4 Ways to Get Witnesses to Your Car Accident

When you’re involved in a lawsuit following a motor vehicle collision, witnesses to your car accident often play an important role.
Third-party witnesses—unrelated to either the claimant or the defendant—don’t have any stake in the outcome of the lawsuit, meaning that their statements are impartial. Witnesses to your car accident thus provide unbiased information to help a judge determine fault, affecting, for example, the amount of damages you will be able to seek for any personal injury you’ve suffered.
 
1. Ask for witnesses at the scene of the accident
Although we’re not always in the right state of mind following a car accident to do so, the easiest way to secure witnesses is to ask them on site. Gather the information of a handful of people, including their names and contact information, and ask them to immediately write down what they saw.
 
2. Post flyers requesting witnesses
We’ve all seen these at one intersection or another around the Tri-Cities: a poster describing an accident, asking for witnesses to the collision. Be sure to include the date and time the car crash took place, the make and model of the cars involved, and your own contact information.
And remember – You MUST do this by law if you don’t know the identity of the person who hit you.
 
3.  Seek out non-human witnesses
Are there any traffic cameras in the area where your car accident happened? What about CCTV cameras in stores nearby, or a bank with ATMs? Any of these might contain footage of the crash, making these cameras witnesses to your car accident. In most cases, you’ll need a lawyer to get access to this footage.
 
4. Witnesses after the accident
No one knows you best like the people around you. Your family, your friends, or your boss are invaluable witnesses to how the accident effected your life.  DBM’s experienced lawyers will advise you on the who is best to tell your story if you ever need to go to court.
 
For more information on personal injury law, contact us here.