Investigating Car Accidents

Why Is It Important to Investigate Car Accidents?

Insurance companies have their own investigative teams, lawyers and accident reconstructionists. After a car accident, it’s not uncommon for insurers to dispatch a team of investigators to an accident scene to start collecting evidence, tracking downing eyewitnesses and identifying anything that shifts blame away from their policyholder. In cases involving a totaled vehicle, an insurer may offer the driver a settlement on the car in order to ostensibly resolve the matter sooner rather than later. However, once a settlement offer is accepted, the car — and any evidence it contains — becomes the property of the insurer. Once the insurer recovers the totaled vehicle, it’s destroyed and scrapped. If your personal injury case should go to trial, you may have difficulty establishing parts of your case without the evidence of your totaled car.

Investigating the Scene of a Car Accident — What a Crash Site Tells Us

In the state of New York, any compensation you might be eligible to receive after a car accident can be reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to you. For example, if you suffer $10,000 in losses but are deemed 30 percent at fault, the most you could recover is $7,000. When insurance companies investigate car accidents, they’re looking for anything to justify shifting more of the fault onto you in order to reduce the settlement amount they have to pay you.

Investigating a car crash, however, can shed a great deal of light on what happened and who was at fault. Measuring skid marks and analyzing a car or truck’s GPS system can reveal how fast a car was traveling and in what direction. Some newer cars and trucks have onboard data recording systems that record a great deal of information about the speed, steering and direction of a vehicle. This information is important in cases where driver fatigue is suspected — sudden, sharp turns of the wheel or drifting onto the shoulder or into other lanes are often associated with falling asleep at the wheel.

What Damage to a Car Can Reveal

Inspecting and investigating the damage to a car is important in establishing fault and evaluating injuries sustained in a car accident. In cases where a car driver claims a bicyclist, pedestrian, motorcycle or another car “came from out of no where,” whether the damage is to the front, side or back of the car can tell investigators a great deal about whether the driver should have seen the person he or she hit. For example, if the accident happened at a traffic light or stop sign, damage to the front of the car, along with other evidence like skid marks, may indicate the driver who hit you failed to stop when he or she was supposed to or was simply not paying attention at the time of the accident.

Alternatively, a smashed bumper may not in and of itself establish fault on the part of the driver who rear-ended you; however, the degree of damage can reveal a great deal about how fast the other driver was going and whether or not he or she attempted to slow down. Coupled with other evidence, analyzing the damage to the back of your car is important if the insurance company tries to argue that you are partially at fault for “suddenly stopping” or “failing to drive with attention.”

Car Damage and Injuries

Insurers will dispute the severity and extent of your injuries, especially in “low- impact” car accident cases. Here, the thinking seems to be that you couldn’t have suffered a serious injury if the car that hit you wasn’t going that fast. However, you may actually absorb more of the energy in low-impact rear-end or side-impact collisions than in some high-speed car crashes, resulting in serious whiplash, back and head injuries. Analyzing damage to a car’s doors, rear or front end can tell investigators about how your body would have reacted to the shock of the sudden impact of the car that hit you. This information is especially important when insurance company experts try to down play your injuries or question how you could have been so seriously injured.

Contact Long Island Car Accident Lawyers at Rosenberg & Gluck

Insurance companies employ a number of strategies and tools to reduce the amount they have to pay in personal injury claims. At Rosenberg & Gluck, we have an entire team of personal injury attorneys who have extensive experience in investigating car accidents and dealing with insurance companies. Protect your rights and interests — contact Long Island personal injury attorneys at Rosenberg & Gluck today to schedule a free consultation to learn how we can help you.