Not every car accident justifies having a personal injury attorney. For example, if the accident is a minor fender bender with less than $1000 in damages and no injuries, the case can typically be handled by the insurance companies for the drivers involved. Consider looking for a lawyer if: You’ve suffered severe injuries.
Bring copies of your insurance policies, even if you are not the driver responsible for the accident. These are ten important questions, and they're likely to come up in any initial consultation with a good car accident lawyer. There will be other questions as well, but these ten will form the basis of the representation.
Liability might be assumed for the driver who hit you, but his attorney is going to argue mitigating circumstances and that your injuries aren't as bad as they seem in an effort to lower damages. The idea here is that even though liability is certain, there is a sliding scale of how much has to be paid out. Insurance adjustors have their own internal calculations for how bad an injury is, and …
Mar 25, 2019 · Consult with a Lawyer Even if the driver took off after hitting your car, you can recover damages as long as you follow the proper procedures. Speak with an experienced car accident attorney who will be able to guide you through the claims process to maximize the amount of damages you recover.
Necessary information includes driver name, contact information, and insurance details. More often than not, the other driver won't be at the scene when you've found out your car has been hit. Look for a note left typically on your dashboard with the driver's contact information.
Some of the most common injuries include broken bones, burns, head and neck trauma, brain injuries, and back and spinal cord trauma. The severity of injuries sustained on bodies in a car crash will depend on varying factors, such as speed, seatbelt use, and type of collision.
For people riding on the struck side of the car, severe injuries are most commonly delivered to person's neck, followed by the head, chest, legs, and abdomen/pelvis. For car occupants riding on the non-struck side of the car, head injuries are most common, followed by chest injuries.
Many signs and symptoms of injuries like whiplash, concussions, soft tissue injuries and spinal damage may not appear until several hours or days after an accident. During a car accident, your body experiences an adrenaline rush that can mask pain and other symptoms, causing you to believe you aren't injured.
If you know about an injury, your lawyer should know too. It's vital your lawyer knows everything. It is almost more important for your lawyer to be aware of something related to your body than it is for your doctor to be aware. Well, maybe equally as important.
What? Your opinion matters, and don't let any accident lawyer tell you differently. No, it's not a "medical" opinion but it's valid nonetheless. If you feel as though some pain, injury, or condition is not healing and you fear permanency, you should explore it with your doctor and keep your lawyer in the loop.
How bad are your injuries? If you got rear-ended, you might only have whiplash – or you might have a broken neck. Liability might be assumed for the driver who hit you, but his attorney is going to argue mitigating circumstances and that your injuries aren't as bad as they seem in an effort to lower damages.
Being a lawyer is hard. It takes three years of intense schooling that makes them go gray prematurely and turn to alcoholism at an impressive professional rate. They know where to look for every law and regulation, every rule and code of procedural conduct.
If you are driving a car that has faulty signals or a blown light, the driver behind you will not be held automatically liable. This is also the case if you suddenly reverse or do something else unexpected.
If you decide to stop in traffic when every natural inclination is to keep going, a judge would likely side with the other driver. If traffic came to a sudden halt and you had to stop, that would be taken into account.
The idea here is that even though liability is certain, there is a sliding scale of how much has to be paid out. Insurance adjustors have their own internal calculations for how bad an injury is, and you will have to illustrate exactly how injured you are.
Instead those drivers usually rely on a PIP policy – which stands for personal injury protection. In a fault state, everyone can sue anyone. An injured driver can sue the other driver personally or his insurance company, or both! Everyone pays according to each party's degree of fault in the accident.
If you're unable to find the person who hit your car, you'll have to file a claim with your own insurance company. Generally, uninsured motorist coverage compensates drivers for hit and run accident. However, not all states require you to have uninsured motorist coverage.
Speak with an experienced car accident attorney who will be able to guide you through the claims process to maximize the amount of damages you recover.
A hit and run accident occurs when someone leaves the accident scene without stopping to fulfill the duties imposed by law. When a driver hits a parked car, he or she is required to make a reasonable effort to identify the owner of the vehicle and leave a written notice.
Under Georgia law "insurance follows the car" meaning that usually the liability insurer of the vehicle that hit your car pays to fix your car. The exception to that is if the driver was driving without the owner's permission. If the car had been stolen then the thief was driving without the owner's permission and there would be no coverage for the thief striking your car under that policy.
When a vehicle is stolen, the insurance is not valid because the owner never gave the driver permission. The only place you can go is your own policy if you have optional collision coverage.
It is true that the owner's insurance is not applicable when the vehicle is stolen. This scenario presents one of many good reasons why everybody should add Uninsured Motorist coverage to their own automobile insurance policy.
The owner's insurance is typically not liable, so you might want to get the collision coverage of your own car to make the repairs. IF, however, the keys were in the vehicle then you can argue the owner (and the insured) was negligent for not securing the keys so it could not be driven away. If the person picked the ignition key on the car, then the insurance for the car is not responsible.
Usually, insurance follows the car. However, the driver generally needs to be an "authorized driver," as defined in the insurance policy. Quite frankly, it all depends in your case on what the owner's insurance policy states.
The insurance company is only responsible for the negligence of an insured driver. Whether or not your vehicle was hit by an insured driver depends on the definition of "insured" under the policy . Most automobile insurance policies exclude a thief from the definition of "insured." To know for sure, you need to read the policy (so you should request a copy of the policy). You may want to consult with an attorney to look over the policy and advise you. Most attorneys will provide a free initial consultation.
You must ordinarily do so fairly soon after the incident (i.e. within 120 days), and you must formally serve the papers on the City Clerk and if possible, the bus driver.
You need to file a claim with the appropriate public agency as soon as possible and definitely within 6 months of the incident. Then you will have to deal with their insurance company or in house adjusters.