Answers For Witnesses In Car Accident Claims

Witnesses play a key role in car accident claims. If there are only two drivers involved in a car accident and the two drivers each blame the other for the resulting accident, the court is forced to determine who is telling the truth. Of course there are two sides to every accident and it is possible for each driver to tell the truth, yet have a different account of how the accident happened. A witness can tip the scales toward one driver’s version of events rather than the other. A witness is only useful if he is seen as credible.

Witness Statements Should be Made in a Police Report

Immediately following a car accident, the police should be called to write a report of incident. Even if there are minimal or no injuries and minimal damage, a police report is a important document that will protect the innocent driver if anyone later brings a suit and tries to change the details from what actually happened. The police should question any witnesses to the accident, whether the witness was a passenger in the car or was a driver of another car, or even a pedestrian who saw the accident.

Witnesses Should Never Lie

A witness is only as good as his ability to remember details about the car accident. Obviously a witness should never lie. One lie that could be discovered based on evidence can destroy the witness’s credibility and everything else the witness says will be meaningless. For example, a witness who says he saw a blue car run the red light, but neither of the cars was blue, loses credibility to give any other details about the accident.

Witnesses Should Never Guess

A witness should never guess about details regarding a car accident. A credible car accident witness should admit he doesn’t know the answer to a specific question rather than guess in order to preserve his credibility. For example, when asked about the speed of a car, he shouldn’t guess a car was going 30mph unless he knows for a fact that’s how fast a car was traveling. It is far more difficult to guess car speed than most people realize. Attorneys and judges who deal with car speeds regularly in accident cases even struggle to know the speed of a car when witnessing an accident. If a witness gives a car speed or a distance he should always say “approximately” before giving a number. It is the “approximately” that lends credibility because any witness who is certain of a car speed or of a distance from one point to another must be exactly right or his credibility will be questioned.

Getting Legal Help

A witness who has already made statement regarding an accident may need help reconstructing his memory and his answers in order to repair his credibility. An attorney can look at the facts and evidence relating to the car accident and compare them to the witness statements and assess what is credible, useful, and what might hurt a case for the victim.

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