I was in a pretty bad accident on monday.

Was traveling in a straight line coming onto to freeway. For whatever reason, I lost traction. (there was water on the road).

Started left to right swerve and ended up jumping off the freeway and rolled about 8 times down an embankment and ended up upside down against a chain link fence.

Driver's side door was pinned against the ground and passenger side door was pinned against the fence. Some fluid was leaking into the cabin, not sure if it was gas or coolant, but I didn't want to stick around to find out. I propped my feet against the driver's side door and wrenched on the passenger door for about a minute until I had worked the chain link fence loosed enough to squeeze out. Crawled out, turned around, snapped a picture, and marveled at the fact that I appeared to be uninjured.

I was not speeding, I was not in mid turn, I was not accelerating anything other than normally.

EMT's took me to the ER as a precaution where a police officer shows up to ticket me for breaking the "basic rule." I've been driving for 10 years with no accidents and up until that point, I was relatively stress free about the whole incident. But to have this police officer come into the ER to ticket me with no evidence other than the fact that I was in an accident is unbelievable to me. No one was there, and no one saw what happened.

I'm interested in two things. How do I maximize my return from my insurance claim? And how do I fight this ticket in court.

I will miss several days of work as a result of this and the anxiety that the ticket is causing me has an adverse affect on my ability to work and make money. Overall, this will cost me several thousand dollars in missed ability to work and it is causing me mental anguish. Overall, I think it's pretty unfair to be ticketed for something that wasn't witnessed, and I feel like a don't have a way to be compensated for my stress and concomitant effect that it will have on my ability to make money over the next several weeks.

I've been told by many people to hire a lawyer, which I intend to do, but I was just wondering if anyone else among you has advice on how to mazimize my insurance claim especially considering the ridiculous accusations from the police department.

Please help.

Here are the photos:

The way down

The result

Once it got turned

 

you could hire a lawyer, but that probably wont do you any good. depending on your auto insurance policy, you might have uninsured/underinsured bodily injury or medical payment coverage. umbi would probably not cover this loss because you were at fault for this accident, however, it would apply if say you were cut off and forced off the road. with umbi coverage, you could file a claim to pay for your medical bills and gain compensation for general damages (pain and suffering, mental anguish, etc...). med pay is for just what its name says, only used to pay medical bills.

btw im an insurance adj. hope this helps.

 

What the d**m is the "basic rule"?

 

Most states have such a law. It means that you can get a ticket for "driving too fast for conditions" regardless of the posted speed limit.

In most cases, officers will cite you for violation of the "basic rule" solely on the grounds that if you crashed, you were obviously "driving too fast for conditions". If you have a different story, you have to tell it to the judge.

 

u r lucky to be alive.... O_O

o dammn thats crazy...

 

Sorry about your crash, but unless there was a mechanical error, the accident is your fault. Save yourself the cost of a lawyer.

 

My only thought on the cause would be bald tires or something on the roadway that would cause even good tires to lose traction?

 

If you aren't hurt, I can't quite figure out why you can't work. Because you are too upset because you had an accident and got a ticket?

 

Ever had a big crash? There's always stuff to deal with: insurance claims, settlements, renting a replacement car, etc. And if he goes to court he'll obviously lose work time too.

That being said, why should he expect "compensation"? Dude, it was a one-car accident. You screwed up. You can't expect anyone to "compensate" you for that. This is part of life. You have to clean up your own mess, sometimes.

 

No matter how wet, I'm a little iffy as to how in the heck you can launch and roll like that unless the state has no walls or fences on the side. Especially if the side has a fairly steep drop like that.

I do think it's pretty lame that the police office came along and ticketed you for violation of the basic speed law. After getting carted off the hospital, the ticke is just insult to injury. . .
. . . not only that, but to slap an additional couple hundred on top of what the state is going to charge you for destroying their property is pretty ludicrous.