How to document a car crash on the highway before moving your car

On Behalf of | Sep 4, 2020 | Motor Vehicle Accidents

A car crash at any location can result in property damage, personal injury and the complete disruption of your day. However, getting into a crash on the freeway or interstate can be particularly nerve-racking. You may have to worry about other cars zooming past the crash site, rubberneckers swerving toward your vehicle or putting a halt to traffic and possibly inciting road rage from someone stuck behind the crash site.

If possible, when a crash occurs on the highway, the people involved and helpful individuals passing by will likely try to move the vehicles off to the shoulder or at least move them into a single lane so that traffic can move. When that happens, it will make it much harder for police to analyze the situation and determine who was at fault. Before you start trying to move the vehicles, you want to pull out your phone and take some steps to document the scene of the crash.

Multiple photos and possibly video can show what really happened

It can be very difficult to accurately describe the position of the vehicles in the way that they moved during the crash to officers, insurance adjusters or the courts. Photographs can capture a significant amount of detail and give those analyzing the collision insight into the speed and trajectory of the individual vehicles involved.

Provided that you are well enough to move freely around the site of the crash, taking photos from each side of your vehicle and from far enough back from the collision to capture the entire scene of the accident may help you in the future. In fact, if your phone allows you to do so, capturing video as you walk around your vehicle and the other vehicles involved in the crash will provide a much more comprehensive record of the immediate aftermath of the collision.

You then will have the option of providing those photographs and video to law enforcement officers responding to the crash and the insurance company that will handle your claim.

Documenting a crash can help prove you aren’t at fault

Even in circumstances where it is obvious that one driver is fully responsible for the crash, that driver might lie in order to avoid the cost associated with a large insurance claim or the points on their license they might receive because of a citation. You should never presume that the other party will tell the truth or cooperate with you.

From the first moment that you exit your vehicle, you want to take steps to protect yourself and your future insurance claim for the damage to your vehicle and any injuries that you or your passengers suffered in the crash.

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