Car & commercial vehicle collisions · Alabama
Hurt in a collision in Alabama? Most of the evidence has a shelf life.
Example Injury Law handles collision claims across Alabama from its office in Example City. Almost nothing that settles a disputed claim belongs to the person injured in it — and almost none of it is kept for long.
Free consultation · Calls answered 24 hours
You pay no attorney’s fee unless we recover money for you.
If there is no recovery, you will be responsible for reimbursing court costs and litigation expenses advanced on your behalf. Those costs are separate from attorney’s fees, and both are explained in a written agreement before any representation begins.
Evidence record
Minimum federal retention
Almost nothing that settles a disputed collision belongs to the person injured in it. Most of it belongs to somebody with no reason to keep it, on a schedule nobody involved chose.
Business and doorbell camera footage
7–30 days
whatever faced the junction · Overwritten on a loop — no obligation to keep it
The vehicles, before repair
2–4 weeks
Repaired or scrapped once the insurer has finished
Event data recorder download
Until salvage
the car’s own record of the impact · Lost when the vehicle is repaired or sold at salvage
Emergency call audio
~90 days
the 911 recording · Local retention policy — varies by county
1 more record, kept, but slow
Law enforcement crash report
Kept, but slow
Available within weeks; the narrative is not the last word
A written preservation request, sent early, obliges the holder to stop routine destruction of a record. That letter is usually the first thing this office sends.
The first week
What to do in the days right after a collision
In order, and none of it requires a lawyer to start. The third one is the step with a deadline attached.
Get the collision reported and get checked over
A law enforcement report and a same-week medical record are the two documents that are hardest to reconstruct afterwards. Adrenaline masks injuries for days, and a gap between the collision and the first medical visit is the thing an insurer will point at for the next two years.
Photograph the vehicles before they are moved
Both vehicles, all four corners, the road surface, the debris field, the position of everything before anyone tidies it. A vehicle is often repaired or sold at salvage within two weeks, and with it goes the only physical record of the impact.
Ask who was facing the junction
A shop, a filling station, a house with a doorbell camera. Footage of this kind is almost never kept deliberately and almost always overwritten within a month, and asking for it in week one is a different task from asking for it in month three.
Write down what you remember, tonight
Weather, light, which lane, what you heard, who stopped. Memory of a sudden event degrades quickly and predictably, and a note made the same evening carries weight that a recollection two years later does not.
Do not give the other insurer a recorded statement yet
Their adjuster may call within a day. You are not obliged to be recorded by the other side’s insurer, and in Alabama the stakes of an offhand answer are unusually high — see the contributory negligence rule below.
What settles a claim
Five things decide a disputed collision claim
Not the account either driver gives. These are the records and the documents an insurer, and eventually a jury, actually weighs.
- What the vehicles show
- Crush pattern, contact points and the direction of the damage are read together and are difficult to argue with. They are also the first things to disappear, because a vehicle is an asset an insurer wants off its books.
- What a machine recorded
- Most vehicles built in the last fifteen years hold a few seconds of speed, braking, throttle and belt-use data around a sudden change in velocity. Reading it takes equipment and access to the vehicle, which is why the timing matters more than the technology.
- What somebody saw
- Independent witnesses are the difference between two accounts and one account with corroboration. They are also the people whose contact details are on a report that takes three weeks to arrive and who have moved on by the time it does.
- What the medical record says, and when
- Not only the diagnosis — the sequence. A record that begins in the emergency department on the day and continues without a gap is a different document from one that begins six weeks later, whatever the injury turns out to be.
- What was said in the first week
- To an adjuster, to a body shop, on a form nobody read closely. In a state applying pure contributory negligence, a sentence conceding a fraction of the fault is not a discount on the claim. It is the end of it.
Alabama law
Alabama’s contributory negligence rule
This is the single most important thing to understand about an injury claim in this state, and it is the reason the first call from an adjuster matters so much.
The rule
Alabama is one of a very small number of states applying pure contributory negligence. If a jury finds the injured person’s own negligence contributed to the collision at all, that finding bars recovery entirely. There is no reduction by percentage of fault, as there would be in most states.
In practice this shifts where a case is fought. An insurer defending a claim in Alabama does not need to show its driver was blameless — it needs only to persuade a jury that you were, to some degree, not. That is a lower bar than it sounds, and it is why an offhand answer in a recorded statement three days after a collision can matter years later.
It also raises the value of the objective records. A vehicle’s own data, the footage from a camera facing the junction and the physical damage to both cars do not adjust their account of events to suit either side — which is the other reason the retention windows at the top of this page are worth acting on.
Answerability
Who can be held responsible for a collision
Often, but not always, just the other driver. Working out who else has a role is most of the early investigation, and one of these carries a deadline of its own.
- The other driver
- For how the vehicle was operated — speed, following distance, lane discipline, a turn made across traffic, driving while impaired or distracted.
- An employer
- Where the driver was working at the time. A delivery, a service call or a commute in a company vehicle can bring an employer’s policy and an employer’s records into the claim.
- A vehicle owner who is not the driver
- Where a vehicle was entrusted to somebody the owner had reason to know should not have been driving it.
- A maintenance shop
- For brake, tire, steering or lighting work performed badly, or signed off without being performed.
- A parts or vehicle manufacturer
- Where a component failed rather than wore out, or where a restraint system did not do what it was designed to do.
- A road authority
- For a signal, sign or road surface maintained by a public body. These claims carry their own, much shorter notice requirements, which is why they are worth identifying early.
Deadlines
How long you have to bring a claim in Alabama
Alabama generally allows two years from the date of injury to file a personal injury claim, and two years from the date of death for a wrongful death claim. Claims involving a city, county or state entity carry their own, much shorter notice requirements, and a claim on behalf of a child can run differently.
The filing deadline is rarely the deadline that decides a collision claim. The evidence deadlines are shorter by a wide margin, and they run whether or not anyone has decided to make a claim.
This is a general description of Alabama law, provided for information. It is not legal advice, it does not address the facts of any particular case, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.
Case results
$24 million
Recovered for injured clients since 2015
The total of every recovery this invented practice is shown as having obtained since 2015, before fees and expenses. An aggregate figure is permitted where it is accurate and verifiable, and a firm publishing one must still be able to substantiate each result behind it on request.
Intersection collision, disputed right of way, spinal injury · 2024
$1,450,000
A settlement reached after the vehicle data and the signal timing were obtained. Invented for demonstration — every result on this site is invented, as the notice at the top of the page says.
Commercial vehicle collision, rear impact, contested liability · 2023
$875,000
A verdict returned after trial. Invented for demonstration, and shown here because a result with two of Rule 7.2(m)’s nine conditions true is what the component was built for — the disclosures under it are produced from the data, not written by whoever wrote this page.
No representation is made that the quality of legal services to be performed is greater than the quality of legal services performed by other lawyers. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future case. Every case is different and is decided on its own facts.
Each result described here can be verified on request.
Client experiences
“They explained what the insurer was actually asking for and why it mattered, and I never had to guess what was happening with my case. Invented for demonstration.”
Client, Sample County
“The first call answered questions I had been carrying around for two weeks, and nothing was signed until I understood the agreement. Invented for demonstration.”
Client, Placeholder County
This testimonial reflects one client’s experience and is not a guarantee, warranty or prediction regarding the outcome of any other matter.
About
About Dana Example
Dana Example is an invented attorney. This page exists to show a firm what a site built on this template looks like once the parts that need verified data are filled in — the biography, the credentials, the results and the reviews.
The practice described here handles collisions on Alabama roads: passenger vehicles, commercial vehicles and the claims that follow them. The words are written the way a real firm’s would be, so that a firm reading this page is reading the product rather than a wireframe.
Bar and professional service
Past Chair, Sample County Bar Association
Sample County Bar Association · 2021
The chair of a county bar association is elected by the lawyers practicing in that county and serves a one-year term running the organization’s meetings, continuing education and pro bono programs. It is a service role within a voluntary association. It is not a rating of legal skill, and it is not an endorsement of any lawyer’s services by the association or by any court.
Location
Where the practice is based, and where it works
Rule 7.2 requires a lawyer’s advertising to name the location of a bona fide office, and forbids implying an office where there is none. Here is exactly where this invented one is.
Example City office
100 Demonstration Way
Example City, AL 35555
Sample County
Places with their own page
Example Injury Law takes collision claims from anywhere in Alabama — the places named on this site simply have pages of their own.
Fees
What it costs to bring a claim
You pay no attorney’s fee unless we recover money for you.
The first conversation costs nothing.
If there is no recovery, you will be responsible for reimbursing court costs and litigation expenses advanced on your behalf. Those costs are separate from attorney’s fees, and both are explained in a written agreement before any representation begins.
Questions
Questions people ask
How long do I have to bring a claim in Alabama?
Alabama generally allows two years from the date of the injury for a personal injury claim, and two years from the date of death for a wrongful death claim. Claims involving a city, county or state entity carry their own, much shorter notice requirements, and a claim on behalf of a child can run differently. Two years is also far longer than most of the evidence survives, which is why the practical deadline is measured in weeks.
What is Alabama’s contributory negligence rule, and why does everyone mention it?
Alabama is one of a very small number of states still applying pure contributory negligence. If a jury finds that the injured person’s own negligence contributed to the collision at all — even slightly — that finding bars recovery entirely. There is no reduction of the award by a percentage of fault, as there would be in most states. It is the reason an offhand remark to an adjuster three days after a collision can matter years later.
The other driver’s adjuster has already called me. Should I talk to them?
You are required to cooperate with your own insurer. You are not required to give a recorded statement to the other driver’s. It is reasonable to tell them you will follow up once you have spoken with a lawyer, and to decline to be recorded in the meantime. If you have already given a statement, that is not fatal — it is a reason to get the rest of the file in order sooner.
They offered me a settlement in the first week. Is that normal?
Early offers are common, and they are usually made before anyone knows what the medical picture actually is. Serious injuries take months to stabilize, and a settlement signed in week two is final even if the surgery in month eight was not anticipated. The question worth asking about any early offer is not whether the number sounds large, but whether anyone yet knows what the injury will cost.
My car has been written off. Does that affect the injury claim?
It can, because the vehicle is evidence as well as property. Once it is sold at salvage the crush pattern is gone and so is any chance of downloading what its event data recorder holds. Where liability is disputed it is worth asking the insurer to hold the vehicle, in writing, before agreeing a total-loss settlement.
What does the first conversation cost?
Nothing. If the firm takes the case the fee arrangement is a contingency agreement, put in writing before any representation begins, and the fee and cost terms are set out in that document. They are also summarized in the fees section above, including what happens to costs if there is no recovery.
Is this a real law firm?
No. This site is a demonstration of a website template. Example Injury Law, PLLC does not exist, Dana Example is not a lawyer, and every case result and client review on these pages is invented. The notice at the top of every page says so, and the site is excluded from search engines.
Contact
Tell us what happened
If it is urgent, call — (334) 555-0142. If it is easier to write it down, this form goes straight to the office.