Car Accidents

What should you do following a car accident?

January 18, 2021 Andrew Cherin Bike Accidents, Car Accidents, Insurance, Motorcycle Accidents, Passengers, Pedestrians, Tips

Many people wonder what is the best thing to do after a car accident to help preserve their case and make sure they are crossing their T’s and dotting their I’s. Here are the top things you should do following a car accident to make sure everything goes smoothly in case you have a personal injury car accident case and need to hire a Seattle car accident injury lawyer.

Take pictures of the car accident – there is nothing more telling of how a car accident actually happened then a picture of where each car is right after the car accident and the damage to each car. Make sure to take pictures of the road, your car’s placement, the other car’s placement, and the damage to each car. These pictures can tell who is at fault, how hard the impact was, and the conditions of the road at the time of the collision.

2. Get witness contact information – some times car accidents may seem cut and dry but that all can change when the other driver talks to their insurance company. A witness who saw the car accident that may be in another car or a pedestrian can help convey what actually happened in the car accident and who had the red light or who had the right of way. Getting their phone number could be the difference in who is deemed at fault. These people may leave once they see everyone is ok or have things under control so it is important to look for these people quickly.

3. Call the police – it’s not always necessary to have the police come to a car accident and exchanging information may work just fine, however, it is important to call and file a police report if you are hit by someone and they leave the scene without exchanging insurance information or they don’t have insurance, as you may need to by contract law due to your car insurance and uninsured motorist policy, that you will need to use. Police reports are not 100% determinant of who is at fault for a car accident as the police did not actually see the car accident happen, however, they can act as another witness who saw the scene of the car accident and collects witness information and insurance information strengthening your case.

4. Exchange information with the other driver – It is very important to get the other person’s insurance information at the scene of the car accident. If the person says they don’t want to go the insurance route, you should push for their insurance. Not going the insurance route can severely hurt your case if you are injured and need to find the person to determine if they actually had insurance so that you can use your uninsured motorist insurance policy to cover your damages.

Most people try to avoid insurance because they don’t want to hurt the other driver financially, but this is the reason everyone has insurance so they don’t have to pay anything more than their premium every month or 6 months. Not going the insurance route only hurts the injured victim and doesn’t save the other person money, who otherwise would have only had to pay an increase in premium for a car accident that was their fault. You pay more going this route as it is much harder to for you to get your bills paid timely and get the compensation you need and deserve for medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, and property damage caused by the other person in the car accident.

5. Call an ambulance or take yourself to urgent care – If you are injured in the car accident, it’s important to get checked out by a doctor immediately to make sure you are ok. Car accidents can cause severe injuries to your neck, brain, and other parts of your body that need to get checked out right away. It’s best to go to urgent care right after a car accident if possible to get checked out. You can go the next day if it is too late at night. Urgent care usually has less people and can get you evaluated quicker than the emergency room. If your car is not driveable and you are severely hurt, call and ambulance immediately.

6. Call a Seattle car accident injury lawyer – It is important to preserve your case and make sure everything is in line and a Seattle car accident injury lawyer can make sure you are doing everything necessary with your insurance company to do this. Additionally, the defendant’s insurance will not pay for your medical bills until you settle with them (unless you were a pedestrian, bicyclist, or passenger and the at fault driver had personal injury protection (PIP) auto insurance coverage), this is why it is extremely important to know how your medical bills are going to be paid without having them go to collections and have a plan. A personal injury lawyer will be able to give you all the options to make sure your medical bills get paid or are not sent to collections. Options include using your car insurance personal injury protection (PIP) policy to pay for your medical bills, medical insurance, or having the provider wait to get paid out of the settlement.

7. Call your insurance company and report accident – It’s very important that you report the car accident to your own insurance company to set up your claim and document your case. You most likely have insurance coverage that you will need to use to help your case so you need to report it to your insurance company. Your rates should not go up because of a car accident that was not your fault. If for some reason they try to say that your rates are going up, you should talk to an agent on the phone and tell them you are going to go to another insurance company. I am sure they will change their minds and keep your rates the same, they want your premium every month.

If you or someone you know were injured in a car accident, give Cherin Law Firm, PLLC a call today for a free consultation on the phone 206 850-6716.

Common Car Accident Injuries

December 8, 2020 Andrew Cherin Bike Accidents, Car Accidents, Tips

Being injured in a car accident and hiring a Seattle car accident injury lawyer does not have to be limited to severe injuries that require long hospital stays and surgeries, many of our cases are people who were injured in a car accident and need chiropractic treatment and massage therapy.

We represent many people who have been injured in car accidents and require months of chiropractic and massage therapy to get better. These are good cases and these people are very much injured and entitled to compensation from the insurance company for their medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering.

Common injuries suffered in car accidents include whiplash, cervical spine injuries, thoracic spine injuries, lower back injuries, shoulder sprains/strains, concussions, PTSD, broken ribs, broken bones, and surgeries. All of these injuries on their own are very real injuries entitled to compensation from the insurance company as caused by the car accident.

A Seattle car accident injury lawyer will be able to get you the compensation that you deserve for these injuries. Your lawyer will be able to find the medical coverage to pay for the medical bills or create an arrangement so that you can receive treatment and pay for it out of the settlement with the insurance company.

If you have been injured in a Seattle car accident, we can help you. Most cases can be settled within 2-3 months of our clients being discharged from treatment. This doesn’t have to be a long process. We are paid out of the settlement so anyone can afford to hire us. Call today for a free consultation or book an appointment with us online for a free phone call consultation about your car accident injury case.

US Should Look to Norway for Drunk Driving Laws

June 28, 2018 Andrew Cherin Car Accidents, Drunk Driving Cases, Law

In response to a question I sent out on what other people suggest for DUI laws and protection measures, one reader stated that US should follow Norway’s laws for drinking and driving to prevent drunk driving car accidents, which often leave victims extremely injured or dead. I looked into the laws for Norway and they state that the legal drinking limit is about .02 BAC compared to the US of .08 BAC.

Norway is dead serious about stopping drunk driving and preventing senseless deaths and injuries related to car accidents. Norway’s .02 BAC level basically means that you cannot even have one drink and drive, otherwise you could potentially lose your drivers license for one year, lose one month’s salary, and go to jail. If your BAC is between .10-.15 you would go to jail for a minimum of 21 days in addition to losing your license for a year.

The problem in the US with .08 BAC limits is that people can have one drink and sometimes two drinks and blow below a .08 BAC, even though they may exhibit signs of slow reaction times and poor motor functions, diminishing their ability to drive. In the US, people believe they are good to drive after drinking because it was just a couple drinks and they feel fine. In Norway, people drink and they do not risk driving because they have had a drink and know they could get a DUI and lose their license even though they are perfectly capable of driving, in American standards of thinking.

If the US had Norway’s DUI laws, people would not even have to debate whether they are too drunk or not to drive. A person that has had any amount of alcohol can easily reason with themselves that they drank alcohol and will blow over a .02 BAC. This takes the decision making/debate out of drinking and driving, which is the biggest problem with people who drink and drive. It’s not until they get caught and blow over a .08 BAC or that they crash and hurt someone that they realize they were not actually good to drive.

If we are truly serious about stopping drunk driving car accidents and countless senseless deaths, we should take the debate out of people who are clearly not in the right mind to make a decision. We should advocate for a lower drunk driving limit if we truly want to make a difference with drunk driving car accidents.

How to settle a car accident injury case?

June 26, 2018 Andrew Cherin Bike Accidents, Car Accidents, Insurance, Tips

If you are injured in a car accident, your focus is being torn many different ways. You have to focus on setting up medical appointments, go to medical appointments, do the treatment, fill out insurance claim information, get a hold of insurance adjusters to get your claims paid, call places to get your car repaired, get your car repaired, answer phone calls from insurance companies trying to settle your case when you are not ready, and live your normal busy life.

Dealing with insurance companies is no fun and by hiring a personal injury lawyer, you can relax and trust that your going to be getting the max amount for your case and your medical bills are getting paid or will be paid soon. It takes the guessing game out of so much of your case allowing you to focus on healing and living your life, which is already a lot to do.

What if you wanted to settle your case on your own with hiring a Seattle car accident injury lawyer? You can absolutely do this, even though studies have shown that hiring a personal injury lawyer will put more money in your pocket than negotiating on your own. Here are some tips on settling your car accident injury case on your own.

Know the statute of limitations – This is the amount of time you have to settle your case before you will lose your rights. In Seattle and Washington State, you have three (3) years to settle or file a lawsuit on your car accident injury case. This varies from state to state and type of injuries, like medical mal practice, so check your state laws.
When should you start settling your case? – You should start settling your case when you are fully healed and done with treatment or you are close to the statute of limitations. The reason for this is because you want to know how much it is going to cost to get you back to normal. For Seattle cases, you can afford to wait to get all the treatment that you need because the statute of limitations is three (3) years. In other states, you may have to settle your case before you are done with treatment. Waiting until you are fully healed will allow you to collect all your medical bills, receipts for medications, and figure out your lost wages.
Know what you are entitled to – You are entitled to compensation for your medical bills, prescription costs, costs of help or assistance you required while you were healing, lost wages, future lost wages, compensation for disability, and pain and suffering among other things. If you do not hire a car accident injury lawyer and your insurance company paid for your medical bills, your insurance company will collect the medical bills that they paid directly from the at fault insurance company and this will not be part of what you recover. However, if you had to pay co-pays for your doctors visits, keep track of these and include them in the settlement demand.
What do you send to the insurance company? – You are going to create an insurance demand to send to the adjuster representing the defendant who caused your car accident. You should collect all your medical records and bills from all of your treatment providers. Once you have them all, you should write a letter to the insurance company that summarizes what you went through in the eyes of the doctors and yourself. You should find key dates in your medical records that state times where you were in a lot of pain and not the dates in the letter and state what you felt. You should note key dates when your doctors diagnosed you with a certain injury and write that in the letter. You should also include your lost wage information like pay stubs from weeks you missed and letters from human resources stating you missed these dates.
How much should I ask for? – Generally, insurance companies are going to offer you something very low to begin with in an effort to anchor your expectations to a lower number. You should combat this by starting very high, but not too high where they laugh you out of the conversation and stop dealing with you. You want to create a figure that you feel happy with accepting for what you had to go with as your middle ground between what you start off with and where they start off with, so start with a high offer above what you want to accept.

After you send this letter, the insurance adjuster will go through all the medical records and bills and review your demand. They will then put certain information into a computer system program that will spit out negotiation numbers for them to start with and the most they should pay. This computer program varies by insurance company but is relatively the same. It may take them a couple weeks to get back to you with their offer.

They will then send you a counter offer, this is not the most they can offer not matter what they say. They have more money available for you and are expecting you to counter their offer to you. You can either call them back and negotiate on the phone or send them another offer by email, fax, or mail. Negotiations with insurance companies can last weeks or months depending on the insurance adjuster and you.

Some insurance adjusters are easy to work with and you can negotiate a good offer within a couple phone calls to them. Other insurance adjusters are very difficult to work with and can be very nasty and bossy. The mean insurance adjusters will berate you are your case and offer you little or nothing. Don’t let them get to you. Continue to be polite but forceful and never attack them personally. Continue to ask for what you deserve and lower your number until you are within striking distance of your goal settlement. This is all easier said than done and you may feel like giving in, but don’t.

If you feel like you are getting no where and you are tired of dealing with nasty insurance adjusters, give a Seattle personal injury lawyer a call for a free consultation. We can take over and re-evaluate your case value and send another demand out. We can advocate for you and file a lawsuit if we do not get anywhere either.

BAC Readers in Bars and Restaurants?

June 25, 2018 Andrew Cherin Car Accidents, Drunk Driving Cases

What role do bars and restaurants have to play in preventing or proliferating drunk drivers from hitting the road? Many drunk drivers come from bars and restaurants where they drink too many in social situations. However, there are still people that drink and drive after coming from a party or alone at their own house.

Washington state has laws that state that bars and restaurants will be liable for over serving their patrons and share financial responsibility for any accidents that their over served patrons cause to others. This is known as dram shop laws.

The theory is that bars and restaurants are profiting off of others and the communities loss and costs. When a drunk driver leaves a bar and kills someone, the community, tax payers, and everyone loses. However, the bar may get away with the added bar tab unless someone can track the drinking of the driver to that bar, at which they could be liable for $1 million or more in damages that someone or their family sustained because of a drunk driver seriously injuring or killing someone.

Most bars and restaurants carry $1million in insurance coverage to cover the very instance of someone drinking too much at their business and injuring another person by drinking and driving. The insurance limit should be much higher, however, as someone being injured or killed by a drunk driver suffer far more than $1 million in damages.

Drunk drivers are usually irresponsible people in general and carry low if any insurance coverage. In Washington State, the minimum insurance limit is $25,000, far too low. For a $20 to $50 more a month, people can get $500,000 in insurance coverage, but everyone is trying to save money. Most drunk drivers do not have a high amount of insurance coverage and repeat offenders are already paying increased premiums so they may opt out of the higher coverage or any insurance at all.

What can bars and restaurants do to prevent people from drinking and driving? Bars and restaurants must train their staff to know and recognize signs of impairment and not serve alcohol to these people. One way that bars and restaurants could know for sure how drunk someone is, is to install BAC machines at their bar and only serve people below the legal limit.

Installing a BAC machine and bars and restaurants can be an effective way to prevent their staff from over serving people that have been drinking and are too drunk. However, this will only go so far unless another rule is put into place: no sharing alcohol with others only giving one drink per person, no more pitchers. Combining these rules would help combat drunk drivers from hitting the road and allowing bars to not be sued as often for over service.

Obviously, this would not be the best for the bar or restaurants pockets as they make more money when more drinks are consumed. However, this would go a long way to preventing people from drinking too much and getting behind the wheel. Preventing drunk driving car accidents should be our goal, not profits of bars and restaurants.

How do you know who is driving and who had a designated driver or is taking an Uber or Lyft home? This could be a huge problem with making BAC machines mandatory for all bars. However, public intoxication is also a crime that is to be prevented from bars. What is the legal BAC limit for public intoxication? It is up to the officers discretion but .08 BAC is a factor in determining if someone is drunk or not. A person could walk into the street drunk and get hit by a car.

Portable BAC readers are a lot more affordable today than they were say 20 years ago. You can go to Costco and buy one for about $150. Bars could easily afford to buy these.

How reliable are BAC readers? People are drunk at different levels and BAC machines are not all the same for calculating levels, but they have gotten better. However, .08 BAC is .08 BAC and the legal limit, so that is not a good argument. Maybe requiring bars and restaurants to have BAC machines would create more accurate machines so that police use the same machines.

Anything that we can do to prevent drunk drivers from getting behind the wheel and killing others should be considered. What are your ideas?

Are Washington DUI Laws Tough Enough?

June 25, 2018 Andrew Cherin Car Accidents, Drunk Driving Cases, Law

How does Washington State’s DUI laws rank compared to other states and are we tough enough to prevent people from drinking and driving? One website ranks Washington State 15/50 on one leading search website but are they actually tough enough to deter people from driving drunk and stop repeat offenders? Conversely, Mothers Against Drunk Driving Ranked Washington State 32/50 states in their 2017 rankings. Repeat offenders are the most dangerous offenders as they increase the likelihood of killing someone in a car accident each time they repeat offend.

Washington State has a minimum sentencing guideline for first offenders who drink and drive with BAC under .15 of one day in jail and 90 day license suspension for first offenders, 30 days and two year license revocation for a second DUI, and 90 days and three year license revocation for a third DUI, if they occur within seven years of each other.

For a BAC at or above .15, Washington State has minimum sentencing guidelines of two days in jail and 1 year license revocation for first offenders, 45 days and 900 day license revocation for a second DUI, and 120 days and four year license revocation for a third DUI, if they occur within seven years of each other.

A fourth DUI within ten years is a class B felony that comes with at most 10 years in prison and a fine up to $20,000.

When a person injures another person in a DUI car accident, vehicular assault, the defendant receives a class B felony which is subject to at most 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000.

When a person kills another person in a DUI car accident, vehicular homicide, the defendant receives a class A felony which is subject to life in prison and a fine up to $50,000.

In comparison, a second DUI is a felony in Oklahoma with jail time of one year to 7 years and they count your DUI’s for 10 years. In Arizona, considered the strictest DUI state a 1st DUI comes with 10 day mandatory jail time with a second DUI getting you 90 days in jail. Arizona also has another level of offense for BAC levels at or above .20 that come with 45 days in jail for 1st time offenders and 180 days for 2nd time offenders.

Some people will state that jail time is not a good thing for tax payers and for getting people to stop drinking and driving. Many states including Washington have electronic home monitoring, ignition interlock devices mandatory for cars, and car drivers license suspensions and revocations (meaning you have to take the drivers test again).

What will it take to stop people from drinking and driving? Do people need to sit in jail for years at a time to get sober and think about what they are doing? Will sitting in a jail cell with no ability to drink cure their addiction and stop them from driving? Alternatively, do electronic home monitoring devices and drinking programs detecting alcohol do a good job stopping drinking?

It is hard to tell which one is right and which one will stop people from drinking and driving. Initial tough laws like mandatory jail sentences put a stigmatism on people that may prevent them from getting jobs, but obviously deservedly so, but will it more likely lead to more drinking and more problems?

Do prior convictions hurt or help stop people from continuing to drinking and driving? A DUI in Washington will not count for a prior after 7 years but will count to for a 4th DUI if done in 10 years. Should these priors last longer on people’s records?

Do mandatory license suspensions and revocations do enough? Do we need to do more to make sure people are not driving on suspended or revoked licenses? Can we hold their family members accountable for the actions of the drunk driver who continues to drink and drive on a suspended license?

Many of these questions remain unsolved because we just do not have enough data on which is right and which is wrong. There are so many variables among states to determine which state has it right and which need to change their laws.

The Mothers against drunk driving organization believes that states should have sobriety check points, ignition interlock devices for all drunk driving offenders with .08 blood alcohol content and above, administratively revoke driving privileges upon arrest for drunk driving, create enhanced penalties for those who drive drunk with children in the vehicle, and adopt penalties and expedited warrants for suspected drunk drivers who refuse an alcohol test.

Washington State does not allow sobriety check points, as there is a belief that such check points are unconstitutional.

1,921 people died in drunk driving car accidents from 2003-2012 in Washington State according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Arizona had 2,912 people die in the same period of time and Oklahoma had 2,205 people die in drunk driving related car accidents. Arizona and Washington have roughly the same amount of people living in each state while Oklahoma has less than half of the population of either state.

We can always do more to help prevent people from drinking and driving. Educating our youths the dangers of drinking and driving, teaching people how to use ride sharing apps to get a ride home, better access to counseling for alcohol addiction, detection programs to report drunk drivers early, police patrols to catch drunk drivers, and others, can combine to help us prevent drunk drivers from taking our loved ones. Please do not drink and drive.

Uber Pool Is Dangerously Distracting Drivers

June 22, 2018 Andrew Cherin Car Accidents, Law, Uber

Uber pool has been around for a while now. It is basically where you get a discounted fee for riding with another person who wants an Uber and the person is unrelated to your party to go to a destination that may be close to yours or starts somewhat near you.

However, Uber pool is increasingly creating a hazard to Uber drivers as the Uber driver gets notified of a possible Uber pool ride in the middle of a trip with another passenger. Uber pool passengers select that they want a discounted ride by agreeing to possibly ride with another passenger. However, there may or may not be another passenger depending on if the driver gets notified that there is another passenger that they must pick up.

Uber pool rides are completely different from other Uber rides. With non Uber pool rides, once a driver picks up a passenger, the driver can focus on following the map and taking the rider to the destination without getting notifications on their phone from Uber and the Uber App.

With an Uber pool ride, the driver may be notified that they are to pick up another passenger for the Uber pool ride. The driver may get the message as they are getting on the freeway, taking an exit, or wherever, and this could cause the driver to have to make a quick decision to change directions to pick up the new passenger. This creates a hazard to the driver, the passengers, and cars around the driver.

In Seattle, there are distracted driving laws that just came into effect recently outlawing the use of technology, items in your car, and other things that may cause you to take your eyes of the road and cause a hazard to other drivers. Seattle law allows for drivers to use mounted phone holders but requires drivers to not read, send, view electronic data while driving a car. Here is the law:

RCW 46.61.672

Using a personal electronic device while driving.

(i) Holding a personal electronic device in either hand or both hands;

(ii) Using your hand or finger to compose, send, read, view, access, browse, transmit, save, or retrieve email, text messages, instant messages, photographs, or other electronic data; however, this does not preclude the minimal use of a finger to activate, deactivate, or initiate a function of the device;

(iii) Watching video on a personal electronic device.

Uber pool’s inside notification of a new ride may be a violation of the Washington State law, as they would receive a notification and have to look at it and read it. While their trip may be automatically rerouted through navigation, they would get a notification that may violate the law. They would then have to re-route their current trip and catch the next exit on the free way or turn on the next block, possibly in heavy traffic. On the freeway, missing an exit could be the difference between a 10 minute trip and a 30 minute trip.

Being injured in a car accident with Uber or Lyft is always complicated because of the different levels of insurance coverage based on whether the driver has a passenger, is looking for a passenger, or has their app off. If you have been injured in a car accident by a Uber or Lyft driver or were injured by someone else while driving for Uber or Lyft, call a Seattle car accident injury lawyer today for a free consultation.

Car Insurance Tracking Your Driving?

June 1, 2018 Andrew Cherin Car Accidents, Insurance

Is it worth giving your data to the insurance company for a discount on insurance? Maybe. It all depends on what they are doing with your data, which for the most part is unknown. Are they selling your data to ad companies or are they trying to use the data against you? Maybe they just want to make sure you are a safe driver and have altruistic reasons. Maybe not. They are a business with the number one goal being to make money, after all.

Car insurance companies have been offering discounts for years for allowing them to hack into your car and track your driving. Progressive Insurance company started doing this in 1998 with the snapshot insurance discount. Other insurance companies have followed suit and offer discounts for using the tracking device, Allstate uses drive wise.

Insurance companies will offer a discount if they deem your driving has been safe. Some companies require you to use the device for 90 days, 180 days, or all the time, in order to get the discount on insurance policies.

These devices are either plugged directly into your cars computer system or use a smartphone app to track your driving. The device can monitor your speed, location, braking, and more. Generally, the insurance company is looking to see if you are speeding regularly or braking hard, which may indicate you are not paying attention to the road. It can also see if you roll through stop signs as most of these companies hook the technology up to GPS systems to show mapping of traffic lights and stop signs.

Additionally, the GPS system can track your whereabouts and if you drive in “high risk areas” that are prone to break ins. It also tracks if you drive at night, which can be seen as a risk by insurance companies.

Insurance companies have wide discretion to determine whether or not someone has a driving record based on the information from the tracking device to warrant a discount in insurance. They can site whatever they want really and may not give you a discount.

What could be good about using these trackers is that they possibly could be used to determine who was at fault for a car accident or not. They could show position, speed, and braking to give more information to a he said she said argument. However, it is unknown how trustworthy these tracking devices actually are.

An insurance company could also just as easily use this device to say that you were at fault for a car accident and deny your insurance claim based solely on the data they can interpret and mold. This could cost you a lot of money in a personal injury case where you were severely injured in a car accident caused by a hit and run, only to have your insurance company deny your case because of their data on the car.

If you are injured in a car accident, whether it is a first party claim using your own insurance company because the other party did not have insurance or a third party insurance claim where they have insurance, you should hire a Seattle car accident injury lawyer. That way you are not bullied by insurance companies and their games. Get what you deserve, not what insurance companies want to pay you.

Ticket For Not Properly Restraining Child

May 24, 2018 Andrew Cherin Baby Safety, Car Accidents, Law

The leading cause of deaths among children under 12 is car accident related injuries. Seattle has some of the worst traffic in the US and there are a lot of people driving in the city that are not familiar with all of the streets, hills, and rules of the road. Couple this with driving around with a young child and you want to do everything you can to keep your child safe.

Washington State has one of the strictest laws on child car safety. The law was created in response toa Walla Walla parent, Autumn Alexander Skeen who lost her four-year-old son, Anton Skeen in a rollover collision. Anton was using a seat belt in accordance with state law at the time. Yet, because seat belts are built for adult bodies, he slid out of his seat belt and was thrown from the vehicle and crushed in the collision.

If you do not follow the law correctly, you could receive a ticket for not properly restraining your child for $112 for each child. Children are far more likely to be injured in a car accident when they are not properly seated in the car with the right safety restraint devices for their size and age.

However, if you get a ticket, know this. The state created a clause in the law that will actually allow you to not have to pay the fine so long as you can prove that you went out and purchased a child booster seat or car seat. They figure that the fine would be better spent on keeping the child safe.

Here are the basics of the law: (These are not manufacturer recommendations though so check those to make sure you are in compliance)

Children under age 8, unless they are 4’9″ tall (whichever comes first), must be restrained in an appropriate child restraint system (car seat or booster seat).
Children 8 years old or at least 4’9″ tall who wear a seat belt MUST use it correctly (never under the arm or behind the back) or continue to use a child restraint.
Children less than 13 years old must ride in the back seat of cars, unless there is no back seat.
Child restraint system must be used correctly according to the car seat AND vehicle manufacturer’s instructions. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions and guidelines for both the child restraint and the vehicle.

You can read the full law here at RCW 46.61.687

The law is very vague and provides that you must follow the proper instructions by the manufacturer. Different car seats have different weight limits and different sizes requiring different positions.

Rear Facing Car Seats – 2 Years or Younger and weight limit- Generally, a child must be in a rear facing car seat until they are two years old or have outgrown their seat according to the manufacturer’s guidelines. Rear facing car seats in the back seat are the safest position for your child and should be left in this position as long as possible, until they meet the guidelines for change. The middle back seat is the safest to protect from side impacts.

Infant car seats are generally only made for rear facing children and are not made for forward facing positioning once they have outgrown rear facing. Infant car seats are generally lighter and have carrying handles. These generally have lower weight limits and don’t last as long as convertible car seats.

Convertible car seats are much bulkier and do not have handles on them. These are made to both be positioned rear facing and then forward facing once your child is big enough. These are made so that your child can stay rear facing longer than infant car seats. Most convertible seats have weight limits for rear facing up to 40 pounds.

Forward Facing Car Seat – Generally, forward facing car seats have guidelines that state that a child must be in the car seat from until they are 65 pounds and less than 4’1″ tall. Some children will get too tall for their car seat and require a booster seat and an earlier age than others.

Booster Seat – Booster seats are made for children who have outgrown their forward facing car seat. Generally, booster seats are for children until they are 4’9″ tall. Booster seats are generally only for children who are at least 40 pounds and have outgrown their car seat.

Seat Belted in Back Seat – In Washington State, a child may not be only restrained by a seat belt until they are at least 4’9″. Children must ride in the back seat until they are 13 years old, under Washington State law.

Note: Just because a child is 8 years old does not mean that they can safely be seated in a safety belt alone. Children should continue to follow manufacturer’s guidelines and use a car seat or booster seat until they recommend not to.

5 Tips for Keeping Children Safe Around Cars

May 23, 2018 Andrew Cherin Car Accidents, Child Safety, Pedestrians

I was reminded of the need to keep our children safe around our houses and at school from cars the other day when a young child was struck and nearly killed by a car. The child was playing just outside their house when he dashed into the street for a ball and was struck by a car. There are so many things we need to do to keep our children safe. Car accidents injuries to children are the worst. Here are some tips to keep your child safe around streets.

Teach your child about the dangers of streets and cars

Children should learn to fear streets. This is not an overreaction or an overstatement. This is the truth and one of the only ways to keep them out of the street. Young children like to play near streets but you should teach them that they should not. Teaching them about the dangers of cars and what it can do to people who are hit by cars is a hard subject but it has to be taught to them as early as they can comprehend speech.

Never allow your child to enter the street without you or an adult holding their hand

One of the ways to do this is to teach them that they are never allowed to cross or enter the street without you or an adult holding their hand. Tell them that this is very important to you and your family. Tell them that they will be in big trouble if they are caught doing this and will lose all outdoor privileges if they do. Regularly walking around and holding your child’s hand can reinforce the need to always hold your hand while walking across streets. They realize it is a privilege to walk across the street and dangerous so they need you to reinforce this by always holding their hand when crossing streets.

Do not allow children to play near streets

Children playing near streets creates an unnecessary opportunity for the child to be in danger with cars. Whether it is a ball rolling out into the street or the ice cream truck, you should not allow the opportunity for a child to run into the street. Only allow children at your house to play inside or in the back yard, assuming your yard is fenced in and away from a street. Allowing them to play near a street should be avoided at all costs.

Teach children to wait for you at the playground and not on the side of the street

Children who wait for parents near the street to be picked up after school are putting themselves in another unnecessary risk situation. It may take more effort on your part to park the car and walk to the child on the playground or after school spot, but it is well worth keeping them safe.

Children that are young may run to you or a family member’s car when they see you because they are excited to see you so do not let them take this risk. Arrange with your child for a meeting place where you will get out of your car and come to them. That way they can walk hand in hand to your car across a street if necessary.

Meeting them on the playground can add extra play time and fresh air – perfect for children and adults as well. It can be a chance for you to wind down from work and relax or get some exercise.

If your child is playing outside or near a gate to get outside, always monitor them

Children like to find ways to push the boundaries of parents. It may be difficult but you should monitor your children regularly when they are playing outside or near areas where they could get outside to a street with cars. Even if your spouse is outside and they want to go find them, someone should always have an eye on the child so they do not get into the street or behind your spouse’s car when they are back up.