Car accidents are a common problem and are one of the leading causes of injuries and deaths every year. While no one can foresee a car crash, they are rarely mere accidents. Often, they result from negligence, error, or reckless behavior on the part of a driver. A Greenville car accident lawyer can help hold the at-fault party accountable for their decisions.
Auger & Auger Accident and Injury Lawyers has represented countless victims of vehicle collisions. After attending to your medical needs, your next call should be to our Greenville personal injury lawyers, who will send a team to the scene of your accident to gather documentation, statements, and logistics.
We’ve recovered over $100 million for clients since opening in 1995, and we want to help you next. Contact us today for a free consultation.
Roadway Accidents In Greenville, Sc, Are Primarily Due To Distractions
Greenville County is known as the worst area in the state for traffic fatalities. Even worse, South Carolina itself is ranked as one of the most dangerous states in which to drive.
A collision can result from any number of factors, including speeding, reckless operation, and impaired driving, but distracted driving is the number one cause of accidents across the country. South Carolina is not immune to this problem.
What exactly is taking the drivers’ attention away from the road? Our Greenville auto accident attorneys have seen victims suffer devastating results from the following driving distractions:
- Cell phones: Lawmakers failed to pass a bill into law that would have made the use of electronic devices behind the wheel illegal. Texting, talking, emailing, and online browsing while driving are substantially increasing the risk of collision.
- Eating: It’s not unusual for people to run through the drive-thru for a snack, but that’s not the problem. Instead of stopping to eat, they usually rummage through the bag, unwrap the contents, and have their meal behind the wheel.
- Grooming: Putting on makeup, brushing hair, and straightening a tie takes attention from the road.
- Passengers: Driving with children, friends, or clients in a vehicle can be incredibly distracting, and losing focus on the road leads to a significant number of accidents every year.
Our Car Accident Attorneys In Greenville Are Ready To Help
Our experienced legal team can help you after a variety of different car accidents. We are ready to serve as your:
- Greenville uninsured motorist accident lawyers: Recovering compensation after an accident with an uninsured driver can be challenging. Our experienced team can help you explore all avenues for compensation.
- Greenville rear–end accident lawyers: Liability is often assumed to be with the following driver in a rear-end accident. However, things are not always that straightforward. Our team can help prove fault.
- Greenville drunk driving accident lawyers: The damages caused by drunk drivers are often significant. Our knowledgeable legal team can help get justice for those who were injured.
- Greenville hit and run accident lawyers: Securing compensation after a hit and run can be difficult. We can help investigate your accident and find the party responsible for your damages.
- Greenville front-end accident lawyers: Front-end collisions often result in serious injuries due to the combined force of both vehicles. We can help get you the money you need to cover your medical expenses and other costs.
- Greenville rollover accident lawyers: Rollover accidents frequently result in fatalities. An experienced attorney can help family members pursue compensation after the death of a loved one.
- Greenville failure to yield accident lawyers: Drivers failing to yield the right of way is a common cause of collisions. We can help prove how another driver failed to obey traffic laws.
- Greenville distracted driving accident lawyers: Distracted driving can take many forms, but it can sometimes be challenging to prove. Our team can investigate your accident and show how distractions led to the other vehicle colliding with you.
- Greenville Uber accident lawyers: Uber has become a major presence on the road, and inevitably, Uber drivers are involved in a high number of crashes. We can help pursue compensation against both the driver and the company.
- Greenville Lyft accident lawyers: Lyft drivers are also involved in a significant number of accidents every year. If you were injured in a crash, we can help regardless of whether you were a passenger in another vehicle, a pedestrian, or a Lyft passenger.
Determining Fault In A Car Accident
The aftermath of a car crash can be chaotic, and it’s likely that preserving evidence isn’t the first thing on your mind. However, it will become important when you seek compensation for your injuries, and some types of evidence will last longer than others.
Your primary concern should be to report the accident to the police and pursue medical attention for your injuries. However, once you’ve done that, we recommend contacting a Greenville car accident attorney as soon as possible. Your lawyer may be able to gather evidence before it’s destroyed, and their investigative team will start working on your case right away.
What Do You Need To Prove In A Car Accident Case?
First, it’s helpful to understand that most car accident claims are settled out of court, so there is a good chance you and your attorney won’t need to prove anything in a trial.
However, negotiations with the other party or their insurance carrier are based on how much evidence is in your favor and whether the other parties believe you would likely win in court. For this reason, it’s essential to understand the four elements of proving negligence at trial, whether or not your case is resolved that way:
Duty Of Care
In motor vehicle accidents, drivers are expected to drive as carefully as a “reasonable person” would. In court, a jury might be asked to decide if a “reasonable person” would have run a red light, exceeded the speed limit by forty miles an hour, cut off a semi-truck, etc.
Breach Of The Duty Of Care
After establishing that the other driver had a duty of care, your lawyer will work to prove that they breached or failed in this duty. For example, if you can prove that the other motorist sailed through a red light when you had the right of way, you could argue the driver didn’t act as a reasonable person would and therefore breached their duty of care.
Causation
This breach caused or at least heavily contributed to your accident. Because of a South Carolina legal statute called “modified comparative negligence,” it is not necessary to prove that the breach of duty solely caused your accident.
However, you will need to prove the other driver was at least 50% at fault for the crash if you want to collect damages. It’s also important to note that even if the other driver broke a traffic law, you would still need to prove that their actions led to the accident to receive compensation.
Damages
Finally, you will need to establish that the accident caused by the other driver’s breached duty of care caused you damages. These may be economic damages, including medical bills, car repair costs, lost income if you could not work for some time while recovering from your injuries, etc.
You could also suffer non-economic damages, which include more intangible losses like pain and suffering, or loss of consortium or companionship if a loved one has died.
Punitive damages are also considered non-economic but are not based on any loss the plaintiff suffered. Instead, they are occasionally awarded in cases where the jury wants to punish a defendant whose actions were particularly reckless or egregious.
Establishing A Complete List Of Damages From Your Car Accident
At Auger & Auger, we encourage accident victims to speak with a car accident attorney in Greenville before filing a claim with the relevant insurance carrier to ensure that all damages are considered. Many people aren’t aware of all the damages they may have suffered or could incur in the future due to their accident.
You should consult a lawyer before accepting any offer the insurance company makes, as they frequently extend low offers that don’t cover all of the accident victim’s damages.
Here is a more detailed look at some potential damages you may have sustained from your car accident.
Medical Costs
In some cases, these go beyond the bill you receive when you are discharged from the hospital. You may need follow-up care with other doctors for weeks, months, or even permanently if your injury causes chronic pain and problems.
The cost of any future care should be considered, and your car accident lawyer will help with estimations. You might also have related expenses, like the cost of physical therapy, purchasing mobility aids such as a cane, crutches, or a wheelchair, prescription costs, and even travel expenses if you need to see a doctor who isn’t close by.
Lost Income
Your Greenville car wreck attorney will ask how many days or weeks you missed at your job. Even if your employer provided you with paid time off after your accident, you still deserve to be compensated for those days that you could have used at another time.
If your injuries left you permanently unable to work or to do the same type and amount of work you did previously, you also have a right to compensation for the future loss of income. Your lawyer can help you calculate this as well. If you lost a loved one upon whom you relied for financial support, you should also consider their lost future earnings.
Pain And Suffering
Your Greenville car crash lawyer will inquire about your physical pain and emotional and mental suffering. Car accidents are often traumatic experiences, and many people develop anxiety, depression, insomnia, or other mental health struggles.
Modified Comparative Negligence And Your Car Accident
Because modified comparative negligence statutes allow two parties to share liability for an accident, determining who is entitled to damages and how much comes down to percentages. In a court case, the jury or judge will be expected to assign percentages of responsibility to each party.
As long as your percentage of the fault is 50% or less, you are entitled to collect damages from the other party, but your percentage of responsibility will reduce your award. As a result, if your damages are estimated at $100,000, and if you are 10% at fault, you would receive $90,000.
Given this model, insurance companies will go to great lengths to prove you were more at-fault than you actually were, because if they’re successful, they can pay you less.
Dealing With Insurance Companies After A Car Accident
Because the other driver’s insurance carrier is likely to suggest you were to blame for the car crash, you should begin working on proving the other motorist’s negligence right away. The first step is to call a car crash attorney in Greenville before you contact, file a claim with, or take any phone calls from the insurance carrier.
This allows your attorney to determine the right amount of damages before you file a claim. Furthermore, they will handle communications with the insurance company for you. This second point is critical because insurance adjusters will often call in a seemingly friendly manner and express a desire to fulfill your claim quickly.
They may then say they simply need to ask you a few questions, and you agree because you’d like to receive a settlement soon. Unfortunately, these calls are usually recorded, and the insurance adjuster may seize on something innocent you said and claim it’s evidence of your culpability. Having an experienced lawyer by your side can protect you from this and other tricks.
Types Of Evidence In A Car Accident Case
Every case is different, and some types of evidence may be more important in some cases than in others. Your Greenville auto accident lawyer will ask you questions and assign an investigative team to uncover as much evidence as possible. Here are the types of evidence you may discuss and guidance on how to preserve them when possible.
Pictures
If you can do so, we recommend taking pictures right after the accident happens, paying attention to the following areas:
- Any damage to your car, both on the interior and exterior
- Damage to the other driver’s car
- Any skid marks, broken glass, or other debris on the road that appear to be from the crash
- Any other solid objects that either vehicle might have impacted, such as highway guardrails, fences, gates, trees, etc.
- Anything that could have blocked your line of sight, such as an overgrown bush, utility equipment on the side of the road, parked vehicles, etc.
- Any injuries you suffered in the crash, even if they seem minor at the time. For example, if you have a welt on your arm from where it slammed into the door during the accident, take a picture of that.
- Ideally, you should capture as much of the scene as possible, even areas that may not seem important to you. If your phone has a “360” or “panoramic” mode, try using that to capture everything, turning in one direction until your phone is back in the position it started from.
Documentation
Although many of the documents you’ll need to review at the scene of an accident aren’t evidence of the crash itself, they will help you with other aspects of your case. Do your best to write down or take pictures of the following information:
- The other driver’s name and contact information
- The other driver’s license number, license plate number, and insurance information, including their carrier name and policy number
- Names and contact information for any witnesses you notice at the scene
- The responding officer’s name and badge number, so you can follow up with them if you have any difficulty locating the accident report later on
Although being in an accident is certainly stressful, we advise you to do your best to stay calm. Stick to gathering the above information. There’s no need to argue with the other driver about who is at fault. In fact, you shouldn’t discuss fault at all, especially since you may not know everything that happened yet.
If the other motorist becomes agitated or threatening, don’t engage. Go back to your car and wait inside for law enforcement to arrive.
If the other driver leaves the scene, don’t attempt to go after them. Write down their license plate number or the most detailed description you can manage of their car, and let the 911 operator know what’s happened. They can dispatch additional units to track down the fleeing driver.
Video And Electronic Data
Today, there are frequently video recordings of accidents, especially if they took place near an intersection with a traffic camera. However, the police report may not always reflect this. In many cases, officers are very busy and don’t have time to hunt down video footage of every car crash they respond to.
This is another reason why it’s beneficial to contact a car accident attorney serving Greenville as soon as possible. Our investigative team will start the process to obtain any available footage immediately, before it’s lost or recorded over. Doorbell cameras are very common now, and in some cases, they may also pick up a nearby accident.
Another step our investigative team takes is to knock on doors in the area, both so we might locate additional witnesses and so we can ask about doorbell camera recordings. Most modern cars also have several electronic devices on board, and sometimes we’re able to retrieve data from the vehicle itself.
The Police Report
After an accident, the responding officer will prepare a police report, typically available to the public for free or for a small fee, depending on the local agency. Sometimes it may take longer depending on how busy the police department is, but usually, accident reports are ready within a week or two.
The police report contains general information, like the names, contact info, driver’s license numbers of both motorists, and the officer’s name, rank, and badge number. It also has a description of the accident as the officer understood it, and in some cases, they may have taken the time to draw a diagram.
The officer will also note if anyone at the scene had injuries and what they believe to be the sequence of events of the crash. There is another section for “contributing factors,” which the insurance company may use to argue that you were at fault. Your car accident lawyer can help you get a police accident report in Greenville and use it to help build your case.
Witness Testimony
When there isn’t significant electronic evidence, we may send our team to canvas the area where the accident occurred. In some situations, we might find witnesses who weren’t interviewed at the scene for various reasons but who did see the accident happen. Their testimony can be very valuable.
Occasionally, we may even talk to people who didn’t see the accident itself but observed other facts that may be relevant, such as the other car showing signs of damage before the accident or the other motorist driving recklessly shortly before the crash occurred.
Medical Records
You should seek medical attention after your accident, even if your injuries seem inconsequential. There are three reasons this is important:
- Sometimes injuries are much more serious than they immediately appear, and you want to rule out any problems that could worsen without treatment.
- Some injuries have few or no symptoms right away, but you may suddenly find yourself in pain a few hours or even days later. For instance, traumatic brain injuries (TBIs) may not show immediate signs but can have serious long-term effects.
- You want to document what happened in case you feel worse later on, so it will be more difficult for the other driver’s insurance carrier to argue that the accident didn’t cause any damage.
Get Help From Our Car Accident Lawyers Serving Greenville Today
When you’ve been involved in a local collision, our Greenville auto accident attorneys know there can very well be life-changing consequences for you and your loved ones. Even with minor injuries, you will still be forced to pay medical bills and insurance co-pays, which can easily throw your budget off track.
Your family doesn’t deserve to be in financial distress because someone else made a poor decision behind the wheel. Auger & Auger has been helping accident victims pursue damages in civil court since 1995. If another driver was found at fault for your accident, they must be held accountable.
Call us today to schedule a free case review to learn how we can help you.
