My wife was stuck in traffic today due to the accident pictured below. When she finally arrived at the scene of the accident (en route to our son’s daycare, A Child’s Academy), she called me and said “I don’t know how anyone survived this accident.”
(Picture Courtesy of Gainesville Sun)
Fortunately, the occupants of both vehicles did, in fact, survive this horrendous crash. Accoding to the Gainesville Sun, the events that led to the accident began when the police attempted to stop an older model Ford Explorer. For unknown reasons, the Explorer fled and law enforcement called off the pursuit due to heavy traffic. A short time later, the accident occurred, presumably due to the erratic driving of the owner of the fleeing SUV.
After seeing the picture (shown above) and learning that the occupants of both vehicles were injured, but alive, the lawyer in me immediately began to wonder how the morning started for the driver who WAS NOT responsible for this accident. Like most, I assumed he or she started her day worried about work, kids, or errands that needed to be completed before day’s end. I have no doubt that the prospect of being broad-sided by someone fleeing a traffic stop never even crossed the mind of the injured individual. Why should it?
Though statistically improbably, this scenario is but one of hundreds which illuminates the need to amploy insure yourself against the negligence of others. In the context of auto accidents, this is done through Uninsured Motorist or “UM” coverage. As its name implies, UM coverage covers you in the event that your hit by someone with no insurance. Lesser know but equally true is the fact that UM coverage covers you when you are hit by an individual that has too little insurance-which happens more often than not in s state where $10,000.00 in bodily injury coverage is all the drivers are required to carry. Nonetheless, I have cases all the time in which the driver who is not to blame has waived UM coverage to “save a couple of bucks” on their premiums. Do not do this-for the price of 2 Starbuck’s Lattes you can pay the monthly cost for UM, and save yourself and your family from the possibility of financial ruin as the result of being hit by an uninsured or underinsured driver.
The long and short of it is that you need UM coverage in an amount equal to the your bodily injury coverage (which covers you if you injure someone else), and if you have more than 1 vehicle, you should ask your agent to “stack” your coverage. Like the driver today, you cannot count on others to do the right thing by carrying enough insurance, or even carrying insurance at all, so make sure you carry UM.
lanes of traffic. While I am not in possession of the latest statistics, approximately 3,000 people per year have died on Florida’s highways since 2001. Here’s an article from today’s Gainesville Sunwhich is illustrative of the danger posed by I-75 along the 6-lane Gainesville/Alachua County corridor: