Getting into a wreck can be stressful, and you may not be thinking clearly right away. Today, T. Scott Jones and Chris Beavers discuss what you should do after you’ve been in a car accident in Knoxville.
Who should I contact first after a car accident?
Who should you contact first after a car accident? Well surprisingly, I’m not gonna tell you that the answer is me, though I am on the list. After a car accident, the first person you should contact should be your local law enforcement agency: to come out, make an investigation, and make a report so that accident can be properly documented.
Second, you want to contact any medical personnel that you need to contact to take care of your injuries. But third should not be the insurance company; but third should be to contact an attorney.
You always want to make sure you’re properly represented when you’re involved in any sort of serious accident. And you can contact me, Chris Beavers, at Banks & Jones.
Should I always call the police after an accident?
Should you call the police? Absolutely. Our fine law enforcement personnel are there to serve us, and they are there to investigate accidents. Having been trained to understand the mechanisms and the way accidents happen, it’s best to preserve as much information as you possible can, rather than trying to call them days later, or getting a report that is not going not preserve the evidence at the scene, contemporaneous with the accident.
We have nothing but respect for law enforcement personnel and believe that they do a great job here at Banks & Jones, and we recommend that you call law enforcement on any significant accident, so that you preserve what happened with an official police report. You can contact me in the east Tennessee area to serve your legal needs.
What should I do to document the accident scene if I am involved in a collision?
When you’re involved in an accident, it’s important to document the scene. You need to utilize your personal electronic device – be it a phone, be it an iPad, or perhaps a passenger has one of those that’s in your car – to document what actually occurred and the residual evidence that is there to be accessed at the scene.
I would suggest using the video function of your phone, because you can pan around the accident scene, and you can get much more in the actual view than you can utilizing just individual photographs. Photographs are great as well, and if that’s all you have, certainly that’s better than nothing.
We want to have that information later when we’re investigating the accident, or in the case of my law firm, when we employ one of our reconstruction experts to determine exactly how the accident happened.
The more information that is there, the better. It is often very difficult to go back several days later. The effects of the weather, the effects of nature and other traffic, basically destroy accident scenes as far as yaw marks, skid marks, things of that nature. Please document what happened in your accident, and after you have preserved your own safety, documented the same, and left the accident scene, I hope you’ll call me, T. Scott Jones, at banksjones.com, or you can reach me at 865-546-2141.
T. Scott knows the importance of interacting with colleagues to stay abreast of developments and changes in the legal world. T. Scott frequently teaches CLE courses on trial strategy, teaching other lawyers his methods for success in the courtroom, and is certified as a Rule 31 Mediator in the Tennessee Supreme Court. He is a member of the Knoxville Bar Association, the Tennessee Bar Association, the National Trial Lawyers, and both the Tennessee and American Associations for Justice.
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