Write Down the Details of Your North Carolina Auto Accident — Now!
Have you been involved in a North Carolina auto accident within the past 24 hours?
If so, you’re undoubtedly totally shaken up. But understand that the actions that you take (or fail to take) during these vital hours can potentially radically influence your future. They can be the difference between obtaining a massive verdict to pay for your medical bills, lost wages, and other damages — and receiving no money — or even perhaps finding yourself liable for someone else’s damages.
Write it down — now!
Look, truth be told, you may not need a Charlotte auto accident law firm, like DeMayo Law. You may not even have a case. But now is not the time to prejudge your outcome, one way or the other. Now is the time to be as sober and strategic as possible. And that means, number one, getting good medical help as soon as possible. And number two, it means laying the ground work to protect yourself, legally, and ensure that you get a positive outcome.
Collect any and all evidence – more than you think you might need. Your legal team can always go through it later and discard what’s not useful.
Write down all critical details that you can possibly remember: the color of the car that hit you, the license plate number, the way the accident happened, what you felt immediately afterwards, what you were talking to your friends about in the minutes before the accident, what the police told you, et cetera. If you’re too shaken up or tired to type this out yourself, ask a friend or a relative to serve as your secretary. If there were any witnesses, ask them to provide accounts, as well.
Time and date stamp everything. Consider making photocopies of journal accounts.
Keep records of all information pertaining to the accident — including medical documents, police reports, information about other drivers, et cetera – in a single file, so you can reference it easily.
Lastly, be very cautious when it comes to sharing this information with other interested parties, particularly insurance adjusters calling from a potentially liable insurance company. Adjusters are masters at being able to convert innocent sounding statements into problematic evidence. For instance, say you really hurt your spine in a crash, and an insurance adjuster calls to “check on you” (really to assess how liable the company might be for your bills). Since you’re feeling slightly better today than you were immediately after the accident, you might say “I’m feeling better” – meaning that, on a pain scale of 1 to 50, you used to be a 47, and now you’re a 45. So technically, you’re feeling better, but you’re still in pretty bad shape!
But the insurance adjuster can use that “admission” that you’re “feeling better” to build a case that the accident didn’t cause you significant damage, after all.
The key takeaway is this: collect evidence now, before it disappears or before memories get erased or colored. And strongly consider talking to a Charlotte auto accident law firm as well.
