Our Blog

If the accident wasn’t too obviously catastrophic, it’s not uncommon for a driver to request that the other driver refrain from calling the police and even the insurance companies and just settle the issue personally. This is always a bad idea, (though you shouldn’t assume that just because the other driver suggests this that they are deliberately trying to cheat you). The external parts of modern cars are made to absorb a lot of force and bounce back, to protect the passengers. But what that means practically is that a car can look like it has virtually no damage but actually be unfixable underneath. Until you get a vehicle to a mechanic, you have no idea how expensive the damage might be.

Injuries are a somewhat similar. It’s not uncommon for the adrenaline of an accident to mask the pain of an injury for some hours, and some injuries don’t have symptoms right away. You just don’t know what the full effect of an accident is going to be, and it’s always wise to report the accident to the police as well as the insurance companies. If the police come to the accident scene, they will make an official report, and this report could be very useful in establishing the detail details of what happened.

As stated above, it’s possible that after an accident you won’t feel all that bad right away. But if you delay too long in getting medical health, not only is it possible that you might exacerbate a minor injury or even miss a major one until it’s caused a lot of damage, but you might also jeopardize your right to receive compensation for your medical damages. 

When you visit a doctor or ER very quickly after an accident, any injuries that you may present with can be clearly connected to the accident. The longer you delay, the easier it becomes for an insurance company to claim that your injuries were sustained later in some incident unconnected to the accident. If you’re not taken to the hospital immediately after the accident, go to Urgent Care, an ER, or your doctor’s office as soon as you’re done talking to the police and gathering evidence.

The more evidence you have, the easier it’s going to be to show what happened, and you will need to be able to draw a link between the other driver’s behavior and the accident if you hope to recover damages from them and their insurance company. Some of the evidence that you will want to collect, if you are feeling well enough to do so at the scene, should include pictures of the entire scene and any skid marks, road signs, or weather conditions that contributed to the accident. 

If you see any cameras in the area, note down their location and pass this on to your lawyer, who may be able to subpoena footage to see if it captured the accident. If there are people standing around, ask them if they saw the accident unfold. If they did, ask them for a simple recorded statement and get their name and contact information. You should also get all the important information from the other driver and share your information with them, including names, make and model of the cars, license plate numbers, and insurance information.

As soon as you have left the scene and gotten any medical needs taken care of, call a lawyer. A lawyer will be able to review the details of your case and tell you what to do next. Your lawyer can also take over negotiations and all communication with the insurance company to ensure that your rights are protected from any unscrupulous attempt to minimize your losses and damages. Your lawyer will also protect you from any unfair settlements by going over all of them with you.

And of course, your lawyer will be able to take your case to the courtroom, if it comes to that. One of the important ways that a lawyer protects your rights is simply by demonstrating to an insurance company that you are willing to go to court if necessary. Once that has been demonstrated, it’s common for insurers to begin negotiating in better faith. 

In whatever situation you find yourself, whether you’re talking to the other driver immediately after the accident, talking to an insurance adjuster on the phone, or even responding to friends and family on social media, think about what you say. If you have the slightest doubt, contact your lawyer. You don’t want to lose out on your right to compensation because someone misconstrues what you say as either an admission of fault or as communicating that you are not really injured as badly as you are. Expect that the insurance company will be scouring your social media accounts looking for anything they can use against you, and if they call repeatedly asking for you to give statements, refer them to your lawyer.

At the scene of the accident itself, be very careful not to admit fault. Even when you talk to the police, simply give them the facts of what happened. Don’t speculate about fault. Even if you believe you were at fault, don’t say this. For one thing, even if you were partially at fault, you can likely still recover some compensation. For another, you don’t actually know everything that happened until a full investigation has been conducted. You only saw things from your perspective behind the wheel of your own car, and there may have been other factors in play that you need to take into account that might greatly minimize your degree of fault.

It’s important that you don’t sign anything at all without having your lawyer look over it first. This includes insurance settlement offers, as detailed above, but there are other things you might be asked to sign that you should not. Don’t sign any agreement with the other party in the accident, even an informal one, and if the police ask you to sign the police report on the scene, carefully verify that all the information on it is accurate. If you disagree with any part of it, bring this to the attention of the police right away.

You never know what you might be signing away when you sign a piece of paper. Even if you’re told that you’re “just signing X,” there could also be clauses that have you signing away your rights in some fashion. Always respond with, “I will take this to review with my lawyer and get back to you.”

For helping in protecting your rights after a car accident, contact T. Madden & Associates, P.C.in Atlanta, GA for a free consultation. We also offer help to those in nearly all counties and cities in the state, so reach out today.