Besides educating themselves about the legalities surrounding any car accident claim, victims also should prepare for any questions thrown at them in a deposition, negotiation meeting, or at the trial. Utah’s PI (Personal Injury) lawyers representing the insurance companies and defendants are paid well to trash or deeply discount the victim’s claim.
Typically, these attorneys try and extract inconsistent or technically untrue statements from the victim to trip the case. Our Utah-based firm helps victims and prepares them on how to face these attorneys. Our team of PI attorneys put together a list of collision-related questions that may be thrown at the victim. Note that the victim must stick to facts and answer truthfully.
List of Collision-Related Questions
- What was the date, time, and day of the week when the collision happened?
- What was the location of the accident? And the victim’s familiarity with it – including questions that probe the number of times the victim has driven past it.
- Whether the intersection had traffic control signals, and what was their location?
- In which direction and on which street the victim was driving at the time of the accident?
- The victim’s car condition, and how long ago was it inspected before the accident?
- Were the victim’s car’s brakes functioning on accident day?
- And if yes, can he prove that the brakes were functioning perfectly?
- What was the victim doing just before the vehicles collided? How did he react?
- How long did he apply his foot on the brake at the time of the accident?
- Whether the victim’s car was moving or had stopped before the accident?
- Did he hear anything before the crash?
- Questions related to the traffic, street, and weather conditions on the event day.
- If a car in front had stopped, then how far was it away from the victim’s car when the collision occurred?
- What did the victim do after stopping his car (after the collision)?
- What did the victim notice immediately after the crash?
- What happened to the victim and his car at the time of the collision?
- Was he wearing the seatbelt?
- Did the victim come out of the car after the crash? If not, why not?
- Did the victim need any help to come out of the car? If so, who helped him?
- What did he do after coming out of the car?
- Did he contact the police? If not, why not?
- Did the victim talk to the police? What did he tell them?
- Did the victim talk to the defendant? What was the conversation?
- Did the victim talk to any witnesses? And what information he gathered?
- Was the victim carried away in an ambulance?
- Where did the victim first go after the accident? Did he immediately seek medical help?
What Utah’s PI Attorneys Do After Questioning the Victim
The idea behind questioning the victim incessantly is to soften him up so much that he makes mistakes or becomes inconsistent with his original testimony.
Immediately after posing the questions, the defendant’s PI attorneys check it with the physical evidence available (such as the police report, insurance claim, victim’s testimony, witnesses’ testimony, etc.) and point out inconsistencies, if any.
If there are any inconsistencies, the victim becomes nervous and the attorney then puts the matter on record and moves on to another set of questions (medical-, hospital-, work-, and current-condition-related). Our team of attorneys will tackle these in another post.
If you have been involved in a car accident and would like to know more about the line of questioning that the defendant’s attorney is likely to pursue, we urge you to take advantage of our free meeting offer and drop by to meet our team of skilled and experienced PI attorneys.
FREE INITIAL CONSULTATION
We are based in Salt Lake City, Utah, and our team of PI attorneys has decades of combined experience in resolving car accident cases successfully before they reach the trial stage. 70% of the personal injury cases we handle are related to vehicle accidents.
After reviewing your case, we can coach you on all possible questions that the attorneys on the opposite side are likely to throw at you.
Moreover, our meeting is free and places no obligation or pressure on you. After the meeting, you will emerge as a more informed and confident litigant.
By taking advantage of our free meeting, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!
And, we are just a phone call or a click away.
