Most of us use the roads on a daily basis to commute from work to home and vice versa. It is not unusual for us to face long queues of traffic as cars slowly drive past the location of a car crash. Unfortunately, statistics by The World Health Organisation demonstrate that roughly 1.35 million people lose their lives to road traffic accidents. Moreover, between 20 and 50 million people suffer non-fatal injuries, with many sustaining a physical disability as a result of their injury.
In this article, we will discuss what steps to take if you are involved in a car accident.
The Impacts on Yourself
Acquiring injuries as a result of being involved in a car accident has significant negative consequences on individuals’ financial state, their families, and even communities as a whole. These impacts are often a result of the potential high expenditure of treatment to treat injuries and pay for rehabilitation, as well as lost productivity for those individuals deceased or disabled by their injuries, and for family members who end up taking time off work or school to look after their injured family members. Being involved in a car accident, even a minor one, can cause a lot of confusion and can be an extremely overwhelming and stressful experience. From dealing with the other party involved in the accident to dealing with any potential injuries you got as a result.
Keep Calm
Understandably, being involved in a car accident is a very stressful situation where you may start acting without thinking. Emotions may take over, particularly if you are faced with the other party becoming increasingly angry with you. Whether the accident is minor or serious, you should try to remain calm as much as possible.
Seek Medical Help
Whether the accident is minor or serious you should keep medical help as much as possible. If you are involved in a serious accident, an ambulance should be called straight away. Sometimes people are involved in minor car accidents and do not perceive any injuries until later on after the adrenaline levels have reduced. Even less serious accidents can cause physical injuries such as whiplash or serious internal injury and emotional effects such as being fearful of driving again. Both of these examples could have long-term effects on the individual.
Secondly to ensure your good health, seeking medical help is also crucial as it will also provide further evidence to build your case if you make the decision to claim compensation or other benefits for personal injury, as medical documents are one of the required documents when filing a compensation claim.
Obtain Evidence and Witnesses
If you are able to get out of your vehicle, do so carefully and safely. You should aim to start taking pictures of the damage to your vehicle and the other drivers too. This will serve as visual evidence of the accident and the extent of the damage it has caused to the property. Depending on how busy the location is and whether there are any pedestrians available, you are likely to have other drives and pedestrians observe the accident as it happened. You should attempt to ask anyone around if they saw what happened and exchange details as they can act as witnesses if required, as this is usually the best source to determine the details and specifics of how the accident. Also be sure to consider getting a truck accident lawyer as well.
Seek Legal Advice
A mistake many people make when involved in a car accident is to instantly contact the insurance companies of the drivers involved in the accident and to attempt to deal with this themselves. Although this seems like the right thing to do, many insurance companies are difficult, and may attempt to deny settlement payments or agree to pay the bare minimum for car accidents and related injuries and losses, and you may agree for lack of awareness. Furthermore, phone calls are often recorded by insurance companies and they may later use extracts of the conversation against you in attempts to deny you of the deserving compensation. You should consider getting a legal advisor expert in car accident cases to represent you, as lawyers possess the expert skills and knowledge to best support you get a positive outcome and to liaise with different agencies such as the insurance companies, and they will make this overwhelming process much simpler to you.
Being involved in a car accident is such a stressful experience, not only you may lose your vehicle, but you may also get injured as a result. This experience, can, however, be made simpler if you follow the basic steps mentioned above.