So what should you do if you are in a car accident?
My name is Zachary Cole with Probinsky & Cole and serve the state of Florida.
And, that can be a pretty important question, and how you react after a car accident can affect both your safety and how you are compensated for any injuries you receive in that accident.
So, the first thing you want to do is make sure that you are safe. You want to check yourself for injuries, anybody that’s with you check them, other cars if it’s safe to do so pull over to the side of the road.
And, we all spend a lot of time on the roadways, and one thing that I see a lot is an accident that happens, and then there are several accidents behind that first accident just because people sat down, and people aren’t paying attention, they are on their phones, things like that.
So, first and foremost consider your safety and the safety of the people with you. After that, you want to call the police. Call 911 if it’s an emergency if not you can call the non-emergency number for two reasons: Again, first and foremost safety, they are going to clear the roadway to make sure that everybody’s safe, if you need treatment they’ll get it for you, and they will get it for you quickly. And, second is they are going to document the scene.
But, this is something that you should if you are able to safely help out with because officers investigate numerous accidents a day and they are not going to take photographs at every accident.
They are not going to always document everything to at ease, so you want to help them out with that so if there are things that are going to be valuable to a potential client that you bring you could show that to an insurance company or maybe later on to a jury.
So, it’s going to be things like taking pictures of the damage to the vehicles, taking pictures of the accident scene where the cars were when they struck each other, road convictions traffic and things like that. Also, you want to get the names of any witnesses to the accident and their contact information.
This could be very valuable later on and helping you tell your side of the story and what happened if the accident was someone else’s fault.
And, I mentioned this before, but one of the most important things is you want to get adequate medical treatment. A lot of people are involved in an accident, and these can be the type of injuries that don’t necessarily show a full force right away. It may take a day or a few days for the soreness to kind of sink in especially with the adrenaline that can be involved in an accident.
So, if you’re not treated right away you want to make sure to seek treatment if you feel like you’re hurt within 2 weeks because in the state of Florida this activates your PIP insurance, which usually allows $10,000 and medical treatment and if you wait over 2 weeks than that insurance just isn’t available to family. It’s important to contact an attorney that specializes in advocating for victims of motor vehicle accidents. This is a special type of case you deal with, the insurance companies in this case, that often specialize in motor vehicle accidents.
You see a lot of the same types of injuries go to the same types of doctors so getting with an attorney you get is a specialist in this area is going to be key in making sure you get the full value out of your claim.
And making sure that they can get you through the process of what to expect in bringing in an accident claim.
