What Are the Most Common Mistakes to Avoid After a Car Accident?

After a car accident, you may be confused from injuries or from adrenaline, there might be a lot coming at you at one time if the other driver is agitated and making accusations or asking questions, and, once the police arrive, you have to start thinking about making reports, calling insurance companies, and more. Here’s some advice from a car accident lawyer in O’Fallon, MO about some of the most common mistakes people make after an accident so you can avoid them.

From an O’Fallon, MO Car Accident Lawyer: Common Mistakes to Avoid After a Car Accident

1. Not Calling the Police

If the accident didn’t cause major injuries or death, it’s not uncommon for the responsible party to suggest that you deal with everything privately and not call the police. The hope here is usually that they can avoid having to inform their insurance company and risk having their insurance rates go up.

It’s never a good idea to go along with this suggestion. Even if someone seems very friendly and willing to work with you, and even if they promise to fix the damage to your vehicle, you just don’t know what’s going to happen once you both leave the scene. And if you leave and haven’t made a police report, it becomes very difficult to prove what happened.

2. Not Getting Medical Help

Obviously, if you’re badly injured you’ll be calling 911 almost as soon as the accident happens. But if you’re not badly injured, it can be tempting to just skip a visit to the doctor in the hopes that everything will just be all right in the end. And it might be!But there’s also a good chance it won’t be, even if you feel pretty good at the moment.

For one thing, it’s common for injuries to be hidden after a car accident because of all the adrenaline. Adrenaline is a wonderful thing, as it enables us to keep functioning even when we’ve been injured; but that’s also what makes it dangerous. It masks pain and allows us to continue moving with some ease so that we don’t even notice how badly we’ve been hurt until later.

For another thing, some injuries have almost no immediate symptoms and yet can be very severe. For example, you may not have any idea that you have internal bleeding for some hours after it begins. It’s also very important to get medical help not only to protect your own health but because you need to be able to link these injuries to the accident if you end up having to make a claim. If you don’t go to the doctor, or if you delay too long before going, the other driver’s insurance company may be able to successfully argue that your injuries were not caused by the accident at all!

3. Not Following Up on Medical Advice

This mistake is closely related to the first. Once you do get medical help, you have to follow up on it. If you don’t follow the doctor’s orders, or if you do anything that could potentially exacerbate your injuries, it can make it very difficult to bring a claim. The insurance company may argue that they shouldn’t have to compensate you for injuries that you made worse by your own failure to follow instructions or by engaging in activities that a doctor had warned you against.

4. Saying Too Much

After an accident, you want to be very careful that you don’t say anything that could be interpreted as you accepting fault for the accident or taking responsibility for what’s happened. It can be easy to do this inadvertently as you try to express some sympathy for the other party. For example, just saying “I’m so sorry,” even though this would be the normal thing to say to express sympathy with suffering, could get you in trouble if the other party’s insurance tries to argue that you were not feeling empathy for the driver’s injuries but expressing regret for having caused the injury.

Even when you talk to the police, don’t speculate. Remember that even if you believe the accident was your fault, until there’s an investigation you never know what factors may turn up that you knew nothing about. The same thing goes any time you talk to an insurance company. Never do anything but give them the basic facts, and if they keep pressing you, refer them to your lawyer.

5. Not Getting Evidence

Don’t assume that the police report will be enough to prove everything about what happened. It’s a wise move to get all the evidence you can for yourself. Take pictures of your injuries, of the vehicles involved, of any road conditions that may have contributed to the accident, and even of the weather conditions if that was also a factor. If there are bystanders, approach them politely and ask if they saw anything and if they’d be willing to talk about it. If so, get their contact information and pass it on to your lawyer.

6. Signing Anything Without Your Lawyer

If the other driver was at fault, their insurance company may reach out to you fairly quickly with a settlement offer. Sometimes these initial settlement offers are really just a tactic. They are often much lower than the true scope of your losses, but the insurance company is hoping that you haven’t yet sat down to calculate what all your damages are and will just be so glad to see a relatively big check that you’ll be willing to sign on the dotted line.

Even if that’s not actually their intention, the first offer is still usually just the opening offer in what they assume will be a series of negotiations. You will ask for a high number, they will offer a lower number, and through negotiations you’ll meet somewhere in the middle. If you are not experienced in negotiations, you may not recognize that this is what’s happening.

The way to protect yourself here is to never sign anything or accept any offer until you’ve run it by your lawyer. Your lawyer will help you properly calculate all your damages and ensure that any offer the insurance company is making properly covers them and also takes into consideration all elements of fault in the accident.

7. Not Getting a Lawyer In the First Place

Many people have the mistaken idea that hiring a lawyer in these situations will cost them a lot of money or cause them to lose out on compensation. Neither of these things is true. A good car accident lawyer does not charge any fee unless they win the case, which also means they will tell you the truth about your case right from the initial consultation and won’t take on your case and give you false hope if you don’t have a good chance of winning.

And, statistics show that those who bring any kind of personal injury lawsuit with the help of a lawyer consistently come away with higher settlements, even after legal fees are deducted, then those who don’t have a lawyer.

For help with your car accidents case in O’Fallon, MO, call us at the Wendt Law Firm P.C. at (816) 531-4415 now to set up a free consultation.