Indiana Personal Injury Lawyers » Traffic Accident

Indianapolis Auto Accident Lawyer Discusses What to Do If You are in A Collision

John Young — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:48:43 +0000

Car crashes cause serious personal injury. Injuries such as broken bones, brain injury, paralysis and amputations leave the injured person either unable to communicate or unclear in their thinking. The first thing to try and do at a collision scene is to stay calm. If you are seriously injured, do not worry about anything but your health. Follow the instructions of the emergency aid providers and let the police investigate the rest of the claim.

If you are not so seriously injured that you are able to walk and talk and think clearly, then we suggest that you give a concise statement of the facts to the investigating officer. Ask the officer to record the names of witnesses at the scene. You may exchange insurance information at the scene of the collision. If the other driver is not cooperating, do not force the issue. Allow the police to take care of it. However, you should record the license plate number and make and model of the other car.

Limit Discussion of the collision and talk only with the police or your claim handler.

If you receive a call, a visit, or a letter from an attorney or attorney’s office within the first thirty days of the collision, know that they cannot be trusted. They cannot be trusted because the rules of the Indiana Supreme Court prohibit such contact. If a lawyer, a law firm or one of their workers contacts you within that 30 days, know they are not honest and you must report them to the Indiana Supreme Court Disciplinary Commission. Someone who would violate this rule cannot be trusted to work for you.

Give no statement to the insurance company for the person who caused the collision.

If you are injured seek medical attention and follow the doctor’s orders. It is difficult for those without insurance to obtain quality care, but do what you can.

If you have any questions about your rights, seek the advice of people you know and respect to locate and retain a lawyer. Experience counts, and your friends and family probably know a good lawyer with whom they have worked and trust.

Share on Facebook

Indiana Serious Injury Lawyer Discusses What to do After An Auto Accident

John Young — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 15:05:38 +0000

At Young and Young we represent thousands of Hoosiers who are seriously injured in automobile collisions. We represent those injured in drunk driving accidents, large truck accidents, and motorcycle accidents. We know the medicine involved in the care in treatment of brain injury, amputations, paralysis, nerve damage and broken bones. We want to take this time to discuss what to do if you are involved in a collision that is someone else’s fault.

If your car is not on fire, or if you are no longer in immediate danger, while in your car, do not move. Your body is in shock as a result of the crash. Your pulse is up, your blood pressure is up, your thoughts are not carefully ordered. Your body’s response to the impact may by, and probably is, masked by the shock condition. This means you may not feel the pain that indicates injury. To be on the safe side, stay where you are until emergency personnel arrive. If you have a cell phone, and are able to make a call, call 911 immediately. It is likely that good Samaritans will arrive at your vehicle before the emergency people do. If so, tell them where you are injured, and allow them to make calls for you. Do not allow them to move you unless there is an immediate danger if you stay where you are.

If you are able, completely cooperate with the police. This includes giving a statement to them about what happened. It is also a good idea to ask the police officer if he/she has the names of all the witnesses. Sometimes the witnesses approach the officer, but their names and addresses are not recorded by the officer. Make sure you keep your insurance information in your glove compartment for easy reference . If there is any question of injury, seek medical treatment immediately.

If you require legal assistance, Young and Young is ready to assist you. We represent seriously injured Hoosiers all over the State of Indiana out of our Indianapolis offices.

Share on Facebook

Indiana Serious Injury Attorney Discusses Bicycle Safety

John Young — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:25:13 +0000

I read in the paper today about the death of Ross Faris, the owner of Your Neighbor’s Garden, and former executive at Lilly. Immediately upon reading the piece, I was taken back to driving along Grandview Drive and seeing the little self help stand. It is one of those little “summer in Indy” memories that will always bring a smile to my face.

I do not know any of the details of the Mr. Faris’ accident, but I want to take this time to talk about bike safety. Bicyclists have a right to use the roadways. Bicycling is good for so many reasons, not the least of which include improved physical fitness of the cyclist and conservation of fossil fuels. I am both a cyclists and a motorist. As a cyclist, I have encountered hostility from drivers. As a cyclist I have also encountered negligence by drivers, mostly those using cell phones, which have put me in danger. As a motorist, I have encountered cyclists who do not observe the rules of the road and put themselves in danger, or at the least cause motorist frustration.

There are a few ideas I always consider when I am a cyclist and a motorist that may help the situation. Motorists: Relax, you may get where you are going just a tad later than you wanted, but compared with a life time of guilt for that one moment of impatience getting there a little later is a small price to pay. Get off the cell phone while you are driving. In the context of this discussion, it will save the health and welfare of a cyclist. In the big picture it will save you from killing yourself. Give the cyclist at least three- four feet of leeway when passing. This room will increase the safety for the cyclist immeasurably. Do not yell at a cyclist as you pass them. The cyclist has the right to use the road, and if they are using it responsibly, yelling at them does nothing but show you are at best impatient, and at worst a bone head.

Cyclists. Wear your helmet. Be seen- Meaning wear light clothing, use flashing lights and use reflectors. Obey the rules of the road. Be careful.

I hope to see many more cyclists of the roads. Let’s make sure everyone has a positive experience, and makes it home safe.

Share on Facebook

What Does State Minimum Auto Insurance Mean in Indiana?

John Young — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 17:36:42 +0000

Why does the State of Indiana require that there be minimum insurance? As your Indiana Serious personal Injury lawyer, we see firsthand the kinds of harm car accidents can cause. It does not matter if the crash is a drunk driving accident or a highway accident. These harms, including brain injury, broken bones, spinal cord injuries resulting in paralysis or amputation, can interfere with any Hoosiers ability to earn a living and enjoy their life. So when a driver carries the minimum state limit of liability insurance coverage, that is all the insurance company will have to pay you even if your injuries cost you far more than the amount available. The State minimum insurance amount in Indiana is $25,000.00. If you are injured and your injuries require you to be in the hospital for a few days, your medical bills will get high quickly and $25,000.00 probably is not going to fairly compensate you. What do you do then? Well you can sue the other driver, but chances are that the other driver has state minimum limits because they have little in assets and the state minimum is all they can really afford. Therefore, A judgment against that person does little good because there is little chance they will ever be able to fairly compensate you for their negligence.

Your best defense is buying three different kinds of insurance in addition to your liability coverage. The first two are very similar and are called Uninsured Motorist coverage (UM) and then Underinsured motorist coverage (UIM). If the drunk driver, or any driver, has no insurance your claim will be against your own UM coverage. If the other driver has state minimum coverage then your claim will be against your own UIM coverage because the State minimum coverage was not enough to cover all your losses. I recommend you purchase as high a limit of UM/UIM coverage as you can afford. After all, it may be the only insurance available if you have a serious personal injury or even a wrongful death.

The other type of insurance is medical payments insurance. This insurance will pay your medical bills, up to the limit of coverage you purchase, for injuries sustained while a passenger in your car. It is a kind of health insurance. It comes in very handy when you have a high deductible on your regular health policy. Med Pay Insurance is very affordable. I recommend that you buy as much as you can, but at a minimum you should buy an amount equal to your deductable on your health insurance. That way you will have little or nothing out of pocket if you are hurt in a crash or accident.

Share on Facebook

Photograph or Video When Someone is Injured Says Indiana Injury Attorney

Fred Crow — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:08:30 +0000

If you are a witness to someone being injured or are injured yourself it is important to get photographs or video of the scene of the injury at the time or as near the time of the event as possible. Subjects for photographing could include vehicles location, damages and people at the scene. Other subjects for video or photographs could include stairs ,walkways,ice conditions etc.The importance of documenting the scene of the injury may not seem important at the time but months later when trying to describe why or how someone was injured the video or photographs can be extremely important to show just exactly what occurred. E.G. if a store says wet floor signs were in place , photos taken at the time showing no signs can help to establish the truth of what actually occurred. Most everyone has a cell phone with some video capability.If you are injured then obtaining this information can be invaluable later on.IF you witness someone being injured then taking pictures or video can be invaluable to them at a later date. You should always be sure that you give your name and contact information to the injured person or someone who knows them. By taking these few measures you can assist in making sure that the truth of what occurred prevails.

Share on Facebook

Indiana Serious Injury Lawyer knows Speed Kills

John Young — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 15:35:50 +0000

It is a common headline, but when it is somebody famous the point is publicized more. “Jackass” star Ryan Dunn died in a fiery car crash in suburban Philadelphia early Monday morning. Of the more shocking details of this crash include that Mr. Dunn texted a picture of himself drinking not long before the crash, the car left over one hundred feet of skid marks, the car was unrecognizable, for a while the damage left the passenger unrecognizable, the car was travelling well over one hundred miles an hour. Speed Kills. It causes wrongful death and spinal cord injuries, paraplegia, and brain injury, broken bones and leaves families shattered.

It robs us of so much. Where is James Dean, Princess Diana and Harry Chapin?

Speed does not just kill famous people. Our hearts go out to the parents of two young men killed in Muncie, Indiana where authorities believe speed cost the young men their lives. Myles Swoboda, and Jake C. Monroe both suffered wrongful death in a crash involving speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour.

Parents, share these stories with your young drivers, it may save their lives.

Share on Facebook

Serious Injury Lawyer Revisits Bicycle Safety

John Young — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:48:00 +0000

Again, I was riding my bike to work today. A part of my route gives me two options. Neither option has bike lanes. The first option is to ride south on Pennsylvania Street from 16^th street to Ohio. Pennsylvania is a one way south with four lanes and is a busy artery into the city from the north side. The other route is Delaware Street. Delaware Street, south of 16^th street is also a four lane street, but it is a one way north. It had 8 foot wide sidewalks and in the morning is not really heavily travelled. I choose to take the Delaware Street route because it is less congested and I think is safer than the Pennsylvania Street route. I have noticed a few things about this decision that I would like to share. The first is that when cars come to Delaware Street, whether they are coming out of a parking lot, a street or an alley, the driver inevitably looks only to the south (the direction from which car traffic is traveling). At first I was kinds put off by this. Then it occurred to me that this was only natural because that is the only direction the driver expects a hazard my come from. Given this fact, whenever I come to an intersection or any outlet on to Delaware Street, I always yield to the car. I never pass in front of them because I know they probably with not look for me. Those who do look, always look startled to see me waiting for them to pass. This surprise always gives way to a thankful smile as I waive them on. It is a little curtsey that has saved my butter on many occasions.

When I ride south on Delaware, I ride on the sidewalk when traffic is so close that we may pass. If I ride on the road the drivers do not seem to know what to expect from me. I think they think that if I am crazy enough to ride south on a one way north street, I may be capable of doing anything. They give me weird looks and sometimes the looks are hostile. I think that to be safe, I want the driver to believe that my actions are going to be predictable. To this end, I ride on the sidewalk when cars are coming at me. If there are people on the sidewalk, I slow down, give them the right of way at all times and make sure they are aware I am there with an audible signal. Pedestrians appreciate knowing what is going to happen the same as a driver does. If the sidewalks were not so wide on Delaware Street, I may have to choose another route, but they are wide, and with a little courtesy, my rides are accident free.

Share on Facebook

Indiana Auto Accident Attorney talks about “The Blind Spot” and Defensive Driving

John Young — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 14:37:30 +0000

Yesterday, I was coming back to our serious injury offices in Indianapolis, from Richmond. We just concluded a significant hearing. I was travelling west on I-70 near the Keystone interchange (Mile marker 83.5, just east of the I-65-I-70 split). At that location, I-70 is five lanes wide. I was in the second lane from the right. (I was travelling the speed limit, but there is not much of that at that location). There was a small car to my right. My front bumper was just about even with his back bumper. I was in his blind spot. He put on his left turn signal and immediately started to move into my lane. He obviously did not know I was there and did not bother to turn his head to look before moving over. There were cars immediately to my left so I could not move left. Although there was a car on my tail I hit the brakes and the car moved into my lane with about ten feet to spare.

To my surprise, he just kept moving left. The car to my left hit the brakes and the merging car barely missed him, then his luck ran out. The merging car kept on going, but in the next lane was a semi tractor-trailer. The semi cannot slow as efficiently as a car and the merging car hit the semi on the passenger front corner. The merging car was suddenly fully in front of the semi being pushed down the road. The driver of the merging car could only see the grill of the semi as he looked left. Unfortunately both the semi and the merging car were not only moving down the road, they were also merging into the left lane. An SUV clipped either the merging cars front or the semi’s front lost control and started to roll. The SUV landed on the wheels. I do not know what happened to the merging car. I pulled over, called 911 reported the collision, gave the State Police my name and telephone number. I thought about going back to the scene, but many, many people had already stopped to help and I was on the opposite side of the highway from where they all came to a stop, so to reach the scene I would have had to cross three lanes of traffic, which oddly enough barely seemed to slow down.

The point of this story is that we want to you to be careful when merging into another lane. Every car has a blind spot. To properly merge you must signal your intent and then look to make sure no one is in your blind spot. If the merging car, in my story, had followed this simple rule, there would have been no collision and several families would have made it home safe.

Share on Facebook

Indiana Serious Injury Lawyer Suggests We Call it Impaired Driving

John Young — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:37:47 +0000

We are Indiana Serious Injury Attorneys. A big part of what we do is help seriously injured Hoosiers obtain fair compensation for the injuries caused by negligent Hoosiers. A large portion of those injuries were caused by what we always refer to as drunk drivers. Maybe we should change our words. Although Mothers Against Drunk Driving has drunk driving in its name, they know that all drivers who are impaired and should not be driving are not drunk on alcohol. Many drivers are impaired because of the use of illegal street drugs, or the abuse of everyday household products. Take for instance a tragedy which has befallen a Southern Indiana family. Brandon E. Miller has been charged with causing the death of his step brother in a auto collision where Brandon was impaired on something other than alcohol. Apparently Brandon Miller was smoking pot, drinking large amounts of cough syrup, to get a high off the chemical in the syrup, and inhaling an aerosol propellants. One of these chemicals is bad enough, but all three at the same time definitely caused Mr. Miller to be impaired. Mr. Miller chose to drive in this impaired state and ran off the road into trees. The collision killed Mr. Miller’s step brother Ryan Vanhentenryck. Our sympathies go out to this family and we sincerely hope that Mr. Miller will turn his life around, to honor the loss of his brother.

We take this time to inform our readers that an arrest has been made in the hit and run collision we discussed recently. Geoffrey Collins, age 24 has been arrested and charged with leaving the scene of a serious injury accident. David Smith died of injuries sustained in the collision and Jason Pedigo is in serious condition at Methodist Hospital. Apparently Mr. Collins admits he was driving the car that killed Mr. Smith and seriously injured Mr. Pedigo. Thanks to the citizen who provided the police the tip that led to Mr. Collins. We also salute the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department for their fine work in bringing this criminal to justice.

Share on Facebook

Indiana Serious Injury Attorney Discusses What to Do If You are in Collision

John Young — Mon, 09 May 2011 18:11:51 +0000

I was reading in the paper today about a hit and run collision which caused the wrongful death of one Hoosier and seriously injured another. Apparently David Smith and Jason Pedigo were hit by a ford traveling east on Morris Street. Mr. Smith was killed. There is some indication that that two men were walking in the travel lane of Morris Street at the time of the collision. However, this does not justify the driver of the Ford in leaving the scene of the collision. We may never know, but what if Mr. Smith could have survived if the driver of the Ford stopped and immediately called for medical help? This series of events started me thinking about what the average driver should know and do if there is a collision.

The first thing to do is to stop and stay at the scene of the accident. Sometimes it is a tricky call as to whether you should move the cars if you are able. If the damage is slight and there are no injuries, it may be helpful to move the cars out of traffic to help keep traffic moving and to protect the drivers and their passengers from another collision. You should assess whether you are hurt and if anyone else in the car is hurt. If there is any question have the injured person stay put. Sometimes adrenaline surges through the body after a collision, masking pain. Keep this in mind. If you have a cell phone call 911 and ask for a police officer and emergency aid. If you can walk and talk without endangering yourself, effort should be made to talk with the other driver. You will want to exchange insurance information and addresses and telephone numbers. You should always keep you insurance information in your glove compartment just in case of an accident. You may also want to call family to let them know what has happened. You may want to consider and ICE button on your phone. ICE stands for in case of an emergency and should be the number of the person(s) most likely to be able to assist you.

Being involved in a collision involves time and forethought. If you are prepared and keep your cool, you will reduce stress and make the process less scary.

Share on Facebook