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Article: In the eyes of the beholder: your client crashed into a stopped vehicle on a straight road under clear skies. So is she at fault? Not necessarily. The science of human perception can help you show how a seemingly avoidable collision was anything but.
- Article from:
- Trial
- Article date:
- February 1, 2007
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 American Association for Justice, formerly Association of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA®). This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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As the Jones family sat in my office and told their story, none of us could understand how the collision that killed their relative had happened. (1) Just a few nights earlier, Susan Jones had been driving home late at night and ran directly into the side of a tanker truck that had jackknifed, leaving its trailer blocking both lanes of the road.
The tractor had all the required lighting equipment, and the bright chrome trailer displayed more than 40 feet of red-and-white retroreflective tape. The road was flat and straight for hundreds of feet in each direction. The weather on the night of the collision was perfect, and the moon was out. Under these circumstances, ...