Law Firm Updates
Essential Steps After a Car Accident
No one expects to be in a car accident, but sometimes the worst happens. When it does, it’s important to be prepared for what to do if you are in a motor vehicle collision.
Make Sure You Are Safe
Motor vehicle accidents can happen everywhere, from the highway to a side street in your own neighborhood. Without question, the most important thing to worry about right away is whether you’re safe. If anyone is injured, your priority should always be to make sure they get treatment as soon as possible. Call emergency services right away to make sure everyone gets the help they need.
Call 911
The next thing you should do is call the police. If you can stay at the scene, call them from there as soon as you possibly can. A police report is important to document what happened and some details you may not otherwise think about, like snow or ice and other weather conditions. Additionally, the police are able to canvas for witnesses, speak to all of the parties, and provide a neutral summary of what happened. They can also help with Step 1 by shutting down lanes and helping to clear the scene and get everyone to a safe location.
Calling 911 also gets emergency services on the scene. If anyone has an injury of any kind, it is important to get checked out. Remember, you are probably not a doctor, and your injuries could be worse than you think. A trained paramedic will be able to assess your condition and take you to the hospital if necessary.
Exchange Insurance Information
This is something you can do after you have determined there are no life-threatening injuries and while you wait for emergency services to arrive. By exchanging insurance information, you are able to ensure that the at-fault driver and his or her insurance company will be responsible for all of the damages. Get their name, phone number, and policy number and make sure you store it in a safe location for future reference.
Take Photos and Talk to Witnesses
The process of being made whole starts now. The best way to make sure this happens is to talk to witnesses about what happened. They may be able to establish that the other driver was responsible for the accident, or maybe even that they were on the phone and not paying attention. Any detail will help when you bring your claim to the insurance company and ask them to fulfill their responsibility and pay.
Contact Your Own Insurance Company
Armed with all of this information, alert your insurance company that there was a collision. This is something you must do if you intend to seek underinsured motorist benefits or otherwise utilize your insurance. Even if it wasn’t something you were required to do, your insurance company can’t help you if they don’t know anything happened. Make sure you start a claim as soon as possible.
Start Treatment As Soon As You Can
First, there’s no minimum threshold for injuries in a car accident case. If you were injured by the negligence of another person, you should get treatment and the responsible driver’s insurance company should pay. That means there’s no reason to delay if you’re in pain, and unfortunately insurance companies will use any delay they can to try to reduce how much they should pay. The long and short of it is if you’re in pain or injured, you should go to the doctor right away.
Second, you may be more injured than you think. Like we talked about earlier, you are probably not a doctor (and even if you are, you probably can’t diagnose yourself). Getting evaluated by a medical professional is the first step in healing and figuring out exactly what the problem is. Then, you can start fixing that problem.
Make sure you follow the advice of whichever medical professional you are working with. They are the experts (and we’ll treat them as such) and want to see you get better.
Document, Document, Document!
Make sure you keep track of all of the witnesses you talked to, including anyone who can tell us about differences in your behavior since the crash, as well as medical treatment you received, photographs of injuries and property damage, any work you have missed, and anything else you think might be important. Any lawyer will tell you the same thing: it is better to have too much information than not enough, and let us worry about whether it is relevant.
Keeping track of all of this information will be important when you decide to hire a lawyer. Your lawyer will need to order medical records from anywhere you received treatment, build up your lost income and lost wages claim, and talk to any witnesses that help (or hurt!) the case.
Call a Car Accident Attorney Right Away
With all of this information in hand, you’re ready to talk to a car accident lawyer. At Prager Law, we’ll help you navigate this process every step of the way.
Share the Post:
