General Overview
- Keep safe and do not do anything to exacerbate injuries.
- Call 911 and report the car accident to the police.
- Get medical assistance as soon as possible, even if you believe you are fine.
- Gather information at the scene of the accident, including the other driver’s insurance details.
- File a car accident claim with a Chicago car accident lawyer.
Over 10.9 million motor vehicles are registered in Illinois. In Chicago specifically, there are over 1.1 million registered vehicles based on the latest active registration counts from the Illinois Secretary of State.
Statistically speaking, if you’re driving in those areas, it’s likely only a matter of time before an accident happens to you. If you find yourself in the aftermath of an accident, you need to know the right steps to take to ensure your safety and get the compensation you need for your injuries.
Here’s what to do after a car accident in Chicago.
Steps to Take After a Car Accident in Chicago
The exact steps you will take after a car accident in Chicago will vary depending on the circumstances of the event. For example, you don’t need to call the police if they are already on scene, and you wouldn’t need to follow steps like “move your car out of the way” if the accident occurred in a parking space.
Still, there is a general set of actions to take that involves prioritizing your safety and your odds of recovery after an accident. Let’s go through them.
Keep Safe
First things first, you have to determine the danger you’re in and act accordingly. Get your bearings and take a look around to determine if anyone, including you, is hurt.
If you feel you are able to move, get out of the way of danger as soon as you can. What this specifically means is:
- If your car is able to move, drive it to the shoulder of the road. Staying in the middle of the road increases the risk of secondary accidents, especially in poor visibility.
- If you cannot move your car, turn on your flashers and deploy early warning devices to caution other road users.
- Stay in your car if there is no immediate threat to safety. You are far more likely to get injured or killed by leaving your car than by staying inside.
- If there is an immediate threat, such as a gas leak, smoke, or live and exposed wires, then get out of your car and quickly but calmly move to a safe distance away. Make yourself as visible as possible to prevent other drivers from hitting you with their vehicles.
- Once you feel you have guaranteed your safety, you can start considering other accident victims. You may help other people move out of the way of danger, but do not attempt to move someone who is unconscious or trapped unless you are trained or there is an imminent threat to their life.
Call Emergency Services
If there is no police presence nearby, call 911 or ask someone to call 911 and report the accident. Emotions may be running high in the aftermath of a serious crash, but take the time to compose yourself and provide the dispatcher with as much relevant information as you can.
Give the dispatcher information on the location, number of vehicles, injuries, and hazards. The information you give will determine what responders are sent to your location: police, EMT, fire response, or a combination of the three.
Stay on the phone if the dispatcher requests that you do. If they provide instructions, follow them within reason while you wait for the authorities to arrive.
Get Medical Assistance
If you or another person can perform first aid at the scene, get first aid treatment even if you feel fine. Not every injury immediately presents observable symptoms, and it’s better for both your health and your eventual insurance claim to be safe than sorry.
For that matter, do not settle for just first aid treatment; as soon as the emergency responders arrive, submit yourself for an evaluation. An EMT can often detect injuries you might not reliably pick up, even with training in first aid.
- Internal Injuries: Pain from internal bleeding can sometimes be masked by adrenaline, sometimes to the point that vital signs may appear normal.
- Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBIs): Concussions, especially mild-moderate concussions, don’t typically result in loss of consciousness, and may not even present symptoms at all (at least early). However, damage may still be present and show up days later.
- Soft Tissue Injuries: Impacts to deep muscles or pulls on tendons and ligaments might be painless earlier on, only for pain to onset over the course of a few hours before peaking two days later. Inflammation can often be delayed as microtears often take time to develop, which later leads to stiffness and pain.
Gather Information
Having ensured the situation is stable, you can start the first steps to prepare yourself for a car accident claim.
Exchange Information With Other Drivers
First, you will need to collect information from the other driver(s) involved in the accident. You will also have to provide your own information to them.
Chicago law specifies that after an accident that results in injury, death, or damage to a vehicle, a driver must provide:
- Their name as the operator (and the name of the vehicle owner if it is not theirs)
- Address
- Registration Number (License Plate)
One common misconception about car accidents in Chicago is that a driver is under no obligation to provide their driver’s license. While this is general guidance, it is not state-specific and does not apply to Illinois. Drivers involved in accidents must present their license when requested.
On the other hand, drivers are not required by any statutes to present their information as part of the exchange. In practice, however, most legal guidance will recommend that you exchange insurance information (provider and policy number) in order to facilitate any claims.
Document the Scene
Gather as much evidence as possible from the scene of the accident. For most car accident victims, this means photographs and video recordings, though it also helps to note the accounts of any bystanders or witnesses.
Be thorough when documenting evidence. It’s better to record as much as you can and sift through everything later on rather than have too little proof to work with.
You will want to document:
- All vehicles involved and their positions relative to one another.
- Pictures of the road depicting its condition, layout, and any signage and signals on it.
- Damage to vehicles and any property.
- License plates and identifying details of any vehicles involved.
- Injuries to any persons involved in the accident.
Get both wide-angle and close-up shots of anything you document in order to establish a sense of scale. If possible, you want to time-stamp anything you record as well.
Get a Police Report
Police reports are often considered the first official documentation of a car accident. They might not always be objective, but together with other evidence, they do form the basis for the official narrative of the event.
At the scene of the accident, the responding officer will request the parties involved for their respective accounts of what happened. This preliminary investigation is where they will get information that they will include in the report.
Provide your honest version of events and do not talk about blame, even if other drivers attempt to point fingers. Instead, provide neutral and factual details that you can later verify with documented evidence.
You will later be able to claim your accident report either through the Illinois State Police or local police departments, depending on where the crash occurred.
One useful thing about a police report is that it often contains the same details you might want to document in the first place. This means you can compare your version of events with the official narrative, depending on how it aligns with how you remember the accident and dispute if necessary.
File a Car Accident Claim
Contact your insurer as soon as you can regarding the crash. Provide them with the same details that you gave the police at the scene, but do not volunteer information.
Remember, while your policy is supposed to protect you in the event of an accident, insurance companies are, at the end of the day, a business looking to make a profit. They will attempt to protect their bottom line by reducing or denying your claim.
To that end, you may want to speak with a Chicago car accident lawyer before accepting any offer the insurance company makes to you. Personal injury lawyers offer free consultations and usually work on a contingency basis, so at the very least, they will be able to tell you if your provider is holding back.
Can I Leave a Car Accident Scene?
Under most circumstances, no; you should not leave the accident scene. There are very few exceptions to this rule, and if you do fall under one of these exceptions, you still have legal and ethical responsibilities to fulfil in order to avoid liability.
These are some of the only situations where you can leave before emergency responders arrive on the scene:
- Medical Emergencies: Are you or a passenger seriously ill or in a life-threatening condition requiring hospital care?
- Imminent Danger: Is there a risk of explosion or fire? Is there an active threat of violence at the scene?
- Hazards: Is there flooding, road collapse, landslide, or other environmental threat that makes staying at the scene unsafe?
If any of these conditions are met, inform any authorities present at the scene, or the dispatcher if you are still on the call with 911, and follow their advice. Do not leave for convenience or out of fear of repercussions, as this will always lead to a worse outcome on your end.
Document as much information as you safely can before you leave.
What to Do While Waiting for Your Claim
Once you’ve started your claim, the next phase of moving forward from the accident is your recovery: treating any injuries and repairing any damage to your car. This phase involves a lot of waiting, but there are still things you can do to improve your odds of a successful claim.
Document Your Recovery
Keep every receipt relating to your treatment. From doctor’s appointments, to X-Ray and MRI scans, to therapy, any expense that can be connected to the accident should be accounted for.
Organize everything into a folder or envelope. If possible, start a journal to keep track of your progress. You will eventually present this documentation to your insurance provider and argue why each expense was necessary.
Respond to Requests for Information
Sometimes, your insurer agents might contact you and request additional details or information. Sometimes, it will be the police officers making the request. In either case, you want to maintain open communication channels so you can respond quickly.
Again, do not provide more information than what is requested. When in doubt, your lawyer will be able to tell you what you should and should not say.
Avoid Major Life Changes
Do not sell your vehicle. Do not discard any evidence you may have collected, even if you’re certain you do not need it, without first consulting your attorney.
Large lifestyle changes can easily be used against you to reduce your claim. For example, suddenly traveling to another state might be used to argue that your injuries were not as severe as you insist, or, worse still, that you are trying to avoid accountability for your share of fault in an accident.
Avoid Posting on Social Media
While we live in an online-interconnected society, and the temptation to share information about your accident might be hard to resist, general legal advice would suggest NOT to discuss it online. You do not know what can or cannot be used against you, and you have no guarantee that other parties are not observing you and waiting for you to make a mistake.
If possible, only discuss in private channels with close friends or family with a direct connection to you. Even then, anything pertaining to the accident should preferably go through your legal representation.
Prepare for Negotiation
The negotiation stage is where you and your insurance provider come to an agreement on how much they will pay out. The insurance adjuster will have conducted their own investigation at this point, and they will likely have a different interpretation of the evidence compared to yours.
The value of your claim will be established by considering mainly the following factors:
- Damages Sustained: Actual (economic), human (non-economic), and property damages sustained in the accident are considered. The greater the damage, the greater the compensation up to a cap, though these damages have to be proven.
- Documented Evidence: Every receipt, statement, and account of the accident will be scrutinized to support either your stance or the insurer’s. Each expense has to be tied to a specific injury or treatment of said injury.
- Degree of Fault: Illinois’ modified comparative negligence ruling means that any compensation a party is entitled to is reduced by their degree of fault, up to 50%, at which point they are no longer eligible to recover damage.
It is important to take note that part of negotiation is arguing who is at fault for the accident, and the adjuster will likely argue and interpret the evidence in a way that makes you seem more at fault than you are. This is the stage where you would benefit the most from having an attorney on your side. Lawyers are trained negotiators and communicators who can challenge insurance adjusters’ efforts to limit your claim.
In the event that negotiations fail, your lawyer can then escalate to litigation.
Prepare for Court
Any number of things can go wrong despite following the strategic practices possible. Negotiations can sometimes stall, or insurers may simply be unfair or unwilling to come to an agreeable terms with you. When this happens, your attorney can take the case to court.
Cases rarely reach a trial phase, as negotiations can continue well into the pretrial stages, even after the case has been filed. Most of the time, the threat of a lawsuit is enough to convince parties to move on their stance.
The reason for this is simple: lawsuits are expensive in terms of both time and money, to the point that it isn’t uncommon for going to trial to cost more than having just made a better offer. Court costs, expert witnesses, preparation, and attorney fees mean that most of the time, fair settlements result in a better outcome for multiple parties.
All that in mind, if you do pursue a lawsuit, you will go through the following steps:
- Pre-trial Stage: This stage begins with discovery, wherein all evidence is exchanged and reviewed. Both sides will build on the case they’ve already built for their respective arguments, and may file motions to limit evidence or dismiss parts of the case.
- Trial Stage: During this phase, a judge and/or jury will examine the evidence provided by both parties and come to a conclusion regarding fault and damages. A majority of personal injury trials are jury trials unless both parties agree to a bench trial.
- Verdict: The court issues a judgment for damages. If a party is unsatisfied with the conclusion, they may appeal.
How Long Do I Have to File a Car Accident Claim in Chicago?
As car accident claims fall under personal injury law, they follow Illinois’s two-year statute of limitations (735 ILCS 5/13-202). That is, you generally have two years from the date of the accident to file a personal injury lawsuit in court.
If you miss this deadline, any lawsuit you file will typically be dismissed by the courts unless you fall under the following exceptions.
- Minors: If a victim is under the age of 18 when an accident occurs, the statute of limitations is tolled (paused) until they reach the legal age. They are then allowed up to two years from their 18th birthday to file a personal injury claim.
- Legally Disabled Persons: People with disabilities have the statute tolled until their disability ends. For individuals with permanent mental or physical incapacity, the statute may be tolled indefinitely, though practical considerations like evidence or witnesses still make earlier filing preferable.
- Discovery Rule: If an injury was latent or if symptoms did not immediately appear, the statute of limitations begins on the day the injury was discovered.
- Defendants Outside the State: If a defendant cannot be located or travels outside the state, the statute of limitations is tolled for the duration of their absence. The statute resumes when the defendant returns and can be served for the accident.
- Fraudulent Concealment: If evidence is hidden and discovered later, the statute of limitations can be extended so it begins on the date of discovering the concealment.
- Property Damage: If you did not suffer any injuries from the accident and only need to make a claim for property damage, the statute of limitations is five years.
- Claims Against Government Entities: If you need to take action against a city, county, or state agency, you will usually have a shorter deadline of one year to file a formal notice of claim. Unlike other cases, tolling of the statutory notice period does not typically apply here, though exceptions can be made by courts depending on the specific case.
Call Our Chicago Car Accident Lawyers Today
In the aftermath of a car accident, securing your legal rights and necessary compensation is critical. Delaying action can jeopardize your ability to recover damages for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering.
You need to understand your rights and the legal timeline applicable to your specific case without delay.
Contact The Personal Injury Lawyers™ today for a free and confidential consultation. Our experienced Chicago car accident attorneys will review the facts of your case, advise you on the strongest course of action, and work diligently to hold the responsible parties accountable.
Protect your future by making an informed legal decision now. Call us at (312) 999-9990.
