Author: Anthony Baratta
Until the day when all of our cars are self-driving, humans remain responsible for acting reasonably while navigating huge metal objects at highway speed. Mistakes are bound to happen and people are likely to be injured or killed. Self-driving cars present their own problems, but that will be addressed in a separate blog post.
In 2024, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2.4 million people were injured, and 39,000 people killed, in vehicle wrecks. The percentages are that a car crash will touch you or someone in your family.
You can’t control the actions of other drivers. There are two things you can control. The first is what insurance you buy to protect yourself and your family. The other is what you do after the wreck. This blog describes what to do, and what not to do, after the wreck. The below offers a very simple and basic set of to do’s.
Even if you don’t suffer a brain injury in a car crash, you will likely feel shocked, disbelief, confusion, a strong sense of loss of control. You might even be angry. It is likely that you will not be the best version of yourself immediately after a crash. So, it’s helpful to know ahead of time the survival guide to a car crash.
The stress of the crash will lead to rapid, shallow breaths which increase anxiety and panic. Deep, slow breaths help to activate the part of the brain responsible for attention and emotional regulation. Let’s face it, if someone acts carelessly to cause you injury, you are likely to be angry. Anger reduces impulse control, increasing the risk you might so or say something you’ll likely regret.
Injured people are thinking about getting medical care. Injured people are not thinking about preserving evidence. It is important that someone does preserve evidence though. It’s a mistake to think that police or responding paramedics will preserve evidence. So, it’s important for someone, whether a family member, friend or a lawyer who hires an investigator, to take photos of the entire scene and all property damage of all vehicles, document and photograph injuries and take names and obtain contact information for all possible witnesses. A lawyer may hire an investigator to search for cameras in the area that may have captured the crash. But this evidence can be lost if not quickly pursued and preserved.
Immediately after a crash, you don’t know all the facts. It is imperative that you know all the facts before you offer your version of how the crash occurred. Only after a full investigation and preparation by a lawyer are you ready to offer the fairest and truest representation of the facts.
What you post on social media may be discovered by the insurance company for the other driver and you may state things that you regret after learning the full facts. After any injury, it is important that any information about the crash or your injuries be shared only with you lawyer or your doctors.
But the most important step to take is the one before you are ever in a car crash. Check your insurance coverage. Make sure you have chosen underinsured motorist coverage. That is the insurance that protects you and your family if injured by someone who does not carry sufficient liability insurance.
A person can legally drive a car carrying only $15,000 in liability coverage and many people choose to carry that little coverage. If you don’t carry underinsured motorist coverage (“UIM”), the most you may be able to recover, regardless of the significance of your injuries, is the amount of liability coverage carried by the other driver. Your underinsured coverage should match the amount of liability coverage you’ve purchased, and you should “stack” the coverage, so that the UIM coverage available is what you chose times the number of vehicles in your household. So, for example, if you have $100,000 in liability coverage, and 3 cars, if you follow my advise you will have $300,000 in available UIM coverage should you be hurt by an underinsured driver.
