Take Action! What To Do Right After A Car Accident

If you are the victim of a careless driver, focusing on anything other than the health and safety of you and your family can be a challenge. Unfortunately, if you fail to act quickly, you could be endangering your ability to get a fair and adequate amount of compensation for your injuries and your damages. It might be helpful to take look at the following checklist to remind yourself of actions to take right after a car accident.

Gather Information

1. You should try to access the name, contact information and insurance information about the other driver.

2. Take photos of your damaged vehicle, and the other driver's vehicle as well, if possible. While best taken at the scene, few people are able to do so. You may need to travel to the tow location to get these photos.

3. Have a family photograph your injuries as soon as possible.

4. Access the police report or accident report. This report will contain a lot information about the accident such as contact information, time, date, weather and more. Additionally, if any drivers were cited for traffic violations it will likely be indicated on this report. This information can go a long way toward enhancing your quest for money damages and proving who was at fault in the accident.

5. Locate any witnesses to the accident and note the presence of camera in the area of your accident.

Keep Good Records

1. Begin keeping a record of your medical treatments and keep all receipts and bills to back those treatments up. Don't let the fact that you are not having to pay for any of those expenses out of your own pocket keep you from recording those expenses; the dollar amount of your medical expenses will be used as an important starting point to determine the level of severity of your injuries.

2.Take note of all time missed from work. You are entitled to be compensated for any time you spent away from your job to take care of any accident-related tasks, whether it be medical or other. For example, if you had to take a few hours off work to arrange for a rental car, record that time spent.

3. Keep track of any miscellaneous expenses, such as a new child car seat or a new cell phone to replace damaged property. If you had to take a taxi somewhere, record it.

Seek Legal Help

To help take the burden of these post-accident actions off of you and your loved ones, speak to a personal injury attorney as soon as possible after the accident. You will need someone on your side when it comes time to negotiate a good settlement amount.

For more information, contact a local attorney like Katz Nowinski PC.


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