Car Crashes Are Not "Accidents"
Words matter. While a vehicle collision may be described as an accident, there are no accidents on the roadway. For a collision, wreck or crash to occur, someone did something wrong. Either they did not abide by traffic laws or they did not recognize the extent of damages that they could inflict while driving a multi-ton vehicle. Those drivers should be held accountable. They did not cause a collision by "accident" and the description of the incident is important to your claim. One of the classic ways that insurance adjusters attempt to defeat claims is to label the wrongful conduct of their at-fault driver as an "accident". They do this to gain sympathy for their insured driver and make the collision seem these incidents just happen naturally.... like it was just a little mistake - "an accident". Because the law requires that legal liability be established on the basis of fault (referred to as "negligence"), it is important to call it what it is... a collision. Never refer to the conduct of the at-fault driver - who caused your injuries - as a mere mistake or "accident". If the collision was truly an "accident", then the law may not hold anyone responsible. For you to collect compensation for the damages sustained at the hands of an at-fault driver, the carelessness or negligence of that at-fault driver must be evident or provable. That is why Travis Legal Offices, LLC uses the terms -- VEHICLE COLLISION, WRECK or CRASH.
Many people are under the wrong impression that if the other driver is cited for causing the collision, the issue of negligence is established. This is not true! Colorado laws do not allow evidence of any citations issued against the at-fault driver to be admitted into evidence in the civil trials involving personal injury claims. Although the investigating officer may be called to testify regarding his or her recollection of the collision (their notes, reports and other documentation), they cannot take the additional step of testifying in Court that the at-fault driver received a ticket for their disregard for the safety of others. Traffic tickets issued by investigating officers are considered to be a criminal matter and since personal injury lawsuits are civil matters, that evidence is never presented to the jury or judge. In nearly every case that we take to trial, a jury member ALWAYS poses the question "who got the ticket". We are not allowed to respond to those questions or even advise the jury that we cannot answer the question. Travis Legal Offices, LLC will ONLY take cases where the negligence, carelessness, or recklessness of an at-fault party can be established either by the circumstances of how the collision occurred, or with additional investigations, witness testimony, and evidence.