Car crashes are caused by many kinds of things, like running a red light, not stopping at stop sign, failing to yield, and rear-ending a car in front. Many of these causes have correlating legal causes of action, such as the rear-end collision doctrine and failing to yield the right-of-way. However, the most widely-used legal cause of action for car crashes in Missouri is the failure to keep a careful lookout. The reason for this is that all car crashes, at their very root, are caused by failing to pay attention to the road.
Getting around safely in a car requires that all drivers pay attention. Taking our eyes off the road, or drifting off and not registering the events around you poses serious risk to all drivers and endangers us all. To avoid this, it is universally understood that you have to pay careful attention when driving a car.
This is reflected in Missouri’s rules and statutes in car crash car crash cases. Generally speaking, the law imposes a duty on people to act with ordinary care. But in car crash cases, the law requires drivers to act with the highest degree of care. Driving with anything less than the highest degree of care is negligence in the eyes of the law.
Driving with the highest degree of care requires full attention. If you don’t drive with your full attention, you can miss a stop sign, or the car coming out of your peripheral vision, or think you have the green light when it was actually still red. This is why most car crash cases stem from a driver’s failure to keep a careful lookout.