Man o’ War Drive, Lexington’s four-lane southern beltway, crosses most of Lexington’s major thoroughfares including Nicholasville Road. Nicholasville Road itself is a heavily trafficked four-lane highway. This intersection is located in the general vicinity of a large commercial district including the Fayette Mall complex, the largest shopping mall in the state of Kentucky.

Much of the time traffic tends to be sluggish on Nicholasville Road south of Man o’ War, but it speeds up dramatically north of the intersection. 24 accidents were recorded at this intersection in 2017. In December 2018 four people were injured in an accident there, in a late night rear-end accident that police treated as alcohol-related.

Speeding and “Negligence Per Se”

If you can prove that the defendant was breaking a traffic law at the time of the accident (a speed limit violation, for example), under most circumstances the defendant will be judged automatically negligent, or “negligent per se”. Proving negligence isn’t enough to win by itself, however — you also have to prove that the negligence actually caused the accident, and that you actually suffered, or are likely to suffer, the amount of damages you are claiming.

If the Accident was Partly Your Fault

All is not necessarily lost if the accident was partly your fault, at least not if it was mostly the other driver’s fault. Under Kentucky’s “pure comparative negligence” system, you and the other driver will each be assigned a percentage of fault, and each driver will pay whatever portion of the other driver’s damages that corresponds to their own percentage of fault.

Suppose, for example, that the accident caused you $50,000 in damages and was 35 percent your fault, while the accident caused the other driver $20,000 in damages and was 65 percent his fault. The calculation would proceed as follows:

• Amount you owe the other driver = 35% your fault X $20,000 in damages for the other driver = $7,000
• Amount the other driver owes you = 65% his fault X $50,000 in damages that you suffered = $32,500

Setting these two amounts off of each other yields an amount of $25,500 that the other driver owes you.

Claims Don’t Enforce Themselves — You Need to Act

If you have been injured in a car accident on Man o’ War Boulevard, Nicholasville Road or elsewhere, contact Lexington, KY car accident lawyer Glenn Martin Hammond any time 24/7 — call (606) 437-7777 or fill out our online contact form for a free consultation. We serve clients in Woodhill, Winburn, Stonewall, Tates Creek and elsewhere in Lexington, KY, as well as throughout Kentucky.