#8 MISTAKE: Losing track of the other driver’s contact information and photos from the car accident

QUESTION: What information do I need to get and keep track of if I’ve been involved in a car accident?

ANSWER: After a car accident, it’s crucial to store the other driver’s and witnesses contact information, and any photos of the accident in a safe place. This information can be critical to your personal injury claim or if  filing a lawsuit becomes necessary. If you’re storing the contact information on your phone, make sure to make backups of everything you have related to the accident and store the back-up in a safe and secure place. If you have the information on paper and print photos, store them with your important papers so you can find them easily if you need them as evidence to support your claim.

The eighth biggest mistake you can make following a car accident is losing the other driver’s contact information and photos from the accident.

If you took a photo of the other person’s driver’s license, their insurance card, you wrote down information on a piece of paper, or maybe the other driver or a witness handed you a business card —

Whatever information and photos you have from the accident, it is vital that you put everything in a safe place and don’t lose it. 

The reason these steps are so important is if you want or need a personal injury attorney to represent you, the information about the auto accident is absolutely critical to your claim. If, in the very unlikely event that a lawsuit did have to be filed, without the information details and photos from the car accident, it may be literally impossible for an attorney to represent you to protect you and your personal injury claim. 

It’s easy to think “I’ll always have this information” and then one or two years later you’ll discover that you can’t find any of it. You might lose your phone and you didn’t have a backup of the photos from the accident and witness information. You may put the piece of paper that has the names and phone numbers of the people involved in the accident in a box that you put important information in, but you moved since the accident and then you can’t find the box. These situations happen to our clients more often than we like to say. 

Keep a hold of any photos that you took of the accident scene, of your car, and the other person’s car. Take the time to make a backup of everything. The photos and files may become invaluable for proving the extent of the damage done to the vehicles, helping to also prove that you were injured, and even possibly who was at fault for causing the collision.

Make sure to make an extra copy of everything and store it securely, so in the event you need it, you’ll have it.

Whether you’re our client or not, we want to be a bridge of support for you.

We’ve developed a robust library of articles and videos organized into four topics which include our responses to the personal injury claim-related questions we’re asked most often.

• Top 10 Personal Injury Claim Mistakes to Avoid
• What You Need to Know About Your Claim
• How Are My Medical Bills & Wage Loss Paid
• How to Prepare for Your Independent Medical Exam

The articles provide advice and guidelines to help you navigate each phase of the personal injury claims process. Whether we represent you or not, we are passionate about helping you protect your rights, you receiving the medical care you need to recover from your injuries, and having the information you need to avoid mistakes that can harm your personal injury claim.