It doesn’t take a lot to cause a serious car accident. From sending a quick text to falling asleep behind the wheel, there are many mistakes that you can make resulting in a devastating wreck and life-changing consequences for you and other drivers. Unfortunately, it doesn’t take much for accident victims to jeopardise their claims either. While car accidents may be a fairly common occurrence, many drivers don’t know how to react if and when they’re involved in one. With that in mind, here are ten common mistakes you don’t want to make following a car accident.
1. Immediately leaving The Scene
Whether you’ve hit another car or someone’s property, you can’t leave the scene of an accident without first exchanging information, even if you’re not at fault. Not only will this make it difficult for you to secure any sort of compensation, but it’s also illegal and could land you in a lot of trouble. There are many reasons why a person might leave the scene of an accident, including lack of insurance and pure panic. However, you must ensure that you stay calm and stop the car.
2. Not Calling The Police
Most people assume that you only need to call the police when someone is injured in a crash. However, that isn’t necessarily true. Although it is a legal requirement to notify the authorities following an accident that caused injury, you should call the police no matter what. This gives you the opportunity to file a police report and document the crash from your point of view while it’s still fresh in your mind. This record will prevent others involved from making a false claim later.
3. Suggesting You’re To Blame
Many of us have a natural urge to apologise for almost everything, including things that we’re not even at fault for. Unfortunately, when you say “I’m sorry” after a car crash, some would consider this an admission of guilt. Even if you believe that you’re at fault, you should never take the blame until you have all of the facts. After all, you don’t know for sure that the other driver didn’t make a mistake too. Because of this, you should keep quiet or be extra careful about what you say.
4. Failing To Gather Evidence
As long as it’s safe to do so, you should always take pictures of the scene of the accident. This serves as crucial evidence that can help you to make a claim. Ensure you take snaps of all the vehicles involved, the road, street signs, debris, and, of course, your injuries. You should also exchange information with the other driver and get the contact details of any witnesses. This will give your attorney a good place to start when it comes time to launch an investigation.
5. Skipping The Doctor’s Visit
In the initial moments after your accident, the levels of adrenaline in your body will be heightened. This means that any pain you should be feeling may be less or non-existent. Without this pain, you have little way of knowing just how injured you really are. For this reason, you should ensure that you seek medical help as you can to get the best possible treatment. By doing this, you also create a record of your injuries, which will only add to your evidence in court.
6. Avoiding The Insurance Company
As soon as possible after your accident, you need to make sure that you report it to your insurance company. If you don’t, you could harm your chances of recovering costs associated with the crash and may even lose your insurance altogether. That being said, you shouldn’t necessarily trust your insurance company to do right by you. They are a business, after all, which means that their focus is on making money rather than helping you.
7. Hiring A Replacement Vehicle
Although car accidents are enough of a fright to keep many off the road for a while, some people want to get back to driving as soon as possible. Unfortunately, if your car was damaged, this can be difficult. Rather than hire a car out of your own pocket, you should contact a replacement vehicles provider, like https://itwasntmyfault.com.au/. This won’t necessarily get you a free car, but, if you weren’t to blame for the crash, they would try to recover the cost from the faulty party.
8. Neglecting To Seek Help
While you’re well within your rights to represent yourself during a personal injury claims process, this may not be the best course of action. After all, laws are tricky things, and you can bet that other parties, especially large corporations, will have their own legal aid by their side. For this reason, you should find yourself an experienced car accident lawyer. They have the knowledge to put together and present a case that gives you the best chance of securing compensation.
9. Talking About The Car Accident
Anything that someone involved in a lawsuit says has the potential to be introduced as evidence and used against them in court. Because of this, you should avoid talking about the accident with anyone other than your doctor and attorney. It’s especially important that you don’t post anything about the crash or your recovery on social media. Even if you later delete posts that you regret, other parties still have the opportunity to share or screenshot them to use against you.
10. Waiting Years To Claim
After being involved in a crash, you don’t have long to make a claim. As you can read at https://www.thezebra.com, the length of time you do have varies by your location and the severity of the accident and your injuries. However, in many places, it’s somewhere between two and three years. With that in mind, you should ensure that you get the ball rolling as soon as you can. This also makes it likely that that contact information of any witnesses is the same.
Being involved in a car accident is scary and stressful, so ensure you don’t make it any worse by avoiding the mistakes listed above.
