What Are the Worst Intersections in Tulsa?
Driving in Tulsa can be risky. In 2015 alone, there were 9,972 total crashes in the city, according to the Oklahoma Highway Safety Office. The majority of those crashes happened on city streets, or 6,903 total accidents.
Intersections can be the most dangerous places to drive in a city. In fact, News on 6 reports that the 25 worst intersections in Tulsa accounted for 1,647 accidents in 2015, or 16.5 percent of the city’s total accidents and roughly one-in-four crashes that occurred on city streets (23.8 percent).
Based on the data collected by News on 6, the Tulsa intersections with the most crashes were:
- Memorial Drive and Highway 51 (121 crashes) – This is where Memorial Drive crosses Highway 51, or the Broken Arrow Expressway, in a commercial area near several auto dealerships.
- Mingo Road and 71st Street (94 crashes) – As the TV station notes, 71st Street is one of Tulsa’s busiest roads. In fact, five of the city’s worst intersections involve the street. Because of the mall, high school, and hospital traffic, the intersection with Mingo Road can be particularly dangerous.
Rounding out the TV station’s list of the worst intersections in Tulsa were:
Intersection Crashes
- 81st Street and Memorial Drive 89
- 51st Street and Highway 169 88
- 61st Street and Highway 169 84
- 41st Street and Highway 169 84
- Sheridan Road and Highway 51 81
- Highway 51 and Highway 169 80
- 71st Street and Highway 169 80
- 21st Street and Highway 169 74
- 41st Street and Garnett Road 66
- 31st Street and Highway 169 63
- I444 and Highway 51 61
- 71st Street and Olympia Avenue 60
- 51st Street and Peoria Avenue 57
- 81st Street and Highway 169 53
- 71st Street and Memorial Drive 53
- 31st Street and Garnett Road 53
- 91st Street and Yale Avenue 52
- 21st Street and Sheridan Road 52
- 91st Street and Highway 169 51
- 61st Street and Yale Avenue 51
- 51st Street and Memorial Drive 51
- 71st Street and Lewis Avenue 50
- 41st Street and Memorial Drive 50
If you have been in an accident in a Tulsa intersection, be sure to contact a personal injury attorney today.
How Can a Tulsa Injury Attorney Help Me?
It’s important to act quickly if you have been injured in any sort of accident. Getting the appropriate medical treatment is the immediate priority. Your next step is to speak to an attorney who can mount an investigation right away.
The injury lawyers at Edwards & Patterson Law will:
- Provide a truthful assessment of your personal injury claim.
We only take cases that we believe in. If we think the insurance company is offering you a fair settlement or that your claim won’t win, we’ll be honest about it. - Start our investigation immediately.
You’d be surprised at how quickly evidence can disappear after an accident and how fast a witness’s memory can fade. Our legal team will leave no stone unturned in collecting medical records, bills, receipts, physical evidence, photographs, videos, eyewitness testimony, expert statements and other details to prove how the accident and injuries have impacted your life. - Handle all negotiations with insurance companies.
Once you hire Edwards & Patterson Law to represent you, our legal team will take over all contact with insurance adjusters so that you can recover and, if possible, get back to your daily activities. Having legal counsel by your side is critical because insurance adjusters seek to minimize payouts, and that often comes by tricking claimants into mistakenly saying something that jeopardizes their claims. - Root out any additional sources of compensation.
Sometimes liability in a Tulsa personal injury claim can be spread among multiple parties. Our lawyers are skilled at identifying and pursuing potential third-party defendants. - Fight for a fair result.
Negotiations can be a difficult process, but most times a resolution can be reached out of court. If no agreement can be reached, the lawyers at Edwards & Patterson Law prepare each case as if it’s going to trial. That means we will be ready if your case needs to go to court. - Keep you informed every step of the way.
This is your We will advise you about what we think will achieve the best outcome. But you are always the ultimate decision-maker as the case proceeds.
Types of Cases Our Tulsa Personal Injury Lawyers Handle
The injury attorneys at Edwards & Patterson Law have decades of experience representing clients in a wide variety of personal injury claims, including:
What Are the Key Steps to Take After a Car Accident in Tulsa?
The days and weeks after suffering injuries in a car accident are often some of the most overwhelming, stressful, and frustrating moments in an individual’s life. When dealing with pain, emotional trauma, and financial turmoil, it can be difficult to know what you can do to protect yourself and your rights. As challenging as this time may be, it is important to take the following steps to optimize your chances of recovering the compensation you deserve.
Follow Your Doctor’s Advice
Receiving swift medical attention is one of the most crucial steps to take after any accident, regardless of how serious it is. Once you have done this, it is essential that you listen carefully to your medical professional’s advice and follow it to the letter.
Insurance companies often look for ways to undermine an injury victim’s claim. One way they do so is to argue that if the injured party did not listen to their doctor, their medical expenses must not have been necessary. Sticking to your treatment plan can help you increase your odds of receiving full compensation for your medical bills.
Maintain All Medical Records
Your injury-related medical documents demonstrate the nature of your injuries, the treatments you have received, and the cost of your medical care. This information is crucial for establishing links between the accident and your injuries and determining how much the at-fault party owes you for your medical expenses.
Gather Documentation of Lost Income
Many people are temporarily or permanently unable to return to work after a car accident, which can be a significant blow to their financial status. You can recover the income you have lost due to your injuries if you can demonstrate how much work you have missed during your recovery or because of medical appointments.
To do this, be sure to collect documents such as pay slips, tax forms, and correspondence with HR. If you are self-employed, use copies of your appointment book and your invoices and accounts receivable to demonstrate your pre- and post-accident income. If you rely heavily on tips, gather bank statements demonstrating the difference before and after the accident.
Avoid Posting About the Accident on Social Media
While many people get the temptation to share details about a car accident or their injuries on social media as a way of keeping others updated, doing so is never a good idea. The other side will comb through every aspect of your online footprint to look for ways of delegitimizing your claim. Avoid social media as much as possible until your case is over.
Contact an Experienced Tulsa Personal Injury Lawyer
Working with a seasoned Tulsa personal injury attorney from Edwards & Patterson Law is one of the most effective ways of protecting your claim and maximizing your compensation. Your lawyer can investigate the accident, identify all liable parties, negotiate with the insurance company, and take your case to trial if necessary.
Understanding Compensation: What Can You Claim in a Tulsa Personal Injury Case?
While each case is unique, an experienced Tulsa personal injury lawyer can help you fight for compensation for losses such as:
- Medical expenses
- Lost wages due to missed time at work
- Reduced earning capacity if your disability prevents you from returning to your previous job
- Physical and emotional pain and suffering
- Loss of enjoyment of life
- Property damage
After your free consultation, your lawyer will assess all factors of your case and provide you with an estimate of how much you can expect to recover for your losses.
Navigating Settlement Offers: When and Why to Accept?
If the insurance company makes a settlement offer, proceed with caution. An experienced personal injury attorney can help you determine whether the amount is fair based on the details of your case. In general, it is wise to accept a settlement offer if:
- The amount adequately covers all your accident-related expenses, including medical bills, property damage, lost income, and pain and suffering losses.
- Your medical treatment is complete, so you have a full understanding of the costs.
- You are experiencing ongoing disabilities or loss of enjoyment of life, and the settlement factors in future costs.
- The offer seems reasonable based on similar cases. Your lawyer can look at verdicts and settlements in comparable cases to help assess whether the amount is fair.
- You want to avoid proceeding to an uncertain trial. Litigation has no guarantees, and accepting a reasonable settlement provides a definitive result.
Be wary of settling too quickly after the accident, as more losses may surface later. Wait until you fully understand your situation before signing away your right to additional compensation.
Assessing Your Claim: How Much Could Your Tulsa Personal Injury Case Be Worth?
The value of your personal injury claim depends on a wide variety of factors, such as:
- The type of accident that caused your injury (car accident, truck accident, slip-and-fall, product liability, etc.)
- The type and severity of the injury you have suffered (for example, a fractured ankle may warrant a smaller compensation package than a severe traumatic brain injury)
- The amount of income you have lost due to your injury
- The possibility of returning to your previous job, having to take lower-paying employment, or being prevented from returning to the workforce altogether
- The effects of the injury on your personal life and relationships
- The extent of damage to your personal property
How Should You Collect Evidence After an Accident?
To build the strongest personal injury claim possible, be sure to gather as much evidence from the accident scene as possible, including:
- Photographs of all angles of property damage, skid marks, collapsed guard rails, weather conditions, and other hazardous road conditions if you were injured in a motor vehicle accident; pictures of the area where you slipped and fell or the obstacles you tripped over if you were injured in a slip-and-fall; or the location of the accident and what caused your injuries in any type of accident
- Contact information for eyewitnesses who saw the accident occur
- Video footage from security cameras, smartphones, and dashboard cameras
- Police reports that provide official documentation of how the accident occurred and which party was at fault
- Medical records that link your injuries to the accident
- Receipts and invoices for accident-related costs like car repairs, medical bills, prescriptions, assistive devices, and damaged personal property
- Records of missed work due to medical appointments or disabilities resulting from your injuries
Preserving as much evidence as possible gives your lawyer multiple avenues for demonstrating the extent of your damages and proving liability. Act quickly after the accident to collect anything that could help your injury claim.
If you’ve been in a Tulsa accident due to someone else’s negligence, reach out to Edwards & Patterson Law today for a free, no-obligation consultation. We’ll discuss your legal options and how you can recover compensation for your accident injuries.
Negligence: The Key Elements in a Tulsa Personal Injury Case
The injury attorneys at Edwards & Patterson Law have decades of experience representing clients in a wide variety of personal injury claims, including:
Winning a personal injury case means proving negligence. You must be able to show that another party’s actions (or failure to act) caused the accident that injured you.
There are four elements that must be satisfied to show negligence under Oklahoma law:
- Duty of care. The at-fault party was obligated to protect you from harm. For example, a business owner is obligated to take every reasonable measure to protect you from being injured on his or her premises.
- Breach of duty. The party violated his or her duty by failing to do something in a reasonable way or as another party would have done in similar circumstances. Continuing the above example, a business owner who does not clean up a puddle or place appropriate warning signs in the area is breaching his or her duty to maintain safe floors for patrons.
- Causation. Your injury was the direct result of the breach, such as what might happen if you fell and hit your head after slipping in the puddle.
- Damages. The party’s actions or inactions caused actual damages, such as hospital expenses, permanent or temporary disability, pain, and suffering, etc.
The components of negligence might seem pretty simple based on the slip-and-fall example. However, personal injury cases are rarely that straightforward. Defendants will look for ways that an injured person might have contributed to his or her own injuries by behaving recklessly.
Another defense strategy could be that you knew an activity was inherently dangerous and assumed the risk by participating in it, thus releasing the other party from liability. We are familiar with all of the tactics that defense lawyers use to deflect responsibility from their clients and provide swift and strong rebuttals to their claims.
Comparative Fault and How It Affects Your Tulsa Injury Claim
You may still be able to obtain compensation in Tulsa even if you were partly to blame for the accident that injured you. The courts use a method called the modified comparative negligence rule to apportion the fault to the involved parties. As long as you are not found to be 51 percent or more responsible for the accident, you can recover damages to get your life back on track.
The amount of compensation will be reduced by your percentage of fault. For example, if you were found 30 percent responsible for a motor vehicle accident that injured you, you would be entitled to only 70 percent of the final award. So, if your total damages were $10,000, your award would be reduced to $7,000.
Our lawyers know how to fight back in cases of shared fault to ensure that you aren’t unfairly assigned a portion of the blame. Partial damages are certainly better than no damages at all, but we will make sure that you aren’t cheated out of the compensation you deserve.