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California law requires drivers and passengers to wear a seatbelt. Cal Veh Code § 27315.
If you are injured in an accident but were not wearing your seatbelt at the time of the collision, insurance companies and their defense attorneys will argue that you would not have been injured, or would have incurred a less serious injury, had you been wearing your seatbelt. In making this argument, the defense is asserting "comparative negligence"; that your own negligence in failing to wear a seatbelt contributed to, or caused your own injuries.
Since the most severe injuries in automobile accidents often occur when the injured party was not wearing a seatbelt, or was ejected from the vehicle following a collision, it is important for the plaintiff to show that the injuries were caused by the negligent driver, not by the injured person’s failure to wear a seatbelt.
Accident reconstructionists and biomechanical engineers are often used as expert witnesses to demonstrate that serious injuries would still have occurred even if the injured party was wearing a seatbelt at the time of the collision. |
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