After a car accident, get witness statements to support your personal injury claim
When someone else causes your car accident, that person will not always accept fault. That person may worry about their insurance payments, or may not even realize he or she is at fault. In this situation, you need support for your claim. Witness statements can help you show what happened, and encourage a better settlement or a stronger result if you go to trial.
Identify Potential Witnesses Early
After your accident, one key to your claim is to identify witnesses early. The longer you wait, the harder it becomes. Not only are your witnesses more difficult to identify after the fact, but memories tend to fade over time. You want to give them a chance to provide their statements to the police, and to commit what they saw to writing as well. Your attorney will help you get the kind of details you need to help later if you need to remind them of what they saw.
Gather Additional Evidence
Human witnesses are important. Still, other information is often available to you. Traffic cameras often capture information that will help support your claim, showing the accident with time stamps to help show the timeline of events. You can also gather weather reports and other information that fills in detail about the conditions that show why the other driver’s behavior may have been unsafe when the accident occurred.
Prepare for Settlement or Trial
Ultimately, your witness statements help you do two things. First, it helps demonstrate the strength of your case with the other driver’s insurer. By providing evidence from people who don’t stand to benefit, you move past the contradictory stories of you and the other driver and help get to the heart of what happened.
To gather the right witness evidence, you need experienced legal help. Contact Eisenberg Law Offices online or at 608-256-8356 to learn more.