Protect Your Rights After an Accident

If you have gotten in a motorcycle accident, or another kind of vehicle accident, there are some, but not all, of the things you can do to protect your right to recovery and preserve and protect yourself:

• Remain at the scene of the accident the investigating law enforcement agency arrives. It is very important to stay at the accident location. At a minimum, stay long enough to give your address, name and contact information to an investigating law enforcement officer. If you leave the scene of an accident before this, you may be subject to criminal sanctions and penalties.

• Don't make definite fact statements. Let the officer investigating the scene know any facts related to the accident which appear relevant to you, but never make or sign any statement or report accepting or assessing the blame for any accident. Additionally, try your best not to give any definitive statement about your post-accident health. This is because the effects on your health may manifest themselves later. When you are asked, saying that you are not sure if you are hurt is entirely acceptable. Always cooperate with the investigating law enforcement officer or officers, but don’t sign anything unless absolutely necessary or do anything else that might negatively affect your recovery rights.

• Get all the information possible from all the other drivers, passengers and witnesses. Not all witnesses to any accident will wait for law enforcement to get there. Because of this, try to get all of the contact information, phone numbers and names of anyone who might have seen the accident before they can leave the accident scene. Talk to every driver involved. From each of them, get this information: Model and make of their vehicle, their name, their address, their telephone number, his or her operator's license number, the name of their insurance company, their policy number, and the license plate number of the vehicle.

• Get all needed medical care and keep good records of all medical care. If you think that you have suffered any physical injury from the accident, get medical help immediately. On the day following an accident on a motorcycle, you may suffer from pain that you didn’t feel directly after an accident. The faster you get to a doctor after your accident, the more seriously and respectfully your injury claims will seem. Keep any and all bills and records of the treatment you get for injuries suffered in your accident. If you don’t have them all, your legal team can also get your medical records and the billing information related to them for you, with your consent.

Even if you partially caused an accident because you got briefly careless, you may well still be able to get at least partial compensation for your bills and injuries from other people who also got careless and who are partially responsible for your accident. How much the other person may have to pay you for any accident gets determined by that person’s percentage of liability for causing the accident.

While they negotiate, your lawyer and the insurance company representative will discuss any factors that might have been a cause of the accident. At that point, they will consider the question of any carelessness you might have committed. They will consider each driver’s possible carelessness. These factors, in addition to all other relevant factors, will determine what your claim may be worth. These other factors include the seriousness of any alleged injuries and the total amount of any medical bills.

We can help you sort through all of these complex factors.

Are you in Corpus Christi? Were you injured in a Motorcycle accident?

Give Carabin Shaw a call. We can help. Call us at 361.444.1111, local if you’re in Corpus Christi.