Attorney shares common mistakes people make after car accidents

Added: 2026-05-14

[00:00:00]Welcome back everybody. If you have ever been in a car collision, you know how overwhelming those first moments can be.

[00:00:07]From dealing with injuries to exchanging insurance information, it can be hard to know what to do next. Personal injury attorney Rusty Reynolds joins us now to clear some things up for us. Rusty, thank you for joining us today.

[00:00:18]>> My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[00:00:20]>> So, after a car collision, what is the first thing drivers need to do? Well, the first thing they should be confident in doing is getting the information of the other party, okay? The law requires that the other party must exchange their contact information, i.e. a copy of the driver's license that you can take with your phone, and a a copy of their insurance information, their proof of financial responsibility. All of that is required by law to share with the other driver. And if neither party is seriously injured, do you recommend or why is it important to still seek medical treatment? Well, often times a wreck can cause a lot of adrenaline, and um and so you're forgetting about what injuries might be there that's underneath that adrenaline. And so, when you're dealing with an insurance company, they want to know the forensics. So, it is important to go get diagnosed even if you may not feel like uh whether it can wait or not. And so, that's something that you want to follow through on because you've got to be able to demonstrate by medical record of diagnosis and treatment what are the injuries that resulted from this wreck, and proximity is important. What about common mistakes people make? What do you see most often? I think the most common mistake is um that we hear that's really uh unfortunately is is people will think they're not injured, and they will uh at the be at the request of the insurance company try to settle their case for very small, only to find out later when the injury start to develop, scar tissue uh cr- you know, develops, then they feel like there's an injury, and they've got the symptoms, but they've already settled their case. And that is the the most unfortunate thing that I uh on the calls that we get. So, at what point do we need to contact an attorney? At what point can we just hand that over to you or when or should we just continue ourselves? You know what? It doesn't cost anything to call an attorney, okay? So, call the attorney as soon as it's convenient for you to do so. Get the advice based on what happened, and then you can make the decision there. Calling the attorney does not hurt you. But is there a point where it's too late? Um no, that >> After the case is settled, is Well, after the case is settled, that could be too late.

[00:02:30]Um unless there was some undue uh influence, but even so, you can still call and get uh you know, confirm that.

[00:02:37]It's It's just like, you know, getting getting the right advice on the circumstances versus just assuming.

[00:02:43]All right, give us a give us a checklist. So, exchange information.

[00:02:46]Exchange information. What do we do after that? After After you do after that, then you figure out, okay, do I um you know, do I have symptoms? Do I have pain? Do I have limitation in range of motion, weakness, uh dizziness, um you know, nausea, vomiting, all the any kind of symptom that you've got, then you want to go get diagnosed on what's causing that, okay? And then that can set your course in treatment up of what to do with those injuries, because again, the insurance company wants to see documentation. They have to build their file, and so it's very important to be able to satisfy what they like to see, which is you've been diagnosed and you've been treated. That way you know what uh what's necessary, what's medically necessary to treat what's going on with you from the wreck. And And finally, I know we're running out of time, Rusty. What about a police report?

[00:03:31]Is that necessary in every case?

[00:03:34]>> It It It is very helpful. A lot of times, the officers don't want to come out and and do a report, and that gets frustrating. What the officer does that's helpful is sometimes they're able to be that objective or independent person to be able to say, you know, to speak to all the witnesses. If they have access to cameras that we don't and so they can better understand who had the right of way and get pictures and talk with uh both parties. And that way, if you're unable to talk to the the driver because they don't want to talk to you, you can ask the officer, "What were they doing? What What did they say?" And the officer will will talk with you. All right, Rusty Reynolds, thank you so much for your time. We appreciate your advice. You're welcome. And we'll be right back.