Vehicle-pedestrian accident leaves one dead in Murraysville

A local pedestrian was killed after being hit by a car on Route 22 in Murrysville on Monday evening.

It is not clear from news reports who was at fault for this accident and no doubt further police investigation will be needed.

We previously handled a well-known pedestrian-motor vehicle wrongful death case involving a fatal accident which occurred as a woman was crossing Braddock Avenue near Frick Park in the City of Pittsburgh. In that case, as with the recent accident in Murrysville, local police will no doubt do an accident reconstruction in which they examine evidence at the scene, location of the body, damage to the vehicle and other factors in order to determine or “reconstruct” how the accident happened. We often do the same thing in our civil cases by relying on expert witnesses who have specialized training in accident reconstruction.

These experts, like police accident reconstructionists, can often determine based on skid marks, extent of damage to the vehicle and other information exactly how fast a vehicle was going and where the impact occurred between the pedestrian and the vehicle. These circumstances can go a long way toward determining who was at fault for the accident.

In our case involving the City of Pittsburgh accident, it was determined that not only was the other driver at fault, but the City itself was at fault for failing to have a proper warning sign and pedestrian flasher at the intersection. This intersection had been the scene of several accidents involving pedestrians over the years.

After we tried the case and won a verdict in favor of the family, our firm along with the parents of the deceased woman donated money to the City of Pittsburgh to help pay for the cost of a pedestrian flasher at the intersection so that future accidents could be prevented.

Click here to see video about our case.