How to Determine Liability in a Sideswipe Auto Accident?
2 min read
Besides causing minor car damage, sideswipe collisions can also cause serious injuries that aren’t immediately apparent. Injuries suffered in these accidents can prove more difficult to compensate for due to the complexity of determining fault.
Consult a car accident lawyer in Toledo to discover more about your legal possibilities after a sideswipe accident.
What Are Sideswipe Accidents?
Sideswipe accidents occur when two cars traveling in the same direction collide. Either the left-hand vehicle collides with the right-hand vehicle or vice versa. A significant majority of sideswipe collisions occur in the opposite direction.
Which portion of the vehicle is involved in a collision often determines its severity. The more severe the damage, the greater the likelihood that the victim will sustain injuries. Even if the automobiles involved were only slightly damaged, serious injuries could still occur.
For instance, suppose the front right end of one vehicle collides with the left rear end. If the driver of the impacted vehicle loses control and spins out, an extensive collision involving numerous vehicles may result. When these collisions occur, the victims may hit fixed items such as:
- Barrels
- Highway signage
- Trees
- Guardrails
- Poles with lights
- Utility regulations
- Concrete stumbling blocks
Sideswipes can be particularly dangerous on highways, especially when multiple lanes of traffic are going at high speeds.
How To Prove Liability For A Sideswipe Accident?
To establish that someone else is accountable for your losses, you must show that their negligence caused the accident that resulted in your injuries. You’ll need to acquire the relevant evidence and put together a compelling compensation case to do so.
You may be able to utilize the following evidence to prove accountability for the accident:
- Based on a police report
- Photographs from the scene
- Statements from eyewitnesses
To safeguard your health and help relate your injuries to the incident, you should seek medical assistance.
Regardless of how minor you consider the collision to be, you should always call the police. You need to file an official report of the accident. Furthermore, you do not want your insurance company to think that something other than the collision caused your injuries. Without a police report, you may find it harder to establish that you were involved in a car accident.
The other motorist may give money, but there’s no way to know if it’ll compensate you for your losses. What if you suffered more severe injuries than expected, and your award money becomes exhausted? There’s a good chance the insurance company will dispute your losses.
