Reston Car Accident Lawyer

Were you injured in a car accident in Reston, VA?

At Blaszkow Legal, PLLC, we are trial-tested car accident lawyers committed to thorough preparation in every matter.

If a driver ran a light on Reston Parkway, rear-ended you in Dulles Toll Road traffic, or backed into you outside Reston Town Center, a Reston, VA car accident lawyer can handle the insurance claim and any lawsuit that follows it. The other driver’s insurer assigns an adjuster within days. That adjuster’s job is to close the file for as little as possible.

Blaszkow Legal, PLLC has represented crash victims across Northern Virginia for 43 years. Joe Blaszkow, our managing attorney, is licensed in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia, and every attorney at our firm handles car accident claims. Contact us to schedule a free case review, where we will tell you whether the claim is worth pursuing and what pursuing it would involve.

Car Accident Lawyer Reston, VA

A car accident attorney in Reston, VA takes over the parts of a crash claim that an injured driver would otherwise face alone. That means the fault investigation, the medical documentation, and the negotiation with the insurer. If the offer falls short, it also means filing suit in Fairfax County and taking the case as far as it needs to go.

Crash data compiled by the Fairfax County Health Department for January 2015 through June 2023 lists Reston among the areas of the county with a much higher than average rate of fatal pedestrian crashes, alongside Annandale, Seven Corners, and the Route 1 corridor. Cars are involved in 97 percent of the county’s crashes. The corridors around Reston Town Center and the Wiehle-Reston East Metro station carry heavy commuter traffic, and the claims that come out of them are defended by insurers who know Virginia’s fault rules well. A Reston car accident attorney who deals with those same insurers every week is the counterweight.

Types of Car Accident Cases We Handle in Reston, VA

Our firm handles crash claims where the injuries are serious, treatment has been sought, and another driver was at fault. The categories below cover most of what we see from Reston. If your crash doesn’t fit neatly into one of them, contact us and we will tell you whether it is a case we can take.

• Rear-end collisions. Stop-and-go traffic on Route 7 and the Dulles Toll Road produces a steady stream of these crashes. Fault is usually clear, but insurers still dispute the injuries, and the whiplash and disc damage that follow a rear-end impact often surface days later.
• Intersection and T-bone crashes. A driver who runs a red light at Sunrise Valley Drive or fails to yield on a left turn strikes the side of the other vehicle, where there is the least protection. We use signal timing records, witness accounts, and vehicle damage patterns to establish who had the right of way.
• Hit-and-run accidents. When the driver leaves, the claim is pursued through your own uninsured motorist coverage. Photographs of the damage, debris, and paint transfer, taken before anything is moved, are what make those claims succeed.
• Drunk driving accidents. Impaired drivers cause some of the worst crashes in Fairfax County, and Virginia allows punitive damages against them in certain circumstances. We obtain the criminal case file and coordinate our civil claim with it.
• Distracted driving accidents. Phone records, infotainment logs, and the absence of skid marks tell the story when a driver was looking at a screen. Those records have to be requested quickly before they are purged.
• Rideshare accidents. Uber and Lyft crashes involve layered coverage that depends on what the driver was doing in the app at the moment of impact. We represent passengers, other drivers, and pedestrians hurt by rideshare vehicles.
• Multi-vehicle pileups. Chain-reaction crashes on the Fairfax County Parkway or I-66 raise questions about which driver started the sequence. These cases require early reconstruction work and careful handling of several insurers at once.
• Head-on collisions. Wrong-way and crossover crashes on Hunter Mill Road and other two-lane roads near Reston cause catastrophic injuries. Liability is rarely contested, so the fight is over the value of the harm.
• Parking lot accidents. Crashes at Plaza America, Reston Town Center, and grocery store lots are not always reported to police, which makes early documentation essential. Private property crashes follow the same negligence rules as those on public roads.

Why Choose Blaszkow Legal, PLLC as My Car Accident Lawyer in Reston, VA?

Coverage Knowledge That Changes What a Claim Is Worth

Most Reston crash claims involve more than one insurance policy. The at-fault driver’s liability coverage is the obvious one. Your own uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, your MedPay benefits, and in some cases a rideshare company’s policy can add to the recovery, and insurers rarely volunteer any of that. We identify every available policy at the start of the case and document the claim so each one pays what it owes. Our firm treats that policy search as the first job of a personal injury lawyer in Reston, VA, not an afterthought. It is a large part of why our clients have recovered millions of dollars over the years, including:

• $2,000,000 for a family after a fatal truck crash
• $1,400,000 for a motorcyclist hit by a speeding driver
• $1,000,000 for a pedestrian struck by a rideshare driver

A Managing Attorney With 43 Years on the Plaintiff’s Side

Joe Blaszkow has spent 43 years representing injured people, never insurers. He holds an AAJ membership and belongs to the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association and the Alexandria Bar Association. He is licensed in Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. His punitive damages award against a drunk driver was the first of its kind in Virginia, and it remains the standard we apply to impaired-driving cases today.

Car accident cases at our firm are handled on a contingency fee. There are no attorney fees unless we recover compensation for you.

What Is Important to Understand About a Car Accident Case in Reston, VA?

What Are Important Aspects of a Car Accident Case?

Three issues come up in nearly every Reston crash claim, and how they are handled in the first month affects the outcome more than anything that happens later.

The first is the recorded statement. The other driver’s insurer will call and ask for one, framed as routine. You are under no obligation to provide it, and speaking with the adjuster without counsel gives them material to use against you later.

The second is your medical history. Insurers request years of prior records and argue that your neck or back pain predates the crash. A pre-existing condition does not defeat a claim under Virginia law, but it has to be addressed head-on with your treating physician’s records.

The third is video. Dashcam footage, traffic cameras, and business surveillance systems overwrite themselves on short cycles. Preservation requests go out from our office the week a client retains us.

Damages, Liability, and Compensation for Car Accident Cases

Liability in a Virginia car accident case rests on negligence. We have to show that the other driver failed to use reasonable care and that the failure caused your injuries. Virginia still follows the common-law rule of contributory negligence, under which an injured driver found even slightly at fault recovers nothing. Insurers build their defense around that rule, so we build the fault evidence first.

Recoverable losses fall into three groups. Economic damages cover medical bills, lost wages, and property damage, including the diminished value of a repaired vehicle. Non-economic damages cover pain, inconvenience, and the activities you can no longer do. Punitive damages are rare and reserved for conduct such as drunk driving.

What Should You Bring to Your Car Accident Consultation?

Bring what you have and don’t worry about what you don’t. A few items shorten the first meeting considerably:

• The crash exchange form or police report number
• Photos of both vehicles and the scene
• Your own auto insurance declarations page
• Discharge papers or bills from any treatment so far

The consultation is free. A Reston, VA car accident attorney will review the facts with you and explain what a claim would look like before you decide anything.

What Is the Car Accident Case Timeline?

Virginia gives you two years from the date of the crash to file a lawsuit under § 8.01-243 of the Virginia Code. The claim itself starts long before that deadline.

• Weeks one through four. We gather the police report, identify every insurance policy, and send preservation letters for video and phone records.
• The treatment period. Your doctors decide when your condition has stabilized. We don’t value the claim before then.
• Demand and negotiation. A written demand documents liability and every category of loss. Most Reston claims resolve at this stage.
• Suit. If the insurer won’t pay a fair amount, we file in Fairfax County General District Court or Circuit Court and begin discovery.
• Resolution. Cases settle at mediation, on the courthouse steps, or through a jury verdict in Fairfax.

Uncomplicated claims take a few months. A case with surgery or contested fault can take well over a year.

Reston, VA Legal Resources

Three county offices hold the records and hear the cases that come out of Reston crashes:

• Fairfax Circuit Court is the trial court of general jurisdiction for the county and the venue for jury trials in car accident lawsuits.
• The Fairfax County General District Court Civil Division hears smaller injury claims and is where many crash cases are first filed.
• Fairfax County Police Central Records handles requests for non-reportable crash reports and crash scene photographs.

Reach Out to Blaszkow Legal, PLLC to Schedule a Consultation

An insurer’s file on your Reston crash is already open. Ours should be too. Consultations are free, and car accident cases are handled on a contingency fee, so you owe no attorney fees unless we recover compensation. Our phones are answered around the clock, and we can meet by phone, by video, or in person. Contact us to schedule a free case review with a car accident lawyer in Reston who will explain your options and what happens next.