Any motor vehicle is capable of crashing; this becomes obvious to anyone who has practiced personal injury law for a substantial length of time. People contact personal injury lawyers not only about car, truck, and motorcycle accidents, but also about golf cart accidents, unicycle accidents, and collisions involving almost any other kind of vehicle that you can imagine. When you first think about it, holiday parades do not seem like a place where vehicle collisions would happen; the vehicles travel at a snail’s pace, and at some parades, entire marching bands separate two parade floats. Besides this, the parade floats only drive on the parade route; they are unlikely to encounter vehicular traffic.
Of course, parade floats operate near numerous pedestrians, and the float is shaped in such a way that it is difficult for the person operating it to see everyone who is approaching it. Despite this, the organizers of parades have a legal responsibility to organize the flow of traffic in their parades to protect pedestrians from getting struck by floats. Furthermore, if the float is designed for spectators to interact with the performers on the float, then the parade organizers should station lookouts on the floats and on the sidelines to warn float drivers of the presence of pedestrians in the driver’s blind spots. If you got injured in an accident involving a parade float, contact a Santa Fe motor vehicle accidents and car accidents lawyer.
Child Injured After Attempting to Climb Onto Christmas Parade Float
In December 2022, an accident at a Christmas parade in Alamogordo led to a child getting injured. The child tried to climb onto a parade float but fell off and ended up under the float, where one of the float’s tires struck him before the float driver stopped the float. The child was transported by ambulance to the hospital in El Paso, Texas. The KOAT website said that the child’s injuries were not life-threatening, but it did not publish the child’s name or age.
Parade Accidents and Premises Liability
When a parade float strikes a spectator, it is almost never entirely the fault of the float driver, since drivers’ visibility is limited due to the shape of the parade floats. Even if the float driver made an egregious error ,such as speeding, some of the legal responsibility belongs to the parties responsible for the parade. The city that hosted the parade or the private companies it hired to plan the event are responsible for designing the parade route and setting the layout of spectator areas. Premises liability laws often apply, even if the spectators did not pay admission. In some cases, product liability laws could apply, such as if a piece of equipment on the parade float malfunctioned and caused an accident.
Contact Slate Stern About Personal Injury Lawsuits
Slate Stern is a personal injury lawyer who represents plaintiffs injured in accidents that happened on parade routes. Contact Slate Stern in Santa Fe, New Mexico, or call (505)814-1517 to discuss your case.
Sources
https://www.koat.com/article/child-hurt-at-alamogordo-parade/42207289
Photo by Tanushree Rao on Unsplash