After a car accident, there is a lot to be done before the matter is closed and you can move on with your life. As well as getting your car repaired you will have to deal with the insurance company and may need to file a personal injury claim.
In both those situations, having access to good quality evidence will help. You can use it to convince the insurance company that your version of events is correct. In the case of a personal injury claim, you can demonstrate that someone else caused the accident. This will enable you to file a lawsuit and be properly compensated. So, here are a few things you can do to get access to the best possible evidence.
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Getting a Copy of the Police Report
Your first step should be using the information you can find on this website to get a hold of the police report for your accident. The article you will be taken to after clicking the link is specifically about doing that in Houston. But, in reality, the process is very similar regardless of where you are located in the USA. So, the advice you will find there will prove helpful, regardless of where you live.
Photos and Videos of the Scene
Hopefully, you were not so badly injured or shaken up that you were unable to take photos and videos at the time of the accident. If you did, be sure to make the most of them.
You can use free imaging software like GIMP to crop your photos to provide a better view of the damage each vehicle sustained. Tutorials that show you how to do that can be found by clicking here.
If you did not take any photos, try contacting the witnesses, to see if they did. Often, the police report will contain photos too, which is another reason to pay to get a hold of a copy.
Sometimes it can be helpful to return to the scene and take more photos or videos. These may help you and the people processing your claim or personal injury case to understand what happened. They can, for example, see how close the stop sign you say the other driver ran is to where your vehicles came to a halt. It also enables you and them to compare the accident diagrams of the accident with the actual scene.
Other Items that Can be Kept as Evidence
Both of the above pieces of evidence are fairly obvious. But, there are other items that can also come in handy when building your case. These are items that you would probably throw away without even thinking about them.
For example, if you were injured, it may be worth keeping the clothes you were wearing at the time of the accident. The location of the bloodstains can, occasionally, help to demonstrate the fact that you were injured and where.
Newspaper reports can sometimes come in handy. They can jog your memory and may include photographs that you would have otherwise not been aware of. So, before throwing anything away, think about whether it is, in fact, evidence that could be used to help your personal injury case.