If you’re like me, I’m sure you are completely tired of the words “pandemic” and “unprecedented”, and yearn for a return to our normal lives. Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem that we are destined to return to our old “normal” anytime soon so we must evolve and embrace our new “normal” in many facets of our lives. Due to COVID’s physical distancing guidelines and social unrest directed at law enforcement, we need to bring everyone up to speed on the importance of documenting all evidence at the scene of an accident. In normal times, we all relied upon law enforcement to come to the scene of an accident and document the physical aspects of the incident, which generally led to someone being charged for the accident which provided great insight for the claims adjusters to follow in managing the claims and litigation process. We are now in August 2020, and many Cities, Counties and States are simply not responding to vehicle accidents unless there is resulting Bodily Injury or a vehicle has to be towed. We recently had a client in Texas whose vehicle was hit by another vehicle but with no Bodily Injury, law enforcement was contacted and they refused to come to the scene. The client exchanged insurance information at the scene, but did not capture any evidence to help show they were not at fault. Now the other driver that hit him is stating it was not their fault and as a result, their insurance carrier has denied the claim filed by our client. Clearly this is a terrible situation for our client and we want to try and mitigate it from happening to anyone else. So, whether law enforcement responds to your incident or not, be proactive in protecting yourself by gathering the following information as quickly as possible:
- Ensure your own safety
- Do not admit liability, let the facts prove who was at fault
- Take pictures and/or video from every angle of the scene
- Show and comment on the view each driver had prior to impact
- Take pictures and/or video of the entirety of the vehicle including license plates
- Take pictures and/or video of any skid marks or debris from the vehicles involved
- Take pictures and/or video of the environment, commenting on traffic control signals, road width, blind spots, as well as damage to the road or weather conditions that may have contributed to the accident
- Identify and obtain contact information of witnesses who could corroborate the facts surrounding the accident
- DO NOT TAKE PICTURES OR VIDEO OF INJURED PERSONS
We hope you are not involved in any accidents, but if you are, please take charge of your defense by quickly documenting the above while waiting to learn if law enforcement is going to respond or not. Even if law enforcement responds, your ability to recite and provide the above information will go a long way towards their analysis of the incident, as well as help your claims adjuster protect your interest to the fullest extent possible.