Practice Areas
Latest Blog 
- Automatic Safety Recall Notifications From NHTSA
- Is it OK to fine a whistleblower?
- New Law Requires Insurance Companies in Maryland to Act in Good Faith
- Allstate Insurance Practices
- Attention Taxi Drivers Who Live in Maryland
- Serious car accident on I-270
- Not even the lizard can help this kid.
- Two Washington D.C. Area Students Shot In Delaware State School Shooting
- Taxi Meters Still on Mayor Fenty's Agenda
- Insurance Company Tactics That Cost Us All
Library
Car Accidents
Have you been served a subpoena? Information on being a witness.
Article by a Local Doctor Discussing Neck Injuries and "Whiplash."
Serving the Mayor of Washington D.C.
Cell Phones and Car Accidents in Maryland, D.C. and Virginia
There Are Safe Cars, and There Are American Cars
Pedestrian & Bicycle Accidents
Motorcycle Accidents
Be Safe and Share the Road With Motorcyclists
Insurance Practices, Claims and Coverage Issues
Maryland Legislature Passes Much Needed Litigation Reform for Uninsured Motorist Claims
GEICO's Advertising Blitz: What the Lizard Won't Tell You
Colossus Software: High-Tech Solutions for Lowball Settlements
The Harsh Education of Trent Lott
Hurricane Katrina: Seventeen Months and Counting
Defective Products & Consumer Protection
OxyContin: Pharmaceutical Company Addicts Thousands for Profit
The FDA: Is There a Doctor In The House?
Cheap Foreign Goods May Have Hidden Costs
Big Pharma Gets New Federal Testing Guidelines
Medical Malpractice
Your Rights are Threatened by Limits on Medical Malpractice Recoveries
The Medical Malpractice "Crisis" Revisited
Professor Phillip Peters, Article on Medical Malpractice Suits
New Report Shows Medical Malpractice Insurers Price Gouging and Driving up Costs
Doctors Shouldn't Sleep On The Job
Wrongful Death
Secondary Impacts in Sports Can Kill
Plane Crashes, Injuries and Deaths
TWA Flight 800: Ten Years and Nothing has Changed
Personal Injury Documents
Why You Should Choose Lewis & Tompkins to Represent You
Attorney Resources
Civil Rules of Civil Procedure - D.C. Superior Court
Litigation Forms
D.C. Superior Court Multidoor Dispute Resolution Forms and Instructions
D.C. Casefilexpress Filing Instructions
Pattern Discovery
Judge Wetzel's Discovery Checklist for Virginia Trial Attorneys
General
Insurance Company Phone Numbers!
The Use of Presentation Technology in the Courtroom
Veterans Administration Identity Theft: Inexcusable Negligence
Pedestrian & Bicycle Accidents
Pedestrian Accident News
Washington D.C. – A neighborhood advisory council has asked the D.C. Transportation Department to review the level of pedestrian safety of a section of Connecticut Avenue.
R. Bruce Beckner and his neighbors took this action after the death of Charles Atherton, an influential city resident who was struck by a car as he crossed Connecticut between Ordway and Macomb Streets. Mr. Atherton was the chief executive of the Federal Commission of Fine Arts.
Dangerous intersections in D.C.
Below is a list of corners where the most pedestrian accidents occurred in the District between 1998 and 2002, according to the District Department of Transportation.
- 1. Benning Road and Minnesota Ave, NE -- 13 crashes
2. 7th Street and Pennsylvania Ave., SE -- 10 crashes
3. N. North Capitol Street and New York Ave., NW -- 10 crashes
4. 3rd Street and Florida Ave., NE -- 9 crashes
5. 13th Street and Pennsylvania Ave., NW -- 9 crashes
6. 7th Street and H Street, NW -- 9 crashes
7. Bladensburg Road and New York Ave., NE -- 9 crashes
8. East Capitol Street and Benning Road, NE -- 9 crashes
9. Alabama Ave. And Stanton Road, SE -- 8 crashes
10. Howard Road and Martin Luther King Ave., SE -- 8 crashes
11. 14th Street and H Street, NE -- 8 crashes
12. 1st Street and K Street, NE -- 8 crashes
13. 15th Street and I Street, NW -- 7 crashes
14. 16th Street and Irving Street, NW -- 7 crashes
15. 17th Street and K Street, NW -- 7 crashes
16. 7th Street and D Street, SE -- 6 crashes
17. Ainger Place and Alabama Ave., SE -- 6 crashes
18. Good Hope Road and Naylor Road, SE -- 6 crashes
19. N. North Capitol Street and P Street -- 6 crashes
20. 12th Street and Pennsylvania Ave., NW -- 6 crashes
In Virginia, Maryland and D.C., pedestrian accidents account for many injuries
While we often think of serious pedestrian accidents as events that occur on streets and roads involving collisions with moving vehicles, most pedestrian accidents don’t involve automobiles at all. In fact, many injuries resulting from pedestrian accidents fall under the practice area of slip and fall cases or premises liability. Three-quarters of injured pedestrians incur their injuries in sidewalks and parking lots, and many of those injuries are a result of negligence or lack of due diligence on the part of property owners or custodians.
When negligence is suspected as the cause of a pedestrian injury, the law firm of Lewis & Tompkins can help you investigate and pursue damages for the injury you’ve suffered. Lewis & Tompkins has helped injured pedestrians recover compensation for relatively minor injuries – such as broken legs, broken arms and concussions – as well as for the less common but more serious accidents resulting in brain damage, nerve damage, spinal cord damage, paralysis or other life-altering injuries. If you’ve been injured at all as a pedestrian, you owe it to yourself and your family to contact an attorney who can thoroughly review your case for the possibility of negligence.
Safer Paths for Pedestrians
While the majority of pedestrian accidents don’t involve collisions with cars, those accidents that do occur on the roadway invariably result in the most serious injuries. As road traffic continues to grow at record levels, protecting pedestrians from serious injuries from roadway collisions is an increasing challenge and concern. Many solutions for a safer pedestrian environment have been suggested, including:
- • Expanding the use of physical barriers, using pedestrian bridges, overpasses, underpasses, traffic islands, and other similar measures to separate pedestrians from the flow of vehicle traffic
• Building communities that combine residential, work, and shopping areas into close geographic units that promote pedestrian-only environments. Such communities would decrease the reliance on motor vehicles, and the inherent dangers they pose.
• Adopt more traffic calming strategies in road planning, such as narrow streets and street corners, additional traffic signs requiring more frequent yields and stops, and the use of speed bumps and speed tables to make roadway traffic slower and safer.
• Lower speed limits in areas with heavy pedestrian traffic, such as schools, shopping malls and business districts, and using video surveillance to increase enforcement.
• Pass laws restricting the legal blood alcohol concentration of pedestrians and continue to enforce existing DUI laws for drivers.
• Improve pedestrian visibility for drivers (e.g., better reflective clothing, personal lights, and street lighting).
• Encourage people of all ages to walk rather than drive – for their physical health, to protect the environment, and to reduce the number of cars on the street.
• Improve adult supervision of young children crossing the street.
• Incorporate pedestrian skills training into school health education curriculum.
• Relocate bus stops to areas with less traffic, and hire crossing guards and escorts to assist young children.
Until these steps and others are taken to make our communities safer for pedestrians, pedestrian accidents will continue to occur. If you or a loved one is involved in a pedestrian accident and suffers a serious injury, you should consult an attorney with experience investigating negligence that can help you build a case against the party responsible for your pain and suffering. Contact Lewis and Tompkins today for a thorough review of your case.
Helping injured bicyclists in Virginia, Maryland and DC get fair compensation
The use of bicycles among both kids and adults has grown steadily in recent years. Bicycles are now used for recreational purposes, as well as for the commute to work. The delays of standstill traffic on the roads, the climbing costs of fuel, and the opportunity for fun and exercise all make bicycles a viable transportation alternative for many in Virginia, Maryland and D.C.
But despite a growing trend toward improving safety for bicyclists, including the widespread use of safety helmets, more accessible and safer trails and routes for bikes, and the use of reflective lights and clothing so that bicyclists are more conspicuous on the road, bicycle accidents resulting in injury continue to occur at a steady rate. As with pedestrian accidents, most of the roughly 500,000 bicycle accidents resulting in injury annually don’t usually involve collisions with motor vehicles. Only about a third of those injured on bicycles involve other vehicles. But also like pedestrian accidents, bicycle accidents involving collisions with moving vehicles lead to the most serious injuries, as well as most of the approximately 800 deaths that occur each year among bicyclists.
Most bicycle injury cases are often settled before trial, but when the insurance company or negligent party won’t agree to a figure that is fair and just to the injured bicyclist, there’s no reason to accept it. Lewis and Tompkins is a small law firm with a regional and national reach. We take every injury seriously. Our successful trial experience makes Lewis & Tompkins a law firm that insurance companies also take seriously. Hiring our attorneys to represent your case helps ensure that you get the maximum amount you are legally entitled to. Whether your pedestrian or bicycle accident injury case is settled in mediation or requires a verdict by trial, Lewis & Tompkins can be with you each step of the way.
Library for Pedestrian & Bicycle Accidents:
- WMATA: Who's Driving the Bus?
Description: It has been a dangerous and deadly few months for the commuters of Washington, D.C.
Since November of 2006, citizens of the D.C. metropolitan area have seen train derailments, transit worker deaths, fires on the rail lines, and multiple accidents involving Metro buses that have resulted in fatalities.
Ask an Attorney
Lewis & Tompkins
927 15th Street N.W., 9th Floor
Washington, DC 20005
Phone: 202-296-0666
Resources
Car Accidents
- National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
- DC Department of Motor Vehicles
- Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles
- Maryland Department of Vehicles
- Maryland Insurance Commission
Motorcycle Accidents
Truck Accidents
Insurance Practices, Claims and Coverage Issues
- Center for Justice & Democracy
- Economic Policy Institute
- People Over Profits
- Medicare Supplement Insurance
- Van Insurance
Traumatic Brain and Spinal Cord Injuries
Defective Products & Consumer Protection
- Consumer Product Safety Commission
- Food & Drug Administration
- National Consumer Law Center
- Contact Solution Recall
- Product Recall
Medical Malpractice
Wrongful Death
Plane Crashes, Injuries and Deaths
Attorney Resources
- Virginia Bar Association
- Link to find Corporate Registered Agents
- Accurint
- Maryland State Bar Association.
- Virginia Trial Lawyers Association
Maryland Courts
- Montgomery County Courts
- Maryland District Court Locations and Links
- Maryland District Court Fees and Forms
- Montgomery County Circuit Court Docket
- Prince George's County Courts
Washington D.C. Courts
- D.C. Superior Court Official Site
- U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia
- U.S. District Court - DC - Electronic Filing
- D.C. Court of Appeals
- CaseFileXpress
Virginia Courts
- Alexandria General District Court
- Alexandria Circuit Court
- Arlington County General District Court
- Arlington County Circuit Court
- Virginia Courts Case Information website
Research and Issues
Attorneys in Other States
- Sacramento Accident Lawyer John V. Airola
- North and South Carolina Injury Lawyers
- Donald Shapiro is a Chicago Personal Injury Lawyer and has been successfully representing seriously injured people in Chicago since 1978.
- Norris Injury Lawyers - Alabama Personal Injury Lawyers
- St Louis Personal Injury Lawyers