Car accidents occur every minute of every day in the United States. These accidents occur for all types of reasons including: speeding, inattentive driving, drunk driving, weather and reckless driving. On a daily basis approximately 100 people involved in these accidents lost their lives and over 7,500 sustained injuries. In order to properly get compensated for your property damage and personal injury, you will want to be certain to collect these five essential pieces of evidence to present to your lawyer in case your claim is not settled out of court. With these pieces of evidence an experienced car accident attorney should be able to properly represent your and maximize your claim.
- Police Report
Make sure to contact the police before doing anything else and do not move the vehicles involved in the car accident until the police have arrived on the scene. The police will make sure everyone involved in the accident is receiving medical attention and then perform their own investigation. All of this information is recorded in a police report. Be certain to get a copy of this report at the scene of the accident. If you are unable to get this report at the scene due to injuries, request a copy of this report as soon as you are able to. - Pictures
The term pictures speak a thousand words is especially true for car accident victims. If you are able to, take pictures at the scene of the accident. Make sure to take pictures from every angle including back, front and side views of your vehicle and any other vehicles involved in the accident. If you are injured and unable to take the pictures yourself, see if anyone on the scene happened to take some and get the pictures from them. If not, after you seek medical treatment and your car has been towed, go to the tow yard and take pictures of the damage there. - Witnesses
If anyone other than you and the other driver(s) involved witnessed the accident, getting their information could be vital to winning your case and compensation for medical and property damage. Make sure you get all the information you can from each witness. The type of information you need to gather from witnesses include: their name, their phone number and any other means to contact them. Your lawyer may want to make contact to ask questions or to ask them if they would be willing to appear on your behalf during the trial. - EMT Report
Whether you feel you have sustained injuries or not, you should travel to the nearest hospital via emergency services and be medically examined. Many injuries sustained in car accidents are not felt until days, weeks, months or even years later. Going to the hospital right away to be examined by a doctor is the best thing you can do in order to address lurking injuries you may not feel right away. If you have sustained obvious injury at the scene, you will be treated by the EMT on the way to the hospital. Either way, an EMT report will be generated and this documentation should be a part of the paperwork you present to your lawyer. - Medical Documentation
Lastly, you should provide any and all medical documentation. If you sustained injuries, this documentation will provide your lawyer with all the procedures that were performed from the time you arrived at the hospital. If you had injuries prior to the accident, this medical information should be provided to your attorney as well. This will help them to best determine what injuries were caused by the accident itself and/or previous injuries that may have been made worse.
If you are involved in a car accident and would like to maximize your settlement an experienced car accident attorney can help you. The evidence captured at the accident scene will help your car accident attorney in defending your case and achieving a positive outcome.
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