Hi! My name is Sam, and I started this blog to help other injured people. Before you start reading, let me tell you a little about myself. Ten years ago, I slipped on a slice of fruit in a grocery store. My leg slid out from under me, and in a freak twist, it was rendered useless. I could no longer work and struggled with intense pain every day. Luckily, I found an accident and injury attorney who was able to get me the compensation I needed to cover my medical bills and my lost time at work. However, while I waited for the settlement to come through, I had to get creative physically and financially. This blog is dedicated to anyone who is in that limbo position. I hope the posts here help you decide what to do while you wait for the results of your trial.
Some people don't want to be held accountable for their actions. So it's not surprising hit and run accidents account for 9 percent of all vehicle accidents. It may seem like finding the runaway driver who hit you will be an impossible task, especially if there aren't a lot of details to go on. However, here are two ideas that may help you find the individual responsible, so you can make the person pay for the damages you sustained.
Secure Video Evidence
There are cameras everywhere these days. If it's not the government watching from strategically placed cameras in traffic lights and on light poles, then it's local business owners surveilling their properties through security cameras placed in parking lots and around building exteriors. Additionally, you can usually find anyone with a smartphone using it to take pictures or record what's happening in their environment.
Check to see if there's video of the accident that may provide clues as to who the person was in the other vehicle that hit you. Police will typically look to see if there are government-owned cameras in the area where the incident occurred and research if those cameras caught anything of use. For your part, you may want to talk to local businesses to see if their surveillance cameras recorded the incident and try to obtain the footage.
Lastly, you may want to check video upload sites to see if anyone recorded the incident using the cell phone and posted it online. Alternatively, you can put signs in the area asking anyone with video of the event to contact you. The footage you uncover can be invaluable for locating the hit-and-run driver and proving your case in court.
Check with Local Auto Body Shops
Many times a driver involved in an accident will sustain damage to his or her vehicle, and chances are pretty good the person will want to get it repaired. It may be a long shot, but checking with body shops to see if someone took a car in to be fixed for damage in the area where the car struck you could help you find the perpetrator.
This only works, though, if you have some idea about what the vehicle looked like. This is because most businesses generally will not provide you with information about their customers, so you will probably have to drive from shop to shop and hope you see it sitting in one of the bays. This will happen if you're lucky, and you can take down the person's license plate and give the information to police.
Locating a hit-and-run driver can be challenging, but there are ways to do it. Once you've found the person, contact an attorney (like Edward M Graves) who can help you go after the person and recover the compensation for damages you're owed.
Share18 March 2016
