I’ve been in an accident, what should I do?

Here at Willis, Willis & Rizzi we meet with many clients who haven’t followed the necessary steps one should take after having been in an accident. These steps involve:

• Call 911
• Get checked out by EMS
• Go to the emergency room if you feel you have any injuries
• File a police report
• Document your accident, take your own photos and videos of the vehicles, the scene and the people involved
• Notify your insurance company
• Contact a personal injury attorney who can help you with your case.

Following are more details on why each of these steps are so important for making sure you give your case the best chance of a recovery, both for yourself and your losses.

When you’ve been in a motor vehicle accident, obviously the most important thing is to make sure everyone is OK. You should always call 911 and report there has been an accident and file a police report. Under Ohio law you have a duty to file a police report if it resulted in injury, death, or property damage exceeding $1,000. For accidents involving property damage under $1,000, Ohio law requires you to report the accident within six months if no police report was filed at the scene; many people are unaware of this duty.

At Willis, Willis & Rizzi there have been many instances where a client will tell us they didn’t call 911 or file a police report, they just exchanged information with the other party involved in the accident.  This makes our job as your personal injury attorney more difficult because there is no police report, or body cam footage, and no 911 call. All this information is evidence, and it is very helpful in settling and resolving cases. Insurance companies often operated under the mantra if you can not prove it, it did not happen.

It’s also important to document your accident. Take your own photos and videos of the vehicles, the scene car and any injuries you have suffered. If there is a commercial vehicle involved, they should have a DOT number on the side of it. Take a picture of it. Note any buildings around that have security cameras on them. They may have a recording of the event. This has proved invaluable on many occasions when there is a dispute about what happened.

Additionally, notify your insurance company if you have been in an accident, even if it is not your fault. Often insurance contracts stipulate that you have a duty to contact them if you have been in an accident. Notifying your insurance company also helps your personal injury attorney because your insurance company will open a claim with the other driver’s insurance company – and your attorney will be able to step in a manage the recovery process.

Don’t wait, call an attorney. Evidence is disappearing.

If you have been in an accident and feel you have been injured, call an attorney as soon as possible. It’s really the best thing you can do. Most personal injury attorneys will provide a free consultation.

When you wait to contact an attorney, what happens is evidence like the police report, body cam footage,  911 call logs  start to disappear. Further almost everyone has a cell phone and almost every vehicle has a “black box”. These devises can have a wealth of information in them. Many cell phone have GPS abilities and store recent information that can show speed and where you were. This data disappears though quickly. Vehicle black boxes store events in them and this data can disappear quickly as well.  This is all evidence that is helpful to your case. Police departments have internal policies where they only retain body cam footage for a period of time, usually a couple of months. If you wait a year to contact an attorney, oftentimes this evidence is already gone.

Additionally, the Ohio Department of Transportation has cameras along the interstate system in Ohio however that footage only exists for 3 days. If you contact an attorney quickly, we can request that footage before it disappears. Many stores and businesses also have cameras on the outside of their stores or buildings capturing video – but again, this footage doesn’t last forever. If you contact an attorney, we can request this footage before it disappears.  

It’s very important to act quickly because a lot of evidence is time dependent.

Why Willis, Willis & Rizzi?

At some personal injury law firms that may handle your case, you will only speak to your attorney once throughout the life of the case. It’s not like that at Willis, Willis and Rizzi. We have a more personal touch. We are with you every step of the way. We are reaching out to you whenever we have a question or when we have details about your case to share. We are not trying to be the biggest, only the best.

We have had clients who have come from other personal injury law firms where the attorney only spoke to them once or twice, and they are amazed at how much the attorneys at Willis, Willis & Rizzi interact with them throughout their case, and that is the way it should be done. At Willis, Willis & Rizzi you are not just a name on a file.

Call us today at 330-535-2000 to discuss your personal injury case.