Articles Tagged with guest passenger

You are passenger in a car. You are riding down the road. Everything seems fine. Suddenly, your driver runs a stop sign. He did not see it. He crashes into a culvert. You are hurt severely. When you later call your driver’s insurance adjuster to make a claim, the adjuster says he’s sorry but your claim is barred by the Alabama Guest Passenger Statute. Your driver probably wants his insurance company to pay you. But, that doesn’t matter. The adjuster simply denies your claim.

I’ve written previously about the Alabama Guest Passenger Statute. You can read one of my prior posts on this topic at Guest Passenger Statute In Alabama? Does It Affect My Personal Injury Claim? My prior post gives a good overview of this law. In it, I discuss the background of this unfair law. I also explain the law as well as some exceptions to it. As with most legal issues, the exceptions are key! Today, I’ll touch again briefly on the exceptions. But, I primarily want to provide a little practical advice in this post for passengers injured in car accidents. If you are a passenger injured in an Alabama car accident, what should you expect? How do you handle this issue? You need practical advice for your claim.

During the 1920s and 1930s, many states passed guest passenger statutes. Insurance company lobbyists worked hard to get these unfair laws passed across the United States. While many states have since abandoned this unfair rule, Alabama has not.