Houston Road Defect Accident Lawyer

Potholes along Westheimer, worn pavement on the North Loop, and damaged guardrails near US-59 can create serious hazards for Houston drivers. Poor road conditions can lead to sudden swerves, tire failures, loss of control, and rollover crashes.

If a road defect caused your injury, you may qualify for compensation, though these cases follow different rules than a standard car accident claim. At Mokaram Injury Lawyers, our Houston road defect accident lawyer moves fast to preserve evidence and beat the shortened deadlines that road defect claims carry. Call 281-222-2222 or reach out online for a free case review.

What Are Some Common Road Defects in Houston, TX?

Road defects come in more forms than most drivers realize, and each type sets up a different theory of the case. Some develop over months as weather and traffic wear the road down, while others appear after a storm or when a construction crew leaves the job unfinished.

Common road defects across the Houston-metro area include the following:

• Deep potholes
• Cracked or crumbling asphalt
• Missing or damaged guardrails on curves and overpasses
• Faded lane markings
• Standing water from clogged storm drains
• Loose gravel or debris
• Uneven pavement at bridge joints and repair patches
• Sunken maintenance hole covers and drainage grates
• Missing or downed stop signs, yield signs, and warning signs
• Sudden asphalt drop-offs at the edge of a repaved lane

Weather and heavy traffic accelerate road deterioration. Gulf Coast rain can turn small cracks into potholes, while constant truck traffic places added stress on major freight corridors.

What Kind of Damage Can Road Defects Cause to Vehicles?

Even at low speeds, a road defect can cause serious vehicle damage or a total loss. Some problems appear immediately, while others develop later from the initial impact. Common damage is as follows:

• Blown tires and bent rims from potholes
• Bent axles and control arms
• Damaged wheel bearings and steering components
• Broken suspension springs and shocks
• Cracked engine oil pans from low ground clearance
• Alignment problems that wear tires down quickly
• Undercarriage damage from bottoming out
• Airbag deployment in severe hits

Repair costs can quickly reach thousands of dollars after what initially seems like a minor pothole impact. Those property losses can be included in the claim alongside any medical expenses and other damages resulting from the car crash.

What Injuries Can Result From Accidents Caused By Houston Road Defects?

Injuries from road-defect collisions range from minor bruises to catastrophic, long-term harm, depending on speed, vehicle size, and whether the wreck triggers a secondary collision with another car or a fixed object.

Losing control on the freeway often results in the worst outcomes because the vehicle may roll over or cross lanes. Injuries our attorneys see in these cases include:

• Traumatic brain injuries from head impact on the steering wheel or window
• Spinal cord injuries and paralysis from rollover crashes
• Neck and back injuries, including herniated discs
• Broken bones in the wrists, ribs, and legs
• Internal organ damage
• Facial injuries from airbag deployment
• Burns from post-crash vehicle fires
• Fatal injuries leading to a wrongful death claim

A pothole strike can trigger a second collision by sending a vehicle into another lane, oncoming traffic, or off the road. These chain-reaction crashes frequently cause far more serious injuries and damage than the initial impact.

What Damages Can You Recover After an Accident Caused By a Road Defect in Texas?

A road defect claim can cover economic and non-economic damages, such as pain and suffering, subject to caps when the responsible party is a government agency. A full claim usually includes the following damages:

• Emergency, surgical, and primary care expenses
• Physical therapy and long-term rehabilitation
• Lost wages, bonuses, commissions, tips, and overtime
• Reduced earning power
• Vehicle repair or replacement
• Rental car costs during repair
• Future healthcare costs
• Physical pain, mental anguish, and loss of enjoyment
• Scarring, disfigurement, and permanent disability
• Loss of consortium for a spouse
• Wrongful death damages for families

The classification of the defect changes the government’s duty of care. Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 101.022, the state or city owes a road user only the licensee duty (warn of a known dangerous condition) for most premises defects. Still, that limitation does not apply to special defects like excavations or obstructions on the road, where the government owes the higher invitee duty of ordinary care.

Potholes deep enough to swallow a wheel, unmarked construction cuts, and sudden asphalt drop-offs often meet the special-defect standard, which changes what you have to prove and how much a jury can award.

Our Houston road defect accident lawyer team has experience handling claims against government agencies. We identify every non-government defendant on the file, from a general contractor to a subcontractor to a municipal fleet operator, to work around sovereign immunity (legal protection that shields government entities from certain lawsuits) and the recovery caps that come with it. Adding a private defendant often unlocks higher policy limits than the state or city can pay on its own.

How Our Houston Road Defect Accident Lawyer Can Help You After a Collision

Road defect claims depend on evidence that can disappear once repairs begin. Our Houston road defect attorneys document and measure the hazard quickly, before investigating whether the city or state knew or should have known about it.

Our approach includes completing the following:

• Sending open-records requests to state, county, and city road agencies for prior complaint reports
• Photographing and measuring the defect and the surrounding roadway before repair
• Interviewing nearby residents and businesses who reported the hazard
• Requesting 311 service call records and maintenance work orders
• Preserving vehicle evidence, including damaged tires and rims
• Filing formal notices of claim within the shortened government deadlines
• Retaining accident reconstruction and highway design experts
• Building the damages case with medical providers and life-care planners

You reach a real person any hour of the day, because a road defect case does not wait on business hours to start losing evidence. Our team treats every client with the care our own family would receive, and our track record in serious injury cases includes more than $1 billion recovered over three decades of work.

Houston Road Defect Accident FAQ: Answers for Injury Victims

Who Is Responsible for Road Defects in Houston?

The answer starts with which agency owns and maintains that stretch of pavement:

• Most city streets fall under the City of Houston
• County roads outside the city limits belong to Harris County
• Interstates, U.S. routes, and state highways are the Texas Department of Transportation’s (TxDOT) responsibility

A general contractor, subcontractor, or private property owner can also be liable when the hazard came from their work, or when debris spilled from their property onto the road.

What If a Contractor Caused the Road Hazard?

A private contractor gets treated as a private defendant. Skipping required traffic cones or barriers at a work site, or spilling debris and driving off, can support a clear negligence claim without any 90-day notice deadline attached.

Bringing that contractor in alongside the city or state often opens a second (or third) insurance policy that the government caps do not touch. We investigate all potential sources of compensation.

What If the City Says Your Speed Caused the Crash, Not the Defect?

Texas follows modified comparative negligence, so this argument does not automatically end your claim. Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 33.001, you can still recover as long as your share of fault stays at 50% or less, though your award gets reduced by that percentage. A city or county has a real incentive to raise this argument, since shifting blame onto you lowers what they owe. That’s why documenting the defect’s size, location, and how long it existed matters as much as your own driving that day.

How Long Do You Have to File a Road Defect Claim Against the City of Houston?

Ordinary accident cases must generally be filed within two years of the accident, but claims involving the City of Houston can face a much shorter deadline. Although Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 101.101 generally provides six months for governmental notice, Houston’s charter requires notice within 90 days. Missing that local deadline may jeopardize the claim, even if the usual two-year filing period has not yet expired.

What Are the Damages Caps in a Claim Against the Government?

Under Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 101.023, damages caps vary by which government entity is at fault. Claims against the State (including TxDOT) or a municipality like the City of Houston are capped at $250,000 per person and $500,000 per occurrence for bodily injury or death, with property damage limited to $100,000. Claims against a county, such as Harris County, have lower caps of $100,000 per person and $300,000 per occurrence for bodily injury or death, with the same $100,000 property damage limit.

Contact Our Houston Road Defect Accident Lawyer For Help With Your Road Defect Case

Bad pavement does not wait for a fair investigation. Crews will patch the pothole within days, and the video from a nearby business may cycle off within a week, which is why the window to preserve the case is small. When a road defect sends you into a crash, Mokaram Injury Lawyers move quickly to protect your case and treat every client like family.

Sitting on a road defect claim helps only the city. Call 281-222-2222 or contact our firm online to have our Houston road-defect accident lawyers review your case before the evidence is paved over.