How Can You Prove Fault in a Scooter Accident?
How do you prove liability in a scooter accident? It’s tricky to establish exactly what happened, especially when the other person is trying to shrug off the blame.
Sure, nobody wants to be at fault for a scooter accident. But it’s very important to establish clear liability. As an injured person, the burden is on you to prove you were injured and show who caused the crash.
Here’s what you can do after a scooter accident to protect yourself and preserve your ability to collect compensation.
Call for Help and Start the Paper Trail Immediately
The first step you should take is to assess yourself for injuries and call 911 and/or the police to the scene of the accident. Alert them to anyone else who may be injured. When speaking with the police, you’ll also need to request a copy of the police report.
The police will start an investigation, including interviewing the people involved and any witnesses. This is a good time for you to gather witness information, get their phone numbers, and see if what they’re saying lines up with what you believe happened during the accident.
Seek Medical Attention
Of course, if you’re injured, seek medical attention immediately. Don’t decline medical help at the scene of the accident or it could be held against you later, as if to say, “See? You weren’t really hurt!” Follow the doctor’s orders about your continuing care.
Don’t go too much further before you contact a qualified scooter accident lawyer. The things you do and say after the accident have a huge impact on your future and you’ll need a lawyer’s wisdom to help you make the right moves.
How to Gather Helpful Photos and Videos
Cameras are almost everywhere in our society now. Sometimes it seems that every street corner and every car dashboard has a camera rolling, gathering hours and hours of digital footage.
Use this to your advantage! Canvass the neighborhood looking for houses with exterior surveillance cameras and let them know you’re the victim of an accident and need their footage. They might be inclined to help. If they’re reluctant, work with your lawyer to encourage their cooperation.
Almost every business has a surveillance system of some kind, including restaurants, stores, gas stations, and more. Sometimes the videos are fairly low-quality, but newer and higher-end systems can gather crystal clear footage even from long distances – including from the interior to the exterior of a building, through the windows.
Check business building exteriors for cameras and ask the manager if you can have a copy of the footage. If they can’t access it easily, take down their contact information and provide it to your lawyer.
Don’t forget about the footage inside the vehicle that struck you. When a commercial vehicle hits you, there may be some dashcam or parking lot footage you can access from the company with a court order. Again, your lawyer can help you facilitate this process.
Another Type of Witness: An Expert Witness
Not every witness is found at the scene of an accident. Expert witnesses review the information and evidence from the accident, then provide insight and analysis based on their field of expertise.
An accident reconstruction expert, for example, can map out the speeds of the vehicles involved, the distances, the velocities, the delta forces, and many other scientific data points that could support your side. The cost of paying expert witnesses can be factored into your case, so don’t worry that you’ll have to pay them upfront.
At Sally Morin Personal Injury Lawyers, we’ve been working on scooter accidents since scooters were invented, and many of us are scooter riders ourselves! Our scooter accident experience means we know how to give you the best possible shot at high-value compensation.
We Handle Your Accident Claim So You Can Focus on Your Life
After an accident, contact the attorneys at Sally Morin Personal Injury Lawyers. We handle many types of personal injury claims including scooter claims. We believe you should be able to focus on recovering from your accident while we handle the legal details.
We truly care about the people of California. Contact us today for a free online case evaluation.
Video Transcript
How do you prove liability in a scooter accident? Well, you want to first of all call the police to the scene of the accident and get them to do their investigation, get a police report, have them do their interviews of all the parties, any witnesses. Then you could also gather some witness information, get phone numbers, contact them, just to make sure that everything lines up like you think the accident happened. So if you think that the other party is at fault, you want to talk to witnesses and make sure that’s really what they saw as well. You could also canvas the neighborhood looking for a surveillance video. There’s a lot of live video nowadays, almost every business has a security system usually pointing outward at their entry point. So if there’s any angle that’s getting the accident, you want to grab that footage.
What else? Let’s see. If it gets really complicated, you’re definitely hiring a lawyer and your lawyer will hire what we call an accident reconstruction expert, who can map out the speeds, the distances, the velocities, the delta forces, there’s all sorts of things that go into showing how an accident occurred, what factors caused it, and who ultimately is liable for paying for your damages. So I would advise checking in with a lawyer if there’s any question as to liability.
