Protecting Yourself And Your Rights After A Car Accident
Posted on: 8 August 2017
When you are involved in a car accident, even a minor one, there are things that you will need to deal with and costs that will have to be covered. Sometimes it is hard to determine who is at fault and where those bills should go. If you truly believe you are not at fault and the accident report does not clearly define the fault or cause of the accident, hiring a car accidents lawyer to help sort it all out might be the best solution.
Determining Fault
In some states, the police will issue an accident report without a clear determination of who is at fault for the accident. In "no fault" states, it is normal for the accident report to only state what the officer found at the scene, without assigning blame to one party. The problem is if you did not cause the accident, that leaves your insurance covering your damage and injuries and it will affect your premiums. A good accident attorney will be able to help litigate a settlement with the other driver's insurance if they can prove it was in fact, the other driver that caused the accident.
Investigating The Accident
Many times a car accident lawyer will have their own investigator that has worked with car accidents before. They may be a former police officer or insurance investigator, but they always have experience with accident investigations and may even have reconstruction experience. These investigators will look at the accident and try to find enough evidence to support the claim of innocence on your side and cause on the other. If they need to, a third party reconstruction expert can be brought in to determine what caused the accident. A good accident reconstructionist will be able to tell you everything that happened, in what order, and how the events unfolded to their final conclusion. And when they have determined it, the lawyer will bring them into testify in court or make a statement for the record, outlining their findings.
Settling The Claim
Once all the legal and reconstruction work is done, your accident attorney will present it all to the other driver's insurance company and seek a settlement for you. If they refuse, the case may go in front of a judge to make the final ruling. In either case, if your attorney has the evidence to support your claim, the outcome can be in your favor. Be sure to give the attorney all the details that you can remember when you present your case to them and with any luck at all, they will be able to sort everything out and help you resolve the case.
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