Indianapolis Drunk Driving Accident Lawyers

Drunk driving is incredibly illegal and incredibly foolish, yet intoxication behind the wheel remains a major problem in Indiana, where law enforcement officers arrest an impaired driver every 11.98 hours and Indianapolis recorded 223 alcohol-related crashes in 2022 alone. Alcohol has been linked to 14 percent of recent traffic deaths in the state, though even a non-fatal drunk driving accident could inflict catastrophic injuries demanding prolonged treatment that could stretch the average Hoosier’s finances to the breaking point.

But if you have been badly hurt by a drunk driver in Indiana’s capital, the Indianapolis drunk driving accident lawyers at Hensley Legal Group will be here for you. Our firm has been advocating for the wrongfully injured for more than a quarter century, and we would be honored to get justice for you and the ones you love.

For a no-cost case review with a seasoned Indianapolis drunk driving accident attorney, please call us at (317) 472-3333, chat with us online, or fill out our contact form now.

How Alcohol Affects Your Driving

While the legal threshold for driving under the influence (DUI) or driving while intoxicated (DWI) in Indiana is a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.08 percent, the reality is that a small quantity of alcohol could still be an impediment to your driving and lead to a serious car accident. In fact, 2,266 Americans were killed in 2021 in collisions that involved drivers who had BACs that were between 0.01 and 0.07 percent, and studies have found that any degree of drinking could negatively affect your:

Reaction time – Alcohol may slow your reflexes and your responses to sudden changes. If a vehicle halts abruptly in front of you or if a pedestrian bolts into the road, your brain may not process the situation quickly enough to prevent a crash.

Judgment – Drinking can be deeply detrimental to your decision making too, which could stop you from foreseeing hazards and dealing with them in the appropriate manner.

Concentration – You have so many tasks to focus on when you drive, such as staying in your lane, maintaining the correct speed, obeying signals, and identifying changing traffic patterns, and the concentration necessary to complete these tasks could be obliterated by alcohol.

Comprehension – Your ability to understand and interpret the barrage of information that may be coming at you from every direction could similarly be compromised when you drink.

Vision – Intoxication can blur or double your vision, decrease your control over your eye movements, and impact your capacity to gauge depth and distance or notice peripheral objects.

Coordination – The more you drink, the more you can diminish your motor skills, including your eye, hand, and foot coordination, which are essential to safe driving.

Ultimately, the only amount of alcohol that you should drink before you drive is no alcohol whatsoever, though that may not convince other drivers in Indianapolis not to imbibe and put you in danger. However, if harm should befall you, our tenacious Indianapolis drunk driving accident lawyers will be ready to hold everyone who is at fault for your injuries to account.

Indianapolis Drunk Driving Accidents and Dram Shop Law

Determining who is at fault for an Indianapolis drunk driving accident can sometimes be difficult because of how many defendants there might be. Aside from the drunk driver and the owner of his or her vehicle (if separate from the driver), others could be liable for “furnishing the alcohol beverage” to the driver under Indiana’s Dram Shop Act.

The Act governs civil suits against those who provide alcohol to people whose resultant intoxication ends up causing injury. Typically, Dram Shop claims are initiated after drunk driving accidents, though they could be pursued for other kinds of accidental injuries and potentially criminal assaults as well. Moreover, a wide range of individuals and entities could be defendants in cases of this nature, from restaurants and bars to “social hosts” who serve alcoholic beverages to guests in their homes, assuming that certain conditions are satisfied.

Specifically, an Indianapolis Dram Shop plaintiff will have to show that:

The defendant had “actual knowledge” that the person being served was intoxicated. Meeting this standard could require the plaintiff to demonstrate that the defendant actually knew that the person in question was intoxicated, not merely that the defendant should have known. As such, any evidence of slurred speech, trouble walking or standing, hostile or excessively emotional behavior, or a loss of consciousness could be highly useful.
The intoxication of the person who was served was a “proximate cause” of the plaintiff’s injuries, which is generally believed to be true when those injuries are incurred on the premises where the alcohol was served or shortly after it was served.

If both of these elements can be proven, a Dram Shop case may be viable, in addition to the cases against the driver and/or owner of the vehicle who struck the plaintiff.

In light of the sheer number of parties who may share blame for a single incident, it is critical to go after each of them within the time allotted by law, known as the Statute of Limitations. The Statute is two years from the date of the collision for most Indiana drunk driving accidents, though it could be significantly narrower in claims against government bodies, with further stipulations that may have to be addressed.

If you fail to file a lawsuit or otherwise resolve your Indianapolis drunk driving claim before the Statute elapses, you could be forever barred from full compensation, but you can rest assured that the Indianapolis personal injury lawyers at Hensley Legal Group will never allow such a careless mistake to take place on its watch.

How Our Indianapolis Drunk Driving Accident Attorneys Can Help

A drunk driving accident can be a devastating experience, burying you beneath a mountain of bills while making it nearly impossible to dig your way out from under them. Before you know it, you and your family could be teetering on the brink of ruin, and all because of the thoughtless actions of a thoughtless actor.

Under circumstances as trying as these, you need attorneys with the compassion to support you through your struggles and the wisdom to overcome them, like the Indianapolis drunk driving accident attorneys at Hensley Legal Group.

If you hire Hensley, we will conduct a comprehensive investigation into your Indianapolis drunk driving accident and everybody who may be responsible for it, then establish valid claims against them within the time permitted by law. We will also move swiftly to amass the materials to construct your case, including:

Police reports

Citations and dispositions

Eyewitness testimonies

Receipts

Security videos

Streetlight and dash cam footage

Crash site photos

Black box data

Phone statements

Driving histories

Forensic analysis and accident reconstruction

After assembling an airtight case, our Indianapolis drunk driving accident lawyers will endeavor to negotiate a settlement that reflects the totality of your losses, such as your:

Medical expenses

Lost wages

Pain and suffering

Psychological trauma

Mobility restrictions

Reduced quality of living

Scarring and disfigurement

Loss of consortium

Punitive damages (if relevant)

And if we do not receive an offer that is worthy of your case, we are not afraid to proceed to trial for a verdict that is, unlike some of our competitors, who rarely, if ever, venture into a courtroom.

You Won’t Pay Us Anything Unless We Win

We imagine that agreeing to more expenditures is probably the last thing that you want to do at this moment, so you may be pleased to learn that Hensley Legal Group works on a contingency basis. This means that you won’t have to pay us anything unless our Indianapolis drunk driving accident attorneys win your case.

You may be reluctant to trust anybody after what has happened to you, but you can trust us to do everything in our power to make you whole again.

Reach Out to Our Indianapolis Drunk Driving Accident Lawyers

Hensley Legal Group has been fighting on behalf of the hardworking men and women of Indiana since the firm first opened its doors in 1998. If you are reeling from the effects of a collision with a drunk driver in the Indianapolis area, reach out to our Indianapolis drunk driving accident lawyers to explore your legal options.

You can schedule a free consultation with a dedicated Indianapolis drunk driving accident attorney by calling us at (317) 472-3333, chatting with us online, or filling out our contact form today.