Thought this would be useful to members on here.
I have just copied & pasted it from the E30Zone on which I am a moderator, so forgive the E30 references. Hopefully you'll find it useful.
Cheers
Lee
As most of you know, I deal with insurance claims litigation for a living, i.e. suing third party motorists who have caused an accident involving my client.
I will gladly help out any member who has an accident, from simple advice to running an actual claim for them, injuries most welcome lol.
But by the time I or any other solicitor, insurer or claims management comany have become involved, often vital evidence that would assist your case has disappeared. So the purpose of this post is not to advertise my services, but to help you out before the legal bods or insurers become involved.
The golden rule with any claim is Evidence Evidence Evidence!
It is not what you know, but what you can prove!
To succeed with any claim, you have to establish that "on the balance of probabilities, the accident was caused by negligence of the other party". So this is not like in the criminal courts where the prosecution has to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that somebody committed a crime with sufficient mental capacity, which is a high burden of proof and why many crims walk from court, because there is doubt in the mind of the jury or magistrates.
With civil cases, the burden of proof is merely "on the balance of probabilities", in other words if the evidence suggests more than not that an incident happened as you allege, odds are you will succeed.
Now what I am getting onto here is about gathering evidence as soon as the event happens.
We all have mobile phones these days and most if not all of these have a camera on them. This frankly is the most vital piece of kit you could have with you after an accident. Assuming you are able to get out of your car after a smash, then you need to do the following:
1- Try not to move your car at all initially. Even if you are blocking a road, leap out of the car and get some pics of where your car is positioned in the road and where the third party car is.
2- Make sure you take the photos from a reasonable distance so that you can see where abouts in the road the car is and where it is positoned in relation to road markings or lamp posts etc.
3- Try and get a pic of the other car and where that is. If the other car has moved then still take pics of it so that you have proof of being involved in a collision (in the event you take down a reg number incorrectly or the driver gives you duff details)
4- Take pics of any debris on the road surface, skid marks and the damage to each car.
5- Get the name, address, tel numbers for the other car and make sure you write down the reg number, make & model.
6- Get details of any witnesses, especially if they are independent, they could be a life saver later on.
7- Call the police if you have any suspicions about the other driver, i.e you think they are giving you dodgy details, they appear pished or you know full well there is going to be a squabble about whose fault it is. The police will only come out to an accident though if somebody is injured, the road is blocked or there is an offence suspected, such as drink driving. If you want plod there, then you will need to tell them you are injured, otherwise they will just tell you to exchange details and be on your way
8 - Make sure you make a note of the actual time & location of the incident.
The above are just a few points which would help someone in the event of a smash.
Dealing with these claims day in, day out it can often be frustrating when a client is trying to allege something has happened, yet has no ammunition to back this up.
Imagine this scenario if you will (it is all too common). You are out for a nice sunday afternoon blat, driving some nice B roads in a rural location, traffic volumes are low and you are able to press on nicely. You are going into a left hand bend when all of a sudden some moron comes around the corner travelling towards you cutting the corner and partially on your side of the road. There is nowwhere for you to go and although braking, there's no way you're gonna avoid a collision. You have a head on smack, your car is damaged on the driver front side and so is the other car.
The other driver gets out and is all full of apologies as to how it was their fault and they accept they cut the corner. The damage isn't too bad and you are able to still drive the car, same for the other car. You exchange details with the other driver and get their name and address and vehicle reg etc. Both of you were travelling alone and there is nobody else about who saw it.
Anyway, you continue your journey and later on report it to your insurers or go and see a solicitor or accident management company as you think why should you claim on your insurance when it was the other dude's fault?
Your solicitor lobs a letter of claim into the other person's insurance company alleging the collision was caused by their insured being on your side of the road and you want the cost of repairs or the write off value of your vehicle, plus other expenses and by the way your neck is killing you too. Your solicitor then gets a letter back saying "liability is denied" your client was on their insured's side of the road.
After some tit for tat, you end up with the other side offering a 50/50 split liability settlement as you can't prove they were on your side of the road anymore than they can prove you were on their side. Any legal adivsor left with this situation is more than likely going to adivse their client they are going to have to accept such an offer. A 50/50 settlement means each driver is accepting 50% of the blame, so the value of your case is reduced by 50%, so only half a payout for the repair costs, only half the value of your injury claim recovered and this also means that the other knob involved can go and rape your insurers for 50% of their claim, thus destroying the NCD you were building up.
Now, imagine going back to that accident scenario and after having the prang you leap out of the car and take some pics showing your car right up agains the grass verge, the other car in the middle of the road, even if the other car has moved, look at all the glass and debris on your side of the road. Look at his skid marks going from his side onto your side. You get the point I'm making here?
With that evidence, once your lawyer got the letter back from the other person's insurers saying you were on his side of the road, your lawyer can smugly send to these insurers all of the above pics, which then seriously bring into doubt the credibility of what their insured is saying. The insurers will realise that if you end up issuing court proceedings against their insured, they are gonna get a good hiding at court and not only will they have to pay your damages, but your lawyer will be stood there with his rather large bill of costs.
So, remember, try and get evidence gathered right away, don't just think that because the other person seemed like a nice guy and was full of remorse that by the time he has had complimentary legal advice from his mates down the pub, he has suddely got all clever and when filling out his claim form for the insurers, he gets all creative and decides to allege you were in the wrong. As soon as his insurers see such "facts" on his report form they won't be interested in paying you anything, or at best you'll end up with a split liability outcome when you could avoid it.
Hope this helps folks out a bit.
Also, another tip, as us E30 deviants like to keep hold of our cars after a prang so we can pull the morsels off them before the car gets sent away to be crushed or whatever, if you need to have your car recovered after a prang, make sure you get it taken to your home address rather than to the nearest approved repairer of your insurer. Otherwise if the car goes to the repairer and it is then written off (most likely) you are going to struggle go get your hands on any of those morsels, especially if the car ends up as a Cat B write off.
I have just copied & pasted it from the E30Zone on which I am a moderator, so forgive the E30 references. Hopefully you'll find it useful.
Cheers
Lee
As most of you know, I deal with insurance claims litigation for a living, i.e. suing third party motorists who have caused an accident involving my client.
I will gladly help out any member who has an accident, from simple advice to running an actual claim for them, injuries most welcome lol.
But by the time I or any other solicitor, insurer or claims management comany have become involved, often vital evidence that would assist your case has disappeared. So the purpose of this post is not to advertise my services, but to help you out before the legal bods or insurers become involved.
The golden rule with any claim is Evidence Evidence Evidence!
It is not what you know, but what you can prove!
To succeed with any claim, you have to establish that "on the balance of probabilities, the accident was caused by negligence of the other party". So this is not like in the criminal courts where the prosecution has to prove "beyond reasonable doubt" that somebody committed a crime with sufficient mental capacity, which is a high burden of proof and why many crims walk from court, because there is doubt in the mind of the jury or magistrates.
With civil cases, the burden of proof is merely "on the balance of probabilities", in other words if the evidence suggests more than not that an incident happened as you allege, odds are you will succeed.
Now what I am getting onto here is about gathering evidence as soon as the event happens.
We all have mobile phones these days and most if not all of these have a camera on them. This frankly is the most vital piece of kit you could have with you after an accident. Assuming you are able to get out of your car after a smash, then you need to do the following:
1- Try not to move your car at all initially. Even if you are blocking a road, leap out of the car and get some pics of where your car is positioned in the road and where the third party car is.
2- Make sure you take the photos from a reasonable distance so that you can see where abouts in the road the car is and where it is positoned in relation to road markings or lamp posts etc.
3- Try and get a pic of the other car and where that is. If the other car has moved then still take pics of it so that you have proof of being involved in a collision (in the event you take down a reg number incorrectly or the driver gives you duff details)
4- Take pics of any debris on the road surface, skid marks and the damage to each car.
5- Get the name, address, tel numbers for the other car and make sure you write down the reg number, make & model.
6- Get details of any witnesses, especially if they are independent, they could be a life saver later on.
7- Call the police if you have any suspicions about the other driver, i.e you think they are giving you dodgy details, they appear pished or you know full well there is going to be a squabble about whose fault it is. The police will only come out to an accident though if somebody is injured, the road is blocked or there is an offence suspected, such as drink driving. If you want plod there, then you will need to tell them you are injured, otherwise they will just tell you to exchange details and be on your way
8 - Make sure you make a note of the actual time & location of the incident.
The above are just a few points which would help someone in the event of a smash.
Dealing with these claims day in, day out it can often be frustrating when a client is trying to allege something has happened, yet has no ammunition to back this up.
Imagine this scenario if you will (it is all too common). You are out for a nice sunday afternoon blat, driving some nice B roads in a rural location, traffic volumes are low and you are able to press on nicely. You are going into a left hand bend when all of a sudden some moron comes around the corner travelling towards you cutting the corner and partially on your side of the road. There is nowwhere for you to go and although braking, there's no way you're gonna avoid a collision. You have a head on smack, your car is damaged on the driver front side and so is the other car.
The other driver gets out and is all full of apologies as to how it was their fault and they accept they cut the corner. The damage isn't too bad and you are able to still drive the car, same for the other car. You exchange details with the other driver and get their name and address and vehicle reg etc. Both of you were travelling alone and there is nobody else about who saw it.
Anyway, you continue your journey and later on report it to your insurers or go and see a solicitor or accident management company as you think why should you claim on your insurance when it was the other dude's fault?
Your solicitor lobs a letter of claim into the other person's insurance company alleging the collision was caused by their insured being on your side of the road and you want the cost of repairs or the write off value of your vehicle, plus other expenses and by the way your neck is killing you too. Your solicitor then gets a letter back saying "liability is denied" your client was on their insured's side of the road.
After some tit for tat, you end up with the other side offering a 50/50 split liability settlement as you can't prove they were on your side of the road anymore than they can prove you were on their side. Any legal adivsor left with this situation is more than likely going to adivse their client they are going to have to accept such an offer. A 50/50 settlement means each driver is accepting 50% of the blame, so the value of your case is reduced by 50%, so only half a payout for the repair costs, only half the value of your injury claim recovered and this also means that the other knob involved can go and rape your insurers for 50% of their claim, thus destroying the NCD you were building up.
Now, imagine going back to that accident scenario and after having the prang you leap out of the car and take some pics showing your car right up agains the grass verge, the other car in the middle of the road, even if the other car has moved, look at all the glass and debris on your side of the road. Look at his skid marks going from his side onto your side. You get the point I'm making here?
With that evidence, once your lawyer got the letter back from the other person's insurers saying you were on his side of the road, your lawyer can smugly send to these insurers all of the above pics, which then seriously bring into doubt the credibility of what their insured is saying. The insurers will realise that if you end up issuing court proceedings against their insured, they are gonna get a good hiding at court and not only will they have to pay your damages, but your lawyer will be stood there with his rather large bill of costs.
So, remember, try and get evidence gathered right away, don't just think that because the other person seemed like a nice guy and was full of remorse that by the time he has had complimentary legal advice from his mates down the pub, he has suddely got all clever and when filling out his claim form for the insurers, he gets all creative and decides to allege you were in the wrong. As soon as his insurers see such "facts" on his report form they won't be interested in paying you anything, or at best you'll end up with a split liability outcome when you could avoid it.
Hope this helps folks out a bit.
Also, another tip, as us E30 deviants like to keep hold of our cars after a prang so we can pull the morsels off them before the car gets sent away to be crushed or whatever, if you need to have your car recovered after a prang, make sure you get it taken to your home address rather than to the nearest approved repairer of your insurer. Otherwise if the car goes to the repairer and it is then written off (most likely) you are going to struggle go get your hands on any of those morsels, especially if the car ends up as a Cat B write off.