Every single year, thousands of children suffer a wide range of injuries while they are doing such things as bicycling, scootering, and skateboarding. Here in Southern California most kids spend hours and hours outside, playing and riding. That’s a good thing. Recently there has been an alarming increase in personal injury cases related to youngsters, pre-teen and early teens. Many of these cases are based on something going wrong while kids are engaged in outdoor recreational activities. That’s a bad thing.
CHILDREN GET INJURED MORE OFTEN
For many, many reasons – the amount of time they spend in injury prone situations, undeveloped motor skills, lesser reaction times, less honed coordination – children are at a higher risk than adults for injuries. Of course, kids acting like kids – playing hard, roughhousing, being adventurous – will result in scraped knees, broken bones and all the bumps and bruises that go along with being a child. However, when a child is seriously injured on a bicycles, skateboards, roller skates, scooter or the like, and it is due to faulty manufacturing or the negligence of another, this can lead to legal issues, and broaches the subject of what legal rights, legal remedies, are due the injured party, and their family. Perhaps those injuries cause school days, weeks or months to be missed, stacks of medical bills, parental schedules to be disrupted, families, lives that change for the worst.
WHO IS TO BLAME WHEN A KID GETS INTO AN ACCIDENT?
A majority of personal injuries and accidents associated with the outdoor, sporting or recreational activities of kids is in fact the responsibility of the child themselves. Most young people that get hurt here in Southern California have no one else to blame but themselves. It’s probably not a surprise to anyone that children act carelessly and get hurt. However, there are times when a child gets injured while they are at play, and it is not their fault. There are times when an accident was avoidable. There are times when a child is not at fault. There are times when it is entirely appropriate to involve an attorney, to make sure that a child’s legal rights are protected.
