Hi. I’m John Medler, personal injury lawyer with The Medler Law Firm – Personal Injury & Accident Attorneys. Today I’d like to talk to you about the steps you should take immediately following an accident.
- Get to safety. The first thing that you need to do is put on your flashers and as soon as it’s safe, get to the side of the road. If your car is still operable, you can drive it onto the shoulder. If it’s not, you need to get out of the car and get to safety. Now that doesn’t mean get out in the middle of traffic when cars are coming. Watch and as soon as you can get free, get to the side of the road and get to safety. That’s priority number one.
- Call 911. You’re going to need to have a police officer there to establish the facts of what happened in the accident, but you also might be injured in the accident and you might need an ambulance. You might need to summon medical attention, so get the ambulance there right away by calling 911. The next series of steps depends on how badly injured you are. If you’re pretty badly injured, you just need to get into the ambulance, get off to the hospital and maybe some relative of yours can go out to the scene and take these steps later. The important thing is for you to get medical attention. If you’re not that badly injured, then from a safe distance on the side of the road, take the next steps below.
- No admissions. I cannot emphasize this enough. Do not say it was your fault. Do not say, “I’m sorry,” under any circumstances. And I know what happens. You’re a nice person. You know, maybe the other guys really angry and comes over to your car and says, “What the heck? You know, you just hurt my car!” And you might be a nice person that likes to deflect tense situations by saying, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” Don’t say, “I’m so sorry.” What can happen is even in the case when the other driver’s at fault, if you say you’re sorry or you say it was partially your fault in any way, that can be used against you later and will dramatically affect your ability to collect compensation for your injuries. So no admissions.
- Get eyewitness information. Wait a minute. My Dad told me I’m supposed to do something about exchanging insurance information. Nope. You’re going to do that later. Do this first. Get eyewitness information. Why? Because eyewitnesses are going to leave. They got stuff to do. They’re not going to sit around and wait all day for the police officer to come. Sometimes if you’re saying he ran the red light, and he’s saying you ran the red light, that eyewitness may make or break your case and they’re going to be leaving that scene very soon. So immediately find out who the eyewitnesses are that are hanging around. Get their name, get their address, get their email, get their phone.
- Take photos. Most people have an iPhone or something like that, or a Samsung that’s available to take pictures from their phone. Take your phone out and start taking some pictures of the wreckage involved in the accident. Now wait a minute. If the cars are sitting in the middle of the road, don’t go running out into the highway to take your picture. You’re going to have to take any pictures from a safe distance. Only do it when it’s safe. Sometimes in a low impact case, the only damage there might be is some kind of crumple into the bumper. You want to take that picture as soon as you can. Also, you’re gonna want to take pictures of skid marks or debris or anything left on the road. You’re also gonna want to take pictures of the traffic lights. Maybe take a quick video so you can figure out what the sequence of the traffic lights are. If you’re at the hospital or in the days and coming weeks after this accident, take pictures of your injuries. Frequently people will have very bad bruises in an accident, but those bruises are going to go away in a matter of weeks. So take pictures of those injuries while they’re still there. If you’re seriously injured in the hospital, have a relative take those pictures. In the scenario where you’re seriously injured and you’re off at the hospital, maybe a relative of yours could go out to the scene and again, from a safe distance, take pictures of those cars.
- Exchange information. Now it’s time to do what your Dad always told you to do, is to go out and exchange information with the other party. Get a piece of paper, get a pen, ask to see their insurance card and take a picture of it with your phone. You’re going to want to find out the VIN number of their car. That’s usually pressed into the plastic near the front driver’s side of the car. Take a picture of the license plate. When you talk to the other driver that was involved in the accident with you. Find out if he was the owner of the vehicle. Frequently people are driving other people’s cars. That may become important to you because the police officer may only write down who the driver was and may not write down information about who the actual owner of the car was. If there’s passengers in the car, you’re going to want to find out their names and their information, so take down all the information you can about the other driver, and he’s going to get your information as well.
- Are you hurt? The other driver may ask you immediately following the accident, “Are you hurt?” Similarly, the police officer may also ask if you’re hurt. If you are hurt and you feel pain, tell them, “Yes, I’m hurt.” Don’t be shy. If you don’t feel immediate pain, don’t answer the question, ‘no.’ Don’t say, “I’m not hurt.” Just don’t answer the question if you can. Now, if the police officer asks you that point blank, you’re going to have to give him an answer. And you can tell them, “Well, I’m not feeling bad right now, but we’ll see.” Basically you don’t want to have anyone at the scene say that you are not hurt because that could affect it later when you claim that you are hurt.
- Make a sketch of the scene. Take out a piece of paper and a pen and see if you can jot down a little sketch of the roads that were involved in the accident. Write down how many lanes were there, which direction is North, South, East, and West, where your car was, where their car was, make a note of where signs are and things like that. Because sometimes the police officer’s sketch of the scene is wrong. In addition, sometimes you may be asked later, “Were there three lanes going North, or were there two lanes going North, and which lane were you in?” Sometimes it helps to write that down so that later you can accurately recall those events.
- Talk to the police officer, but remember, no admissions. When talking to the police officer, it is still not appropriate for you to say the accident was your fault, that you did something wrong, or anything like that because that can be held against you later in your personal injury case. Just give him the facts. Exactly what happened, when, where and how, and let the police officer put that into his report.
- Contact your own auto insurance company and set up the process to get your car repaired. But remember, just give them the facts of the accident, briefly what happened, but don’t let them take a recorded statement if at all possible. The reason is that your personal injury lawyer has got to make sure that whatever you say is not held against you later.
- If you have not done so already, get medical attention. Go to your primary care provider, orthopedic doctor or whoever the person in the hospital told you to go see.
- The most important thing, immediately contact an experienced Orange County personal injury attorney. If you’ve got any other questions about what to do after an accident, or have questions about personal injury, check out our website at www.MedlerLawFirm.com.
