How to Defend Yourself After You’ve Had a Bad Car Accident

Serious car accidents often leave behind major injuries. When someone becomes seriously injured in a car accident, they must protect themselves. Learning how to protect themselves will assist car accident victims in taking action immediately after a wreck and beyond.

Injured Victims Must Protect Their Rights

One of the most important things injured victims need to remember is to protect their rights at all times. After an accident, insurance companies often infringe upon a person’s rights, causing their cases to become compromised. When someone has had a bad car accident, they need to know the steps to take to keep their rights protected.

Steps Injured Victims Should Take at the Scene

Injured victims need to know what to do at the scene of the accident. Many people panic and do not realize what they should do after an accident. Taking the following steps will help injured victims ensure they protect themselves and their right to seek compensation.

• One of the first steps a victim needs to take is to call the police to the scene. If there are injuries and serious damages, leaving the scene of the accident is against the law. The police report is an integral part of the submitted evidence.
• Taking pictures becomes extremely important for proving the details of an accident. If a person has serious injuries, they should ask someone else to get pictures and videos from the scene. Pictures will often prove very beneficial in a car accident case.
• The injured victim will need to gather eyewitness information to ensure they can call eyewitnesses to the stand. A victim should get the names and contact information from each eyewitness.
• Exchanging contact and insurance information is necessary after a car accident. At the very least, injured victims should write down all the information so they can put in a claim with the insurance company of the at-fault driver.

Seek Medical Care Right Away

One of the next steps injured people need to take is to seek medical care. If the injuries are severe, the injured party needs to call an ambulance to the scene of the car accident. Sometimes, injured people do not realize the severity of their injuries because of the adrenaline rush from shock.

Seeking medical care right away ensures the victim has medical records to prove their injuries. Medical records and bills will form the foundation of any car accident case.

Get Help From a Lawyer

After seeking medical care, injured victims next need to schedule a consultation appointment with a lawyer. Lawyers typically do not charge for these appointments, allowing injured victims to discover their rights and options for seeking legal recourse.

Once the injured party hires a lawyer, this professional will take over investigating the accident and gathering evidence. The lawyer’s first goal is to negotiate with the insurance company and make sure they pay fairly. Sometimes, negotiations fall through, and the lawyer ends up filing a lawsuit in court.

Do Not Waste Time

One of the biggest mistakes injured accident victims can make is waiting too long to file a lawsuit. Every victim is held to the confines of the statute of limitations. This statute gives a specific timeframe for filing a lawsuit. Once time passes, the injured party can no longer pursue compensation in any form.

Getting legal help right away secures a person’s rights and gives them sound guidance. Those who hire a lawyer typically receive greater compensation.