Guy ran a light, totalled my truck & claiming personal injury. Any lawyers handy?

[T8R]

A guy ran a red left hand turn signal coming the opposite direction, and only made it 1/2 way across a 6 lane intersection. He apparently thought he could make it and found out otherwise. I was heading straight across the intersection with a solid green light and T-boned him. He was moving fast enough to spin my 1/2 ton SUV 90 degrees. (It's hard to run a light that already turned green, so there's little question of fault. Looking forward to getting a copy of the official report since there were cameras at the intersection.) Fortunately, everyone walked away although one of his passengers went to get checked out afterwards. I am concerned because I was just informed by my insurance company that the other party is inquiring about my personal injury coverage, which seems inappropriate considering that the other driver was at fault. It seems rather fishy, so I don't trust it. Don't know if it'll be necessary yet, but if anyone on her is... or knows a good lawyer, I would be appreciative. Thanks.

[cartmanea]

Your insurance company will fight to put all cost on the other person's coverage. Given the circumstances, it sounds like 100% their fault and it should be pretty clear cut. Hope it all works out, I'm still waiting to hear on mine...

[T8R]

Thanks - best luck with yours as well. Bright side is that it's why I ended up buying my 250. I could check the thread - but how is progress with yours so far? Any word from the estimator?

If it helps anyone who's renovating their rig... there's a complete black Harley Davidson super duty interior on ebay... everything from the carpet to gauges to head liner. :-) I wish it were in my budget.

[mongo75]

Don't sweat it- the same thing happened to me in NY, but no witnesses stayed that could verify the lights, and that sucked. I put the passenger in the hospital with broken ribs, broken femur, broken wrist, ruptured spleen, lacerated liver, and hemoraging in the brain. She almost died.... Thankfully after 3 weeks in a coma and 7 more weeks of rehab she was ok. We both had Gieco, and that made things hard to fight the finding of the police, which faulted us each 50%?? WTF????

[cartmanea]

We both had Allstate, which is probably why the insurance adjuster came back with an estimate of about 50% what two local shops quoted me. They sent another person out to re-evaluate, but haven't heard anything yet.

[HeavyAssault]

Originally Posted by T8R

Thanks - best luck with yours as well. Bright side is that it's why I ended up buying my 250. I could check the thread - but how is progress with yours so far? Any word from the estimator?

If it helps anyone who's renovating their rig... there's a complete black Harley Davidson super duty interior on ebay... everything from the carpet to gauges to head liner. :-) I wish it were in my budget.

Can you post the auction number?

[senix]

good luck, you should be ok. Kinda standard practice that they inquire, they are just getting a temp check to kinda feel it out and see if they got a shot.

Did anyone get cited at the accident? That would be helpful in your defense.

[papadelogan]

Did you get witness statements & pictures? Pictures are important but eyewitness accounts are what really matters. My brother got tagged in a parking lot a few weeks back and at the time the woman admitted she was reaching for her purse on the passenger's floor & drifted..... now? she's saying it's his fault, and he might be screwed. Sort of...

[T8R]

Originally Posted by cartmanea

We both had Allstate, which is probably why the insurance adjuster came back with an estimate of about 50% what two local shops quoted me. They sent another person out to re-evaluate, but haven't heard anything yet.

In my case - we have the same insurance company as well, which is partly why I'm trying to make sure to c.m.a. It seems unlikely that they'll be terribly concerned with who gets dinged, since it'll cost them the same either way. (better for them if both individuals rates go up)

As for the rest - the officer at the scene took a full report along with diagrams of the skid marks and there were traffic cameras on every side of the intersection because it's one of the more notorious lights in our are for people to try to sneak through. That still means waiting (up to several months) for a copy of the report... and hoping that the cameras were actually turned on and not malfunctioning at the time... which is another possibility around here. Both vehicles are new enough to have black boxes, but that only gives telemetry... although it would indicate how fast the other driver was moving. (he was definitely bookin' through the intersection) There was also one witness - but that's again hoping that she actually noticed what color the lights were at the time - rather than "this truck hit that truck, I saw it happen."

On the bright side - it isn't likely that someone would run a light that was about to turn green... as opposed to a last second turn signal that just turned red. He did admit at the scene that "I thought it ways yellow", but hopefully the cameras were working that day.

[T8R]

Originally Posted by HeavyAssault

Can you post the auction number?

Here ya go - my apologies... they seem to have included everything except the head liner. *smirk* 250453729729

[Ace!]

In some states you are not eligible for an injury claim against his policy unless you carry personal injury protection, so it could as easily have been checking to see if you are eligible to make a claim against him as him seeing if you have it for him to make against you. Who told you he was asking about it?

[T8R]

The insurance co.

[Krewat]

It's pretty much a "They do it all the time".

Whenever someone's injured, they try to get the other insurance company to roll over.

When I was 19, I had a Triumph TR7. Tooling around a dark back-road, a woman made a left-turn right in front of me. Now realize, it's nighttime, there's no one else around but me, I have these big pop-up headlights on the TR7, very visible, etc.

And I do mean RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME.

Her teenage daughter was in the passenger seat, I smashed in the door, and of course, the door hit her in the rib cage.

There was NO WAY it was my fault, and yet, their insurance company tried to get me for the personal injury coverage.

When I got the letter, I called their insurance company and told them in no uncertain terms exactly what happened, and that there was NO WAY I was going to allow my insurance company to pay out.

Never heard another word.

Plenty of other people I know, with NO personal injuries, got letters/calls like that too.

I think it's just something they all do.

[ReAX]

I would suggest investing in a lawyer right now. Even if it's just an hour of advise. Some states will say you had the opportunity to avoid the accident because you hit him (which is kind of correct, but it was his fault for not obeying the lights.)

Having a lawyer in your pocket now, will demonstrate that your serious and if the other guy finds an ambulance chaser you might give them pause if his injuries are exaggerated. If he didn't leave in an ambulance, it's possible he thinks this will be a payday now.

[aldridgec]

Yeah, definitely try to cya. I thought the accident i had where a lady pulled out of a driveway while I was crossing the road would be an easy case for me, but my insurance never really inquired to me and paid her and cut my discounts (which apparently isn't the same as upping the rate). I was on the hook for my deductible (which is large since I'm inside city limits my rates are high and it helps). I didn't find out their findings until I got my renewal months later and it was too late.

Don't always trust the ins co to do what is in your best interest. They may calculate the court costs are worth paying it and charging you more.