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 step is the one with a deadline attached.
What happens next
The first call
Free and confidential: what happened, who was hurt, and whether an insurer has already asked you for a recorded statement.
If there is a claim
The office writes to the insurers and the other driver to have the photographs, the vehicle data and the repair records preserved.
The agreement
The contingency fee and how case costs are handled are set out in a written agreement, signed only once you have read it.
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Most of what decides a disputed collision claim is settled in the first week, long before anyone files anything. The vehicles are still where they stopped or in a tow yard, the cameras that faced the junction have not yet recorded over the day, and the people who saw it still remember it clearly. Each of those has a shelf life, and none of the people holding them has any reason to wait.
None of the steps below needs a lawyer to begin, and several of them can only be done by the person who was there. They are listed in the order they usually become impossible, which is not the same as the order they feel urgent.
The first week
Five steps, in order
- 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, for the reason the contributory negligence page sets out.
The deadlines an Alabama claim runs against
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.
Questions
Questions about the first week
Should I see a doctor if I feel fine?
It is worth being checked the same day or the next. Some injuries take days to show, and a medical record that starts promptly is far easier to connect to the collision than one that begins weeks later. Being checked commits you to nothing.
Can I ask a business for its camera footage myself?
Yes. Ask soon, and if they are reluctant to hand it over, ask them to save it rather than give it to you. Many systems overwrite themselves within days or weeks. A written preservation request from a lawyer carries more weight, but a same-week phone call from you can be what keeps the recording in existence.
What should I write down, and when?
Everything you noticed, while it is fresh: the time, the weather and light, the lanes, what each vehicle was doing, what anyone said and who stopped. Date the note. One written the same evening is worth far more later than a careful recollection months afterwards.
In the first week after a collision?
The first conversation is free and confidential.
Contact
Tell us what happened
Call, or write to us
If it is urgent, call — (334) 555-0142. If it is easier to write it down, the form below reaches the firm.
What happens next
The first call
Free and confidential: what happened, who was hurt, and whether an insurer has already asked you for a recorded statement.
If there is a claim
The office writes to the insurers and the other driver to have the photographs, the vehicle data and the repair records preserved.
The agreement
The contingency fee and how case costs are handled are set out in a written agreement, signed only once you have read it.