Car Accidents: Determining who was at Fault by the Location of Damage

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If you are involved in a car accident and the other driver and their insurance company deny that they were at fault, you may be able to prove their claims are wrong. You can do this by examining the location of damage to your vehicle.

If you have had a broadside collision (Also known as a ‘T-bone collision’) you can usually prove liability. This is because accidents usually occur when you’re at traffic lights or stop signs.

Proving Liability

Let’s imagine you were driving along the road and someone pulled out of their driveway and hit the right side of your vehicle. The best way to prove that the other driver was at fault is if they managed to hit your car on the passenger side. When someone hits your car on the passenger side the evidence is clear and shows they were not paying enough attention to the road.
Unfortunately, the evidence is not always so easy to use or determine. For example, let’s imagine that the driver of the other car pulled out of their driveway just a few seconds before you reached that part of the road, and you hit them. In this case, the damage is still likely to be on the same side of your car, which can make things a little tricky. This is because the other driver could say they were waiting to pull out and you were not paying attention and hit them.

Let’s imagine another driver ran a red light and hit a car on the broadside. This occurs because you will go through the green light at the intersection. When the at-fault driver ran the red light the damage that they caused was due to their negligence.

How to Gather the Evidence you Need
If you are involved in a car accident and you think the location of the damage to your vehicle is important you should:
• Call the police
• Take photographs of the evidence right away
• Get the contact details of any witnesses

If there were witnesses to the car accident you may find that they are invaluable. This is because on occasion the liability is determined by using your words against another person’s.
Taking photographs of the damage to your vehicle and the scene of the accident may help. You should also think about taking photographs of the other vehicle that was involved in the accident and any debris laying around.
Please read our article about gathering evidence at the scene of an accident for more information.
Many parts of the United States require you to tell the police if the accident caused injury or damage to your car that you think may exceed more than $500 or $1,000. If you think the other driver was at fault for the accident it may not be automatically obvious that they are liable. This means you should record the damage as soon as you can. Get in touch with the police and let them know what happened. The good news is that even if the other driver denies that they were at fault your version of the events is now on police files.

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