How To Take Useful Photos of Your Alberta Car Accident Scene
One piece of advice you hear again and again is to take photos after you’ve been in a car accident. They can be vital pieces of evidence in any personal injury case, because they back up your claims about the extent of the damage and the severity of the accident.
You don’t have to be a master photographer to make your photos useful or helpful, but it’s useful to keep a few tips in mind.
Take as many pictures as possible.
You can honestly never take too many pictures. It’s a good idea to get shots from different angles and distances, as well as interior and exterior shots of both cars. Yes, you should take photos of your injuries, too.
The reason is simple: you don’t want to miss any details. You also want to give a complete and accurate picture of what happened.
This is also your first and only chance to preserve evidence before anyone else gets to it. While it’s unlikely that anyone will maliciously tamper with the evidence in a standard car accident case, evidence does get damaged and degraded.
Use this checklist to make sure you get everything.
Here’s everything it would be useful for your personal injury lawyer to have.
- Exterior photos of your car from all sides.
- Interior photos of your car, including close-ups of airbag deployments.
- Photos of all other cars in the accident.
- Photos of broken glass, skid marks, vehicle parts, or other debris.
- The location of the accident.
- Photos which help describe the conditions at the accident site, including the weather.
- Your injuries and the injuries of any passengers.
- Photos of insurance documents.
- Photos of license plates.
- Photos of traffic signs or lights.
Again, don’t just take one photo. Take multiple photos of all of these details. Get as many as you possibly can. You can never take too many. Your lawyers do not mind scrolling through 50 photos. They will be perfectly happy to be handed a mountain of good evidence.
Of course, you should do your best to make sure each photo is clear, in focus, and well-lit. Taking multiple photos can help with this too. If you accidentally catch your thumb or snap a shot at a bad angle you’ll have plenty of photographs.
What if you’re too injured to take photographs?
You wouldn’t be the first person who was unconscious after an accident, or had to be rushed to the hospital before they could exchange any information with anyone else. If that’s the case you should start working with a lawyer ASAP. Your lawyer can help by gathering the facts of the accident from other parties, and reconstructing events from there.
If you’ve been severely injured in an accident the point is to give yourself the strongest possible case. Whether you got photos or not, contacting a lawyer can be the key to securing a win.
We’re open 24/7, so call to schedule an appointment today. We can help where others can’t. Get a consultation and find out how we can help.
