Mistakes to Avoid After a Pedestrian Accident

Answer:

On many occasions, we see people who have been injured in pedestrian accidents already having done damage to their claims before they even get started. It’s essential to take some steps to make sure your claims are preserved. First, we often see people who fail to report their incidents. It’s very important to have a police report made to document what occurred, when it occurred, where it occurred and who was involved. We will later need that information when we’re trying to locate witnesses and when we are trying to locate the at-fault driver who caused the incident. All this information is preserved on the police report, but if you don’t have that done, you open yourself up to having a defendant driver who claims this never occurred. Don’t give that opportunity to the defense.

Next, we often see people who wait way too long to go seek medical treatment. As soon as you begin feeling pain and discomfort, go seek medical attention. If your pain doesn’t start until the next day, go to the ER and get checked out. Oftentimes what starts as minor pain will increase to major pain over the coming days, and it’s important to have that documented as soon as possible to correlate it back to the incident. If you wait multiple weeks to go seek treatment, insurance companies will try to imply that if you had really been hurt, you would’ve gone and got medical treatment a lot sooner. Don’t give them that argument.

Another thing we see people often do is fail to follow through on the treatment that they’re prescribed by their doctors. Once the doctors tell you what you need to do, always abide by it. Don’t let gaps occur in your treatment or have time pass where you’re not getting any treatment at all. It’s important to make sure there are no gaps because, again, insurance companies will use that to try to diminish the value of your claim.

Finally, always make sure you immediately find a personal injury attorney who can help document your claim and preserve all evidence. It is essential to find an attorney who’s experienced in handling these types of claims and knows what to do. If you hire the wrong attorney, evidence will be lost and your claim will fall apart. Make sure you hire an experienced attorney who can walk you through this process.