to ask you, when these cases come to you, how bad are those injuries? NIVES: They tend to be worse.
11:24	NIVES: Wrong way crashes, I think earlier we mentioned account for less than 2% of all crashes, but account for more than 10% of all fatalities. We tend to see different type of injuries, you know, blunt force trauma to the face, to the chest, to the torso, really bad broken bones that need surgical intervention of the femur, knee, ankle, foot, because people are often instinctively pushing on the brakes because they think you know they’re bracing for impact.
11:56	NIVES: And they tend to be far worse. VERONICA: A lot of shattered bones. I’m also wondering, too, are most wrong way crashes head on? AARON: It actually, that depends. You know, there are a lot of crashes where people run directly into each other. Those tend to be the most serious because what happens is you’re going however fast you’re going, 50, 60, 70 miles an hour, and you instantly stop because the other car stops you.
12:24	AARON: But then there are a lot of cases where people are able to swerve or, you know, maybe they hit driver’s side to driver’s side, and both cars end up spinning out. AARON: And, you know, one car ends up on one side and the other car on another. VERONICA: Yeah. So, a couple of other risk factors before we go to break. Drivers over 70 are more at risk of wrong way crashes. AAA says that they spend less time on the road, far fewer minutes driving than their younger counterparts, but they’re overrepresented in wrong way crashes and nearly 80% of wrong way drivers were driving alone.
12:56	VERONICA: No passenger looking over their shoulder to say, hey, hey, you’re going the wrong way. Coming up next on lawyers in the house, we’re going to talk about the outsized impact that wrong way crashes play in injuries and fatalities. Stay with us. ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8:00 a.m. every Sunday if you want to listen live on 95.5 WSB.
13:25	VERONICA: Welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m Veronica Waters, here with Montlick Injury Attorneys, Aaron Monick and Nevis Juric here with us on WSB. We’re talking about wrong way crashes. They are rare, but they are deadly. You heard Nevis just talk about the fact that there are about 2% of the accidents on the road, yet they account for 10% of the fatalities. You guys, are these in an industry where you’re always seeing people badly hurt? Some of the worst things, worst injuries you ever, see?
13:55	AARON: Yeah, they can be devastating. I mean, first of all, there are a lot of fatalities. And it’s a tough thing as an attorney, even to read an accident report where you see death. It’s just one of those things that kind of sticks out at you and just thinks, oh, this is terrible. But, you know, even when there is not a fatality, you can have serious injuries, including broken bones, head trauma. You know, a lot of people will slam their head against the steering wheel because, you know, they go from going fast to nowhere at all.
14:27	AARON: And so, it really can change people’s lives in an instant. NIVES: And they tend to be surgical, in my experience. They tend to need surgery almost always. VERONICA: Tell me if you’ve had one of these moments that sort of sticks with you all of these years later in doing this? NIVES: Yeah, I mean, there are quite a few I can think of. Earlier we were talking about drunk driving as the culprit.
14:54	NIVES: Recently, I had a case where my client was a tractor trailer driver on the highway and a woman who was highly intoxicated entered the highway from the long, wrong lanes. And she was just, you know, going towards him. Other vehicles were dodging her. And because he was in such a large vehicle, there was no way that he could avoid impact. And luckily, he was in a tractor trailer.
15:22	NIVES: She was in a sedan, but the impact was tremendous. And I think the defendant survived for sure. And my client did too. But I can’t even imagine that chaotic feeling of knowing something is coming your way, and there’s absolutely nothing that you can do to avoid it. It’s just something you see out of a movie. VERONICA: Yeah. It’s funny because when we see this treatment in the movies, it’s done in a funny way.
15:52	VERONICA: Remember planes, trains, and automobiles when they were in the car, you know, John Candy and Steve Martin and they’re driving down the highway. And there’s this. There’s like, what are these guys doing? And they’re like across a divided VERONICA: highway. And they’re trying to yell at them and say, you’re going the wrong way. This couple in the other car. And like he says we’re going the wrong way. And he’s like, how does he know where we’re going? He doesn’t know. You know, but there are like two tractor trailers coming at him. In the movie, they practically got the door sheared off almost, you know, and they did survive threading those tractor trailers.
16:25	VERONICA: They survived, but wrong way crashes, as we just said, are not always ones that will end with a laugh. Coming up on lawyers in the house with Montlick on WSB, we’re going to talk about the aftermath of the wrong way crash and how you can avoid those drivers yourself. Stay with us. ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8:00 a.m. every Sunday on 95.5 WSB. Welcome back to the House.
16:53	VERONICA: Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB. I’m your girl, Veronica Waters here, hosting Montlick Injury Attorneys Nevis Juric and Aaron Monick. We’re talking about wrong way crashes today and the first half of the show was filled with some pretty sobering statistics. If you missed any of that or Nevis’s story about the drunk driving wrong way crash that she had to handle to help a client, we got you. Make sure you just subscribe to us on every single podcast platform. And that way every new episode drops right into your queue as soon as it hits the world wide web.
17:26	VERONICA: And you can always find us on every platform, social. We are at Montlick Law. We can’t wait to tweet you or Facebook you or TikTok you or do all kinds of stuff with you on social media. We are looking forward to hanging out with you. Lawyers in the House with Montlick and Montlick Injury Attorneys Nevis Juric and Aaron Monick. Wrong way crashes. You guys were just telling me how incredibly bad they are, how severe these injuries seem to be in comparison sometimes to regular kinds of car crashes, which you also get a lot of the aftermath of the crash.
17:59	AARON: Yeah. And it’s one of those things. You know, there are ways in which you change your opinion about the world by being a personal injury attorney and getting experience to things that most people never see. And I would say, and Nevis could certainly talk about this. One of the things that has changed my mind the most, seeing these type of crashes over and over again is the simple importance of wearing a seatbelt, because it can change everything.
18:27	NIVES: And I read a statistic that according to U.S. Department of Transportation, 50% of all fatalities on the road are ones of people who are not buckled. And seatbelt, you know, sometimes people think an airbag is a replacement or substitute for a seatbelt, but these things work together to save lives. And time and time again, research shows that it will save your life. It doesn’t cost you anything. Put your seatbelt on.
18:57	NIVES: Sometimes people think, oh, I’m sitting in the back seat. I don’t need a seat belt. That is absolutely wrong. If you’re in a vehicle, put your seat belt on. The data shows the research shows that it will save a life. And a big majority of people who are dying on the roads are ones who just simply did not put a seat bill on, especially in these types of crashes. AARON: Yeah, these things are different. Wrong way collisions, head-on collisions are simply different than other type of accidents.
19:24	AARON: The vast majority of accidents and anyone who’s been on the road can tell you this. A simple sort of rear-end collision, you’re slowing down, or you’re stopped, and someone kind of taps you on the bumper. And you know those things happen. And there certainly could be serious. Wrong way collisions. You’re driving down the road. You’re going however fast you’re going 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 miles an hour. If you get hit head on, you stop instantly. And if you are not buckled into your car, your body does not stop instantly because it is going 60 or 70 miles an hour as well.
19:57	AARON: And when a car stops and you do not, you run right into your seatbelt or your steering wheel or the dashboard or the front seat. And the damages can be enormous. And you know myself and my life, when I was younger, I kind of grew up in a day when seatbelts were not really used all the time. Seatbelt laws just had been passed. I was very skeptical about the idea. It didn’t feel comfortable. But what I’ve discovered for myself, and if you’re listening to this, take one thing from this podcast.
20:27	AARON: Really, it is. If you just get into the habit of every time you get in the car, putting on your seatbelt, it will get to the point where it just feels comfortable. And you will feel weird if you get into a car and you don’t have your seatbelt on. And it is a simple thing. And 99% of the time, you know, you’ll get to wherever you’re going safe. But if there’s that one instance when you’re driving on the highway and someone runs right into you, it will literally save your life.
20:54	VERONICA: You’re thinking about yourself in that moment as a potential bullet if you are not in a seatbelt. Because when that car comes to a stop and literally how many people are driving at 30 miles an hour around metro Atlanta, it is rare. So, you’re going super-fast. That means your body is essentially going at that speed. And if it comes to a stop, the car, boom, there’s an accident and you’re not belted in. Your body is kind of still going at that force. And boom, you become a projectile. You could go through the windshield.
21:24	VERONICA: You could be ejected some other way. And you also run the risk of being a projectile that hurts other people in the car. This is this is not all my knowledge. I learned this from Jenny Harty, who is the Program Director of iRideSafe at Montlick. She’s a child safety advocate. You’ve heard her on the show many times. But she explained how those physics kind of work. And it really is shocking. To your point, I don’t know why anybody would get into a car front or back seat and not wear a seatbelt. It just and you know I think when with rideshares, a lot of people do that too.
21:53	VERONICA: They don’t bother to buckle up, but it’s not some like treat. I think you probably feel like it’s a treat if you’re in the back seat. You know, I don’t know why, but you’re just, you know, you’re just as dangerously at risk in the back as you are in the front. NIVES: I think to go to Aaron’s point, the pictures that we see in the aftermath of the crash is sobering. You know, these crashes are resulting, and windshield is, you know, glasses is shattering, windshield is exploding, the vehicle is exploding around you.
22:24	NIVES: I mean, we talked earlier about how the vehicle absorbs the shock, right? And a lot of times you’re driving by, maybe you see a crash and you see a vehicle that’s crushed like a soda can. And the first thing you think is, oh my God, did this person survive? And a lot of times it’s good to see a vehicle that’s crushed because that means the vehicle did its job and the body did not absorb the shock.
22:49	NIVES: But again, wrong way crashes, these are not these are high impact, high velocity, significant property damage, glass shattered, vehicle demolished, and you are at the mercy of your seatbelt. If you’re not wearing it, you will go through the NIVES: windshield. You will sometimes go through the windows. The result is catastrophic. And I cannot urge people enough.
23:17	NIVES: It doesn’t matter if you’re in the front seat, in the back seat, on vacation, in an Uber, in a Lyft with your friends, coming from a party, put your seat belt on. It does not cost you anything, but it will save your life. AARON: Yeah, take it from us. As people who are attorneys who deal with this all the time, don’t drive drunk and wear your seatbelt. It’s two simple things that our country has had to learn over the last 40 years or so. But we know it now. And it’s just a simple, safe things. It will make your life just much safer. It’s very easy.
23:47	AARON: It’s something to do. VERONICA: Let me read you this math. We were talking about I loved your description about how the vehicle is supposed to absorb the impact and keep you safe inside that bubble. So, we talked about how the impact on your body is called the crash force in an accident, and it’s equal to your body weight multiplied by the speed of the vehicle. We’ve talked about that on the show as well. Listen to this. At just 30 miles an hour, a person not wearing a seatbelt in a crash has the same experience as falling from a three-story building.
24:23	VERONICA: Or getting rammed by a three-and-a-half-ton elephant. I don’t think I don’t want to get rammed by a one-ton elephant. AARON: So, you know, you know how I would a lot of clients, even the ones that wear seat belts, will call me up the next day and said, you know, in the aftermath of the accident, I was dazed and confused. I had a lot of adrenaline running through my body. And I woke up the next morning and it feels like I got hit by a truck, or it feels like I got hit by a bull. They don’t tend to talk about elephants.
24:52	AARON: And it really is that that is that is the physical trauma of an accident. And when you’re talking about wrong way collisions, it’s exactly that. You’re getting hit. VERONICA: Do these cases come with extra challenges? I mean, you know, to your point, if the vehicle is doing its job, you have been protected. That doesn’t mean that you were not. So, you survived. It doesn’t mean you’re not hurting really badly. AARON: There are. And Nevis had talked a couple of times about this, about the number of times that these things can lead to fractures and broken bones.
25:23	AARON: And that comes with the challenge itself, which is that you are often in need of more than just emergency treatment. There may be follow-up surgery, and there is certainly follow-up therapy that is required. In these types of situations, even if you don’t break a bone, you’re likely looking at months of rehabilitation to get back to where you were, simply to get back to the state that you were before the accident. And so, it is one of those things that if you are in one of these accidents, and hopefully nobody who’s listened to this will be.
25:54	AARON: But if you are, you need to be aware that there is a process of recovery, and it may take a while. NIVES: And that’s why it’s important to call the right attorney, call us immediately. And when you do call Montlick, you will speak with an attorney directly and we will assess your case and tell you what steps to take to ensure that you’re compensated justly. VERONICA: Right from the start on the first call. NIVES: Yeah. AARON: And you know I would also add to this, which is there are many times when a lawyer may or may not be necessary. Sometimes there are accidents that are not very severe, and you can handle it with your insurance company.
26:26	AARON: If you are in this type of headway collision, call a lawyer immediately. And the reason I say that is twofold. One is you are likely going to be dealing with significant both property damage and injuries. Secondly, it allows us as attorneys to do the investigative work to guarantee that your case is successful. And I love it when people will call me in the aftermath of an accident. Even if it’s at the scene or they’re at the hospital, we may only be able to have a five-minute chat.
26:54	AARON: But what it allows me as an attorney to do is to get on the case. And there is a lot of evidence that can be gained from the scene of an accident, especially on wrong way collisions will leave detritus at the scene. You will see skid marks. You will see parts of a vehicle. And all of those things can be photographed and documented to show the position of vehicles at the accident. It is obvious who’s at fault when someone is driving the wrong way. VERONICA: I was just going to ask that.
27:24	VERONICA: Isn’t it super obvious to assign fault and liability? AARON: There are many cases where it is. So, if you are driving drunk and you’re going the wrong way on the highway, you’re responsible for the accident. But let me give you a second scenario, which is let’s say we’re driving on a country road. There’s a curve. And two cars are coming onto the curve. And one of them is going a little too fast and drifts not the full way, but maybe halfway over its lane into the opposite lane and runs head on into the other car.
27:58	AARON: Who’s at fault there? Because if you have not seen the accident, then you may not know who had the lane and who wasn’t. And in those situations, the physical evidence of the impact, the skid marks, what was left at the scene, you know the headlight that crumpled and left glass shards on the ground. All of that shows the position of the vehicle. VERONICA: So, you become a Sherlock Holmes too, Aaron over there. AARON: I suppose so, yeah.
28:27	AARON: And there’s, you know, the other people that are Sherlock Holmes, and if they’re good at their job, they tend to be the police. And so, when you are in an accident, especially a serious one, police will come to the scene and they will investigate. They will write a report. And part of that report, especially if there is a serious collision, will include scene photos. They have a camera that’s attached to themselves that will document their investigation. And all of those things are things that a good attorney can get as part of open records requests.
28:59	VERONICA: Has any of that stuff helped you in a case personally? AARON: For sure. For sure. You often will find that people who are at fault in an accident don’t like to admit it. And so, they don’t like to admit it to themselves, and they certainly don’t like to admit it to their insurance company. And so, when you are in a position where you can get the police footage and the dash cam footage and the at-scene photos, you can present that to an insurance company and make your case for sure.
29:30	NIVES: Absolutely. VERONICA: Coming up next on Lawyers in the House, you’ve been waiting for it all hour long now, I guess. The Montlick closing argument is straight ahead. Don’t you miss it? ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. If you want to listen to our radio show live, you can hear it every Sunday, 8:00 a.m. on 95.5 WSB. VERONICA: All right, and welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB.
30:00	VERONICA: I’m Veronica Waters here with Montlick Injury Attorneys Aaron Monick and Nevis Juric. We’ve been talking about wrong way crashes and the MCA is here. The Montlick closing argument. Aaron and Nevis, the floor is yours. NIVES: If you take away anything from this segment is wrong way crashes are extremely dangerous. They can result in fatalities. Please wear your seatbelt. Make sure that everyone in your vehicle is wearing a seatbelt. It does not cost you anything. We know that it saves lives.
30:30	NIVES: And call 1-800-Law-Need when you speak with us, especially in those moments when you are probably severely injured or you’re calling on behalf of a loved one who’s in the ICU, who might not be able to talk. Be assured that you’re going to speak to an attorney directly. And that should provide some comfort that we will assess your case. And you don’t have to get the runaround. You’re not going to speak to somebody else. You will speak directly with us, and we will assess your situation.
31:00	AARON: Wrong way collisions really represent, in some ways, sort of the worst thing that can happen to you on the road. And in a lot of ways, wrong way collisions are caused by some of the things that we do as drivers that we know we shouldn’t. Obviously, if you get into a car when you’re drunk, it may end up you driving the wrong way. You may kill someone or injure someone severely.
31:27	AARON: It also is the case that if you drive distracted, if you look at your phone when you shouldn’t, or if you’re driving too fast, that’s when these types of things can happen. And it’s important for people to understand that bad things sometimes can happen. You’re not necessarily safe on the road just because you get into a car. It’s why you should wear a seatbelt. It’s why you should be safe when you drive. If you are listening to this and you’re wondering, what should I do if one of these terrible things happen?
31:56	AARON: Let me just confirm that this is the time to call an attorney. An attorney can do things immediately in the aftermath that can protect you. They can make sure that your accident is taken seriously by insurance companies. They can also, and one of the important things that we do is help people recover because wrong way collisions cause injuries. Whether it’s a serious injury, whether it’s just a back strain, if you’re in one of these impacts, the chances of getting out of it unscathed is almost nothing.
32:29	AARON: Now, if you wear a seatbelt and you drive defensively, hopefully you won’t have too serious of an injury. But regardless, call an attorney, talk to someone who knows what they’re doing, who has experience, who can investigate the accident, and help preserve your rights and make sure that you can recover completely and get the compensation that you deserve. VERONICA: Wrong way accidents. So incredibly frightening.
32:56	VERONICA: Imagine being terrorized by something happening in real life in front of you on the road. And you can’t do anything about it. I promised quickly to tell you how to avoid a wrong way driver if you can straight from a highway patrolman. Pull over to the right, try to find a safe location if you’re close to an exit. Perfect, he says. If not, try to pull over to the right shoulder. Find a safe area. Wait for the wrong way driver to pass and then call 911 if you can. Thank you so much for joining us on Lawyers in the House with Montlick.
33:26	VERONICA: Thank you so much for being in the house. Aaron and Nevis. So happy to have you here and we’ll see you next time on Lawyers in the House on WSB. I’m your girl, Veronica Waters. Peace out. ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Catch us live every Sunday, 8:00 a.m. on 95.5 WSB.

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