What to Do if You’ve Been Rear-Ended
Getting rear-ended is not unusual, especially if you live in a busy area with a lot of inconsiderate drivers. You can never be completely prepared for a car accident, and even though you can be the best possible driver out there, you can’t account for anybody else on the road.
The thing is, if you’ve been rendered and the person has driven off, you’ve actually been involved in a hit and run. Understanding what to do once you’ve been rear-ended is important. All parties should be honest and strive for a fair and reasonable outcome after a crash, but that’s not always the case, as we just mentioned. Let’s take a look at what you should be doing if you’ve been rented.
- Check for injuries. Before you do anything else, including calling a car accident attorney, you need to check for injuries to make sure that you are safe. Sometimes being rear ended is just going to give you whiplash and knock your car about, but other times it can cause something more fatal than that. Stopping your vehicle if it’s not already stopped is important, and then making sure that you check for any injuries over your body is also important, especially if you’re still in the car.
- Move to safety. After your call has been hit from behind, it’s important that you prevent any other accidents from happening again. This is not easy to do, especially if you’re in the middle of the highway, because other parts, other cars will be passing you at high speeds. Turn on your hazard lights and move yourself in any passengers to safety on the side of the road before you talk to the other driver involved. If they have hit and run then you’re going to need to call the police, but you should be calling the police anyway.
- Do not admit fault. Usually if you’ve been rear-ended it’s the other drivers fault they’ve driven into you. However, it’s your fault if you’re the one that has slammed on the brakes or you’ve made a risky maneuver. This is where you need to get that car accident totally involved and you need to contact anybody around you to see whether or not there are witnesses or street cameras or traffic cameras.
- Notify the police. A crime number is super important because you’re going to need that for insurance. It’s always a good idea to call the police to the scene because they need to have an accurate record of what happened and the investigating officer will document the scene of the accident and file the report for you.
- Take pictures. If you’re able to take some pictures of the scene and the damage to your car. There has to be a paper trail of everything that’s gone on memory can be inaccurate, especially in those phases just after an accident, and photos depict that reality much more reliably than you could. Take pictures of where any glass has gone, anything like that has fallen off of your car and if you can, see the other driver’s car if they’ve stuck around.