You have been in a Kentucky auto accident or car accident where you have been rear ended.  Your neck is hurting.  You are in severe pain.  You’ve been to the emergency room and you have now gone to your family doctor or chiropractor.  He has diagnosed you with a strain/sprain of the neck.  What does this mean?  Well I’m not a doctor but over the course of years of handling personal injury cases and car accident cases, I can tell you that a strain sprain of the neck usually means some sort of ligament damage.  Similar to the ACL which holds your knee, in place there are ligaments that hold your vertebrates in place throughout your back.  These ligaments can be stretched during an auto accident just as a football player would stretch or tear the ligaments of his knee.  How severe your auto accident neck injury is depends on what grade of strain sprain strain that you have.  There are three grades:  

• Grade 1 is the over stretching of the ligament.
• Grade 2 is a partial tearing of the ligament.  This may or may not heal.  If it does heal there will be scar tissue that forms.  This is considered a permanent change in the ligament structure and lead to some instability around the vertebrae or the joint.
• Grade 3 this is a complete tear of the ligament and can require surgery.  This leaves the joint area very unstable.  This is a permanent injury.

            When you receive a strain sprain diagnosis from your doctor ask him exactly what this means.  Ask your doctor to clarify whether or not this is a permanent injury and what grade it is.  This will have a direct effect on your physical recovery and your financial recovery in your Kentucky automobile accident case.

There are questions that Kentucky auto accident victims have concerning the damage done to their car in the automobile accident.

• “How is my car going to be repaired?”
• Who is going to pay to fix the car?”
• “Is my car totaled?”
• “Can I keep my car?” 

A Kentucky accident victim will have several options to get their car fixed or be reimbursed for the proerty damage. First, if the accident was not your fault, the first place to look is the at-fault party’s insurance company.  The insurance company of the person who caused the car accident will pay to have your car repaired. Usually an adjuster will be assigned to come out and examine your car. The adjuster will give you an estimate. You can then take your car to the body shop of your choice.  They will repair the car.  If the body shop discovers any hidden and additional damage they will deal directly with the insurance company to get authority to make those repairs.  If the body shop is on the insurance company’s list of preferred body shops, which most dealerships are, they will take care of it from there. You won’t have to worry about it.

If there is any dispute as to the liability in the case, that is whose fault the Kentucky automobile accident is. The at-fault insurance company may not be real eager to accept liability and pay for your car repairs. Generally, this investigation will entail interviewing the drivers of the cars involved in the accident and any other witnesses.  They will have to conduct this investigation before they decide whether or not they are even going to pay for your car repairs. 

In this situation you will want to look to your own collision insurance for payment of those repairs.  The disadvantage to this is you’ll have to pay for your deductible whether it’s $250.00, $500.00 or $1,000.00. This comes out of your pocket. You will have to wait to get that back from the at?fault insurance company if and when they accept liability. You may even have to go to court.  The benefit to this is you will get your car repaired much faster and your insurance company will take care of fighting about liability.

Whichever direction you go, make the call to the insurance company. Don’t wait for them to call you. This may not happen as quickly as you think it should. The insurance company could also total your car, but that discussion is for another day.

Two months ago I received a phone call that no parent ever wants to receive.  My 16 year old daughter had been in a car accident with three of her friends. In fact it was a four car accident. Luckily she was not severely injured.

I didn’t know whether she was hurt or not at the time of the phone call. I went into automatic panic mode.  The parent in me kicked into gear. The Kentucky accident attorney was nowhere to be found. This got me thinking. If I reacted this way what would someone that isn’t involved in car accident litigation on a daily basis do?  What should a parent do when they receive a phone call from their child saying: “I’ve been in a car accident”? 

First and foremost don’t do what I did. Don’t panic! Do not overreact.  Your new driver is going to be nervous enough. They may be bleeding. They are in pain. They are confused. And believe it or not they are going to be worried about the damage that has been done to the car.  They are worried that you are going to be mad at them for wrecking the car, even if the accident wasn’t their fault.  Calm yourself down and calm them down.

Make sure that your child and her friends are not hurt.  Make sure that they’ve called the police and they have an ambulance on the way. They should always be checked out by an EMT to make sure that they do not need to go to the hospital. If they are hurt they should be transported to an emergency room to receive immediate treatment.

If they are able ask your new driver to exchange information with the driver of the other car. Ask them to write down the license number of all the cars involved in the accident. Have them document as many details as they can in reference to the accident.  Things such as pictures of the cars, pictures of the accident scene and those involved are all items that they should obtain if possible and it doesn’t put them in danger. This will help down the road as you negotiate the settlement of property damage claims and eventually any pain and suffering if they were injured in this Kentucky car wreck.  

The final thing that I would do is try to go out to the accident scene.  Your child is going to need all of the help, support and love they can get at his point in time. Your presence will have an immediate calming effect. Being in an accident is a very nerve racking experience.  You want to make it as easy on them as possible, yet you want to make sure that everything is documented. Help protect your child’s Kentucky auto accident claim.

“The other driver lied about what happened?”  I hear this statement from auto accident victims quite often. They have been in a Kentucky automobile accident and have been injured. They have gone to the police station and picked up an accident report. The accident report contains an unpleasant surprise. The police officer says that fault cannot be determined.   Both drivers have said that they had the green light.

What the accident victim is really asking is: “Can I still collect if the other driver is lying about how the accident happened?”  In these intersection cases, where both drivers say they had the green light (which the last time I checked it was impossible), how do you determine who caused the Kentucky car accident. 

If you had the green light and this happens to you, what are your options?  The first thing a personal injury attorney looks at is the police report. You want to make sure that the accident did occur. Is there any indicators or facts that indicate the other driver may have provided false information or lied? Is there an indication as to who the police officer believes? 

The next thing a personal injury attorney looks for is witnesses.  In this type of car accident case it is very important to have an independent witness, someone who has no relationship to you. This is extremely important and will control the outcome if the case goes to trial. 

The plaintiff or the accident victim brings the case to court and it is their burden of proof. The plaintiff must show that the other party caused the accident. Without an independent witness this is extremely difficult.  In a jury trial your testimony against the other party’s testimony is insufficient to win with certainty.  The next best witness is a passenger in the car that can confirms your version of how the car wreck happened. 

If there are no witnesses available, the final avenue is to check traffic signal patterns to see if they will confirm that you did have the green light on a particular cycle on this date.  This can be very difficult to obtain. 

The most important step a Kentucky car accident victim can take in intersection cases is to document everything you can at the scene of the accident.  Get the name and address and telephone number of every potential witness.  Take pictures of the vehicles in their actual position in the roadway.  If you do this, you have a fighting chance. 

Even if you can’t prove that the other driver caused the car accident you can still collect for your medical bills under your own car insurance policy. These No-Fault or PIP benefits are paid for treatment for injuries from the car wreck no matter whose fault it is. The real question is whether or not you can collect for pain and suffering.  To do this you need to act fast to have a fighting chance in an intersection accident case.

          What is cyber sleuthing? What does it have to do with a Kentucky accident victim?  Everybody has heard of Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter.  You are living under a rock if you haven’t.  What’s does social media have to do with your Kentucky car, motorcycle, bicycle or truck accident case?  If you have been injured in a Kentucky car wreck you need to be very careful with what you post on your Facebook or Twitter account, or any social media for that matter.

            Why? We have all heard the stories of professional athletes getting in hot water for their twitter posts.  We know employers check out your social media profiles before they hire you for a job.  Insurance adjusters do the same thing. If information is available on the internet that will help the insurance company defeat your Kentucky accident claim the insurance company will try to find it.  A cyber sleuth will look every where.  An insurance adjuster will search social media sites to see what information they can find to see pictures of you having a good time. Doing things you said you were unable to do because of your injuries in the auto accident. They will look for videos of you bowling, golfing or mowing the grass. They are looking at the dates of those pictures and videos. They are finding out who your friends are so they can interview them. Why are they taking the time to look at all of this?  To see if there’s something the insurance company can use to decrease the value of what they’re going to have to pay you for your accident claim.

            I have a friend, Chris Davis, who is a personal injury attorney in Seattle, Washington.  He had a client post a video of himself snowboarding.  That video on Facebook was seen by the insurance adjuster, down loaded and .  The insurance adjuster  lowered the offer $20,000.00 because he saw him making a jump on a snowboard. The post cost him thousands of dollars. Maybe it was harmless, but the perception was that he had fully recovered.

             Be smart. Use your common sense. If you’re going to post on Facebook, MySpace or Twitter, make sure your privacy settings are not public, that your private information is protected and access to your profile is limited. Don’t let anybody view your profile and your personal information unless they are your friend. 

              Make sure you know who ALL your friends are. If you don’t your friend could be the kid of the insurance adjuster on your case.  If you’re going to post Facebook be careful. Be smart about what you’re posting.  Don’t post anything that you would not like to see read in the paper the next day. By using common sense and remembering this you will help your personal injury attorney get you the best settlement value in your Kentucky accident case.

Will a $25.00 fine really deter the conduct of texting while driving? Text messaging is a part of the teenage culture. Kids don’t want to talk on the phone. My daughter will send a text and wait for a reply rather then call a friend. I couldn’t get my sister off the phone when I was growing up.        

As I am sure you are aware, Kentucky now has a law that prohibits texting while driving. The hope is that this law will help to prevent serous car accidents and crashes. You are not allowed to text and drive. I am not going to go the question as to why we would need a law that is simply common sense. Texting while driving is more dangerous than drunk driving. Intexicated driving causes more accidents than intoxicated driving.

But my question is did Kentucky go far enough in the penalties put in place for violating this law?  Are the penalties enough to really deter the act of text messaging?  Are auto accidents going to be prevented? Are lives going to be saved?

Children of the 21^st century have grown up with cell phones. Text messaging is their No. 1 form of communication with friends.  Driving to work every day, I see people texting while they’re driving. Kentucky drivers are looking down at their cell phones and not looking at the road ahead.  They are not paying attention to the cars around them. What happens if a car suddenly stops or a child runs into the street?

 The penalty range for texting and driving starts at $25.00 for a first offense and $50.00 for a second offense, yet the consequences can be severe and deadly in many situations.  It has been said that text messaging is worse than driving while drunk as far as your ability to control the car.  This can be said of any type of distracted driving. 

My question is should Kentucky’s texting law have more severe fines and penalties?  In states like Utah it is a crime of manslaughter in a situation where you are texting and driving and have a fatal accident causing a death. Does this go too far? I think tougher penalties are more likely to deter the conduct that we are trying to eliminate from our roads.  As a personal injury attorney I can use evidence of texting while driving in a civil trial. This may enhance what a jury would award.

Text messaging and driving is very dangerous.  I know I have posed a lot of questions. Only time will tell if the law deters texting while driving and helps to prevent car accidents. I think the penalty for texting while driving in Kentucky should be more in line with what the actual damage done by this very negligent behavior. I am curious to hear your thoughts.

How much automobile insurance coverage should you have on your family’s car insurance in Kentucky?  What is enough to protect your family should you be involved in a serious Kentucky car accident? These are questions I am asked when people find out I am a personal injury attorney. I try to give the best advice I can.  Most people do not have enough car insurance. They assume that if a car hits them and causes an automobile accident that the at-fault car will pay for all of the damage. This may not be the case.  

This is a follow-up to my last blog where I outlined the available Kentucky insurance coverage.  Here are my recommendations for your family’s Kentucky car insurance. I strongly recommend that you purchase at a minimum the following for your policy of insurance: 

·         Bodily injury liability:  $300,000.00 per person, $500,000.00 per accident

·         Property damage liability:  $50,000.00 per accident

·         Collision:  $50,000.00 per accident

·         No-fault or PIP benefits:  I recommend add a reparation benefits of $30,000.00.  This is especially true if you do not have health insurance.

·         Uninsured motorist coverage:  $300,000.00/$500,000.00 per accident

·         Underinsured motorist $300,000.00/$500,000.00 per accident

            These are minimum recommendations. It is important to note that the increase in your premium for this increased coverage is very inexpensive as compared to cost of the basic policy.  Check the rates with your car insurance agent and see what happens. For a sample of the increase in your rates for increasing your policy limits see the appendix of my book What You Don’t Know about Buying Car Insurance Can Hurt You. 

Don’t let your insurance agent tell you that you don’t need to purchase the additional insurance coverage and limits as I’ve listed above.  Especially uninsured motorist and/or underinsured motorist coverage. These are must have coverages to protect your family in case of a car accident.  

There are many reasons they may not tell you about these coverages.  Some insurance agents are given bonuses if there are no third-party claims made or a minimum number of third-party claims made on policies they have sold.  Third-party claims are those that are made under uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage.  You are eating into their Christmas bonus if you make a claim under this. 

Let’s give you an example of what could happen.

Bob was in a Kentucky automobile accident. He walked away from the auto accident without a scratch, but his twelve-year-old son, Chris, was severely injured. A drunk driver ran a red light and crashed into their car. Bob’s car was totaled. His son, Chris, was taken by ambulance to the emergency room. He had a broken arm, a back strain and glass in his face. Chris had surgery and pins were inserted in his arm. Chris should be okay, but he will have to endure several months of physical therapy.

The drunk driver did not have Kentucky car insurance. Bob doesn’t have health insurance. He has questions. How will he pay the $22,000.00 of medical bills Chris will incur?  How does his car get repaired? Will he get paid for the time he misses from work to take his son to his doctors and physical therapy? Can he sue the drunk driver?

Bob thinks he has full coverage on his car. I take a look at his policy. Bob has the Kentucky minimum insurance. He has $25,000.00 per person in liability coverage and $10,000.00 in PIP coverage. He does not have collision coverage on his car and he has waived his Uninsured Motorist and Underinsured Motorist Coverage (Bob had no idea what he was doing when he signed the insurance agreement doing this but it saved him $20.00 on his premium). The few dollars Bob saved on his premium is now going to cost him thousands and thousands of dollars. Unfortunately for Bob, there is no way around this horrible outcome.

What does this mean? Since the drunk driver had no insurance and no assets our next step is to look to Bob’s insurance company to pay his son’s medical bills and to compensate Chris for the pain and suffering he has gone through from the ride in the ambulance while strapped to a back board unable to move to the tears in his eyes while he goes through physical therapy, and for the pain he will endure for the rest of his life. 

Unfortunately, Bob only had minimum coverage, which is what the Commonwealth of Kentucky says is the lowest amount of insurance you can have on your car and legally drive. The Lowest limits are 25,000/50,000/10,000. The $25,000.00 is per person or the most available to a single person. The $50,000.00 is for the entire accident no matter how many people are injured. Finally the $10,000.00 is for the property damage.

Even worse, the Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist Coverage Bob waived to save a few dollars on his insurance premium would have protected him and his son in the event that the at-fault person in this Kentucky car accident (in Bob’s case the drunk driver) did not have insurance.  Since this protection was waived there is absolutely no insurance money to compensate Chris for his pain and suffering. The only recourse for Bob against the drunk driver that hit his son is to sue him in Civil Court. Unfortunately, it will be next to impossible to collect any money from the drunk driver since it is likely that he has no assets and will be a candidate for bankruptcy.

To make matters worse, Bob didn’t have Collision Coverage so he had to pay to replace his car out of his own pocket. This is not a situation you want to be in. It gets worse.

What about Chris’s medical bills? Well Bob did have PIP coverage. This will pay the first $10,000.00 in medical bills for Chris. Bob will have to pay the additional $12,000.00 of his son’s medical bills (Bob didn’t have health insurance). So, not only did Chris get nothing for his pain and suffering, Bob has to pay $12,000.00 and buy a new car.

Since the drunk driver had no assets that could be attached, Bob’s son cannot get anything for pain and suffering, Bob has to repair his car and pay out of his pocket for any other expenses he has. If only Bob had been better informed he would have purchased the right insurance and this situation would have been avoided.

This is example shows you why you need to be proactive and know what your insurance coverage is. Talk to your agent today so that your family is protected should you be in a Kentucky auto accident.

What can a Kentucky auto accident victim do to increase their chances of a successful outcome to their Kentucky car accident injury case? Why is it that some Kentucky car wreck cases are settled for more money than others? Why are some car accident victims seen as more credible than others? Does the insurance company just like Louisville car accident victims more than those from Lexington?

One of the biggest reasons why I see Kentucky car accident cases fail is lack of documentation.  The most important thing a Kentucky accident victim can do is document everything that happens in their accident case. From the moment you are in an automobile accident you should take pictures and make notes of everything that happened. The same thing applies to truck accidents and bicycle accidents.

If you’re in a car accident, you should take pictures of the vehicles as they are on the roadway at the time the accident occurs.  This could be important in determining liability or who caused the accident. 

You should also take pictures of the damage to your car and the damage to the car that hit you.  Many times there is very little damage to your car, yet the car that hit you has thousands of dollars worth of damage.  This is important evidence that your personal injury attorney can use in negotiating a settlement with the insurance company or arguing your accident case to a jury.

It is also important to keep a diary. You should write down everything that happens in the case so that you can remember it later when you need to.  Should you have to give a deposition or testify at trial it might be three or four years after the automobile accident. You may forget many of the details of the accident, your treatment and how you were affected.  You must have a way to refresh your memory as to how the accident painfully affected your life. It is also a great help to your personal injury attorney.

If you think back to even last Christmas and try to remember everything that happened, you’re not going to give an exact play-by-play of every gift that everyone received that day. This is the same thing that will happen as time passes after your auto-accident.  You will not remember everything. 

The point to all this is you need to document! This will increase the chances of you getting a good and fair recovery in your Kentucky auto accident case. Give yourself a fighting chance against the insurance company by documenting everything that happens in your Kentucky car accident case.

When a client comes into my office on an initial consultation, one of the questions that are almost always asked is “How much is my accident case worth?”  As a personal injury attorney I dislike talking about money at this point in time. It is too early. I have to look my potential client in the eye and say “I have no idea.”

         At this point in time there is no way to know.  At the beginning of the case there are too many questions that are left to be answered. To give an accurate assessment of what that value of a personal injury case is you must:

·        Have insurance information

·        Assess the strength of liability

·        Review and analyze all medical records

·        Know what the injuries are

·        How the accident has affected the client

·        The permanency of any injury 

Once you have finished treating and we know what the extent of your injuries are and whether or not you are going to recover or have permanent injuries that is the time to assess the value of your accident case.  You almost never can assess the value of it at the beginning of the case.  You need to wait to the end to find out what the real long-term consequences of the accident are on your life.

At that point in time a personal injury attorney will use their experience to put a value on your pain and suffering, medical bills and loss of power to labor and earn money. A valuable tool that is used is trial experience. I also use The Kentucky Trial Court Review which is put out every year by Shannon Ragland. Since 1990 Shannon has been summarizing every civil jury trial that has been tried in Kentucky. These summaries of verdicts are an invaluable tool that I use to help asses the true value of a case, which is an accident victim’s pain and suffering. By comparing a case with similar fact situations I can get an idea as to what a jury has awarded under similar circumstances.

Insurance companies have tried to systematize placing a value on a car accident case by using programs such as COLOSSUS. This computer program is used by part of the insurance industry in an effort to minimize settlement values in personal injury cases. These computer programs are used to make settlement offers uniform and to ultimately increase the insurance companies profits. The insurance adjuster simply enters the data into the program. The program then gives the adjuster a range that a case can be settled in. This is one of the many reasons your attorney needs your entire medical history and all of the facts about your automobile accident case.  By making sure the adjuster receives all the appropriate information that is used in the computer program and outlining that data, your attorney can increase the odds that the settlement offer is as high as possible.

        Placing a value on a case is not a science. Many times it is a gut feeling that only experience can truly give you.

We all know that seat belts save lives. Wearing seat belts prevent serious auto accidents. I have hammered this home to my daughters since they were old enough to understand. I wouldn’t turn the car around in the drive way without making them buckle up. Maybe I was a bit over the top, but as a personal injury attorney and a former prosecutor I have seen fatal auto accidents and serious injuries that could have been prevented had these accident victims been wearing their seat belts.

I remember the first time I really came to understand this as if it was yesterday. I was working as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney in Jefferson County. I was a member of the Fatal Accident Support Team. I was called out to the scene of fatal accidents in the middle of the night. I drug myself out of bed to an accident scene that involved drunk driving. This was in the late 80’s not long after the horrific Carrolton, Kentucky Bus Accident.

I arrived at the accident scene in the south end of Louisville. When I arrived I was advised as to what had happened. I was asked to review a search warrant to obtain a blood sample to be use to prove the intoxication level of the drunk driver. After I had done my job the investigating officer took me over to the car of the accident victim. He said the driver, an elderly man, was not wearing a seat belt. I am sure I was being tested since I was only three years out of law school. At that time the police officer took my right hand and placed it on the chest of the deceased. It felt like jello. Every bone had been crushed. I realized at that moment that seat belts save lives. My perspective of seat belts had been changed forever.

Why do so many Kentuckians refuse to wear seat belts if they save lives? We have all seen the “Click It or Ticket” campaign. Over 23,000 people are cited for not wearing a seat belt annually on Kentucky roadways. We know that it is against the law and it prevents injuries and deaths.

I saw a video on CNN that might change your opinion of seat belt usage. It is an original approach to road safety advertising from the Sussex Safer Roads Partnership. The title of the piece is “Embrace Life. Always Wear A Seat Belt.” Check it out. It is powerful! It drives home the point that not wearing a seat belt will affect you and your family. Take care of you and your loved ones. Wear a seat belt and prevent car accidents that can change your life. Drive safe Kentucky.