Playing The Blame Game With Road-Based Mistakes You’ll Never Be Able To Deny

Being involved in a car accident is always horrendous. Even a small bump can lead to trauma and expensive repairs. More severe accidents have the power to unravel your life if you have to leave work during recovery. And, the whole situation is sure to get a lot worse if you’re to blame for what’s happened.

When another driver is at fault, you can at least contact professionals like the attorneys at this website to gain some monetary compensation. While it doesn’t make up for what’s happened, it can at least help you to pay for things like medical bills and time off work. When you’re at fault, however, you face losing even more money, as well as having to cope with legal action during one of the most stressful times of your life.

You don’t need us to tell you that’s far from ideal. To make matters worse, car accident attorneys often turn to things like CCTV and witness statements to back a client’s case. As such, making obvious driving mistakes is sure to implicate you in any accident. To make sure it doesn’t happen, it’s always worth steering clear of these rookie and obvious road-based errors.

Ignoring the speed limit

Let’s say you’re driving home after a long day. You know that you shouldn’t, but you knock the speed dial up to ten miles over the limit. You just want to get home, right? The trouble is that speed cameras do more than dish out tickets. They also come in handy where accidents are involved. You can bet an attorney will seek out any possible footage which shows the speed at which you were driving. As easy as that, your ten miles extra becomes undeniable proof that this whole incident is your fault. That stands whether the other driver made a mistake too or not. You’re the one who broke the law, and you’re the one who will face the consequences. Given that even a small amount over the limit can lead to a whole lot more damage, you’ll then face paying out a great deal more. This blatant breach of the law could also see you losing your license. When you think of it like that, is getting home five minutes earlier really worth the hassle?

Using your phone

In the majority of states, there’s no current law against using your phone. As such, you may assume that you’re free to do it. But, you couldn’t be more wrong. Even just checking a text can increase your risk of accident no end. To put this into perspective, consider that distracted driving is the number one cause of accidents on our roads. And, that’s exactly what you’re doing the moment you shift your attention to your phone. And, you can bet that a witness will be more than willing to testify to your guilt here if an attorney approaches them. The other driver will also probably be able to point the finger of blame if they get any sign of this. If you were sending or receiving a text or call at the time, your phone log would have some pretty damning evidence, too. If there’s no law against this in your area, you might be lucky enough to avoid losing your license altogether. That’ll be next to useless to you, though, because you won’t be able to afford a car after the amount you’d have to pay in damages.

Taking your hands off the wheel

Let’s say that you’ve got kids in the back, or that you’re reaching behind to grab a chocolate bar. Then, bang. You’re gone right into the back of someone at a stop sign, traffic lights, or wherever. As much as you try to plead innocence, passers-by and other drivers saw, without a doubt, that you took your hands clean off the wheel. Even if you only lost contact for ten seconds, this can be damning evidence. To add insult to injury, most people who take their hands off the wheel also make the mistake of taking their eyes off the road. While CCTV might not pick up on the loss of contact, then, they could still back the fact that you were very much to blame. Again, this isn’t a legal issue in most cases. There’s no set law which says you need to have both hands on the wheel at all times. But, that isn’t going to help you when the accident was still so clearly your fault.

Running a red light

There’s nothing more frustrating than pulling up at traffic lights as they turn red. Some journeys, this can happen three or four times. By the fourth, you’re probably pretty pissed, so you slip through that red and hope no one notices. The problem is that you slam right into the side of a car coming the other way. The vehicle which paid attention to the GREEN light in their lane. When it comes to blame, few things are more damning than this. For one, the majority of traffic light systems are set up with cameras for this exact purpose. On your day in court, then, an attorney could easily pull this footage out of the bag. Case closed. As if that weren’t damning enough, traffic lights tend to be rather busy places. You can pretty much guarantee, then, that there are going to a whole load of witnesses to an incident like this. And, you can bet every one of them will be happy to state that they saw you skip that red light. Again, this is a legal issue which could see you off the roads for the foreseeable. All because you wanted to save yourself a minute or two on that fateful journey.

When you consider the ways lousy behavior on the roads can work against you, it’s never worth the risk. Drive by the rules, and you could be the one giving the statement against another reckless driver next time you’re involved in issues like these.