If you
have been in injured in a car accident, you may want to contact a Virginia personal injury attorney in order to pursue a claim for damages against the party that caused the crash. An attorney can advocate for you with the other driver’s insurance company in negotiating a fair settlement and can also litigate your claim in court if the insurance company refuses to negotiate in good faith.
When preparing a personal injury claim, a Virginia Beach attorney will gather all relevant documents and evidence about the crash. This evidence may include police reports and witness statements. Much of the evidence your attorney may use will be information that was gathered at the scene of the car accident. This is why it is so important for accident victims to get as much information as they are physically able to, depending on how serious their injuries are.
One of the most helpful types of evidence in a car accident claim are photographs taken of the scene at the time the crash occurred. Most people have cell phones with cameras that they can use. But it is also important to take the correct types of photographs that will provide your injury attorney with as much information as possible. In fact, taking the correct accident scene photos is so important that many commercial companies instruct their drivers on how to take photos of any accidents they are in.
Taking Photos
When you photograph the accident scene, you want to make sure to take as many photographs as you can from as many different angles as possible. Make sure to take photos of all the damage done to all vehicles involved in the crash, not just your vehicle. You also want to make sure to take photos of damage to any items or property around the site of the crash, including mailboxes, street signs, utility poles, and any parked vehicles.
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Your photographs can also document weather conditions at the time of the accident that may have contributed, such as a wet or icy street. Photograph any other factors that may have contributed to the crash like foliage or trees which may have blocked street signs. Or maybe there was a large vehicle that was parked that blocked a traffic sign.
If there were potholes or debris in the road that may have been factors to the crash, get photos of those, too. The same applies to skid marks and/or pieces of vehicle parts that are on the ground. All of these pieces of evidence can help your attorney prove that it was the other driver at fault and not you.
It is also helpful to your case to take photos from different distances and angles and to use a common landmark in the pictures which will help show scale and distance.
You want to take close up photos, standing about one to five feet away from what you are taking a picture of. Take medium photos from 10 to 15 feet away and then finish up with long distance and panoramic photos from at least 20 feet away. The beauty of cell phone cameras is that we can take as many photos as we want without having to worry about developing them.
Contact a Virginia Injury Attorney
If you would like to speak with a seasoned Virginia car accident attorney, contact our firm for a free case evaluation and to discuss how we can help. Our firm has successfully helped many car accident victims get the financial compensation they deserved.