Car accidents can be quite devastating and damaging. They can make a tragedy happen like death or false accusation. Even small accidents can lead to hundreds of dollars in reimbursement fees loaded over you. Road incidents, whether big or small, shouldn’t be taken lightly. When you are involved in an accident, you might feel shocked and out of senses for a bit, but this is the exact situation where you need to be completely awake. If you drive with family or friends, you need to be responsible for them.
Accidents on the road can be traumatizing, but when you get charged for one, it can become a nightmare for you to deal with. A hit and run charge is when you leave the scene of an accident that was evidently your fault for any reason. Whether you were at fault or not, clearing a charge is not easy, and you might end up in jail if you don’t carefully handle the case. For this reason, the following are some things you can do to avoid facing detention for a hit and run.
Ways a Hit and Run can happen
There are many situations in which a hit and run can be charged on you, either conditionally or unconditionally, and the instances can be one of the following.
- Hitting a Car
- A Bicyclist
- A Pedestrian
- Property
- Or a Rigid Vehicle
Charges of a Hit and Run
There are different types of penalties that a person committing a hit and run can be convicted with. Depending on the fact that the case is a simple hit and run, misdemeanor, or a felony, you will be accountable to face punishments on different levels. You could get convicted of a single year or several years in jail. A simple hit and run won’t be much damaging to you that which only involves a light scratch or a slight hit with the other vehicle. But if you’re blamed responsible for destroying property, putting the other party in a critical state or causing death can have you paying hefty fines. In the case of a misdemeanor, possible jail time of a year has to be finished by you, and a fine of $5000 will be specified payable by you. And if that act is deemed a felony which is the most severe state of crime done, you’ll be accountable to spend many years in prison depending on the ruling of the jury and the density of your offense.
The other party could also sue you in most cases if you, a hit and run, hurt them or their vehicle and didn’t promise to compensate for the loss. You will need to pay a humongous amount, including having it tripled of what the offended askes as an act to have the criminal face justice.
As this will be a crime done with the use of a vehicle, your driver’s license will be taken away from you by the government. It may take up to six months or more, depending on the charges.
What You Should Do When an Accident Happens
These are some of the things that you can do to avoid any crime that you are evicted of like hit and run.
Stop the Vehicle
Whenever you think that you hit a vehicle, you must stop the car at once. For many reasons. First, it may be a rule in your state or country to do so. Second, you could get charged with a crime entailing intense prison time. You can turn off your car and standby until authorities arrive to settle the case.
Make Sure Everyone is Safe
But when an accident has occurred, and you had passengers in the car, make sure that they are okay. If they need any medical assistance, you shouldn’t waste time and call an ambulance. You could perform some first aid on your own until the help arrives. And do so too if the other party gets hurt.
Examine Your Ride
Collisions of cars can have severe damages on both or one can suffer more than the other. In light accidents, where your vehicle touches the other slightly, you might think that all is well with it besides a broken bonnet and a few scrapes. But you never know if there is something else also wrong with the car. After an incident happens involving your vehicle hitting a surface, stepping out of it, and examining it is vital. It could suffer leaks or failures in the system to have the car explode, hurting you and several standbys.
In case that you smell something burning or spot gas coming from your, step back from it immediately as it could be set up in flames.
Don’t Touch Anything
Never try to replace things scattered in a scene of a car accident. These could be the cars’ parts or items from the vehicle. These could all serve as evidence as to who was the one at fault. If you’re ever wrongfully held guilty for it, this evidence can protect you.
Don’t Talk to Anybody
You must also not start a conversation with the passengers of the other car in case they make you admit the fault and record your testimonials against you to present to the police. A bystander can also be harmful to talk as they decide to blame you for the incident depending on your conversation with them.
Call the Authorities
The police that you call on the scene to examine and rule out who is to blame for the accident will serve as the sole figure to getting you reimbursement and free from liability of the crime of it. As soon as you get into an accident, you’re to call 911 for reporting it, as it is a rule in most states.
Take Pictures
You must create photographic evidence of your car, any injuries you or your passengers succumbed, the road, any broken street instrument, and anything else you feel like should be documented.
How Can a Lawyer Help You
Lawyers best handle cases like these. But make sure that you choose a reliable lawyer for the task such as from San Diego Criminal Lawyer. What’s really important about hiring proficient lawyers is that this case is a critical one, and only an experienced lawyer can handle it well. Your attorney will know what to do once you have fled the scene after committing a driving crime. He/she has the knowledge to have the police stop from going to your home and arrest you after they find out what you did. Trying to solve a critical case like this by yourself can have you in jail for a longer time in case you present an absurd statement about why you left the scene, so you should let your lawyer handle it.
Lawyers are professionals and they have experience fighting similar cases, so they are aligned to handle yours well too. Even if you’re not guilty of any charges but by making one leading statement, you could be penalized for the crime. Lawyers know how to present evidence in a structural way to have your free of the crime. They’re also able to persuade your insurance company to back up any damages of your property.
When You Can Remove Your Charge
There are statements you can present the court with if you are convicted of a hit and run crime. You come up claims or provide what really happened at the scene to get them on your side.
Unconsciousness
When you receive a hit and run charge, the chances are that you weren’t aware that the offended party got hurt with the accident and left the scene. A defense such as this can work well in court in the case that you were or weren’t aware of the damage done to them.
Emergency
You can state that you were involved in the act of calamity that you accidentally caused the crash and had to drive away from it. Possibly you were headed to the hospital due to an emergency or a fatal problem.
Not Your Fault
When the accident occurred, and you weren’t the one driving either at the happening of the incident or when taking the vehicle off from the scene, you can make a claim for yourself. In your defense, you can gather proof to present it to the court, like some pictures taken in the car or a bystander who had seen the incident.
Don’t do these…
Contact the police
In the light of the event where you have left the scene of an accident caused by your vehicle due to any pushing reason, you might suffer from some guilt when you reach your destination. And when you feel resentment, you might be persuaded to call the authorities and inform them about your crime. Doing this can have you face charges so you should wait it out or call a lawyer.
Make false statements
When presenting the authorities with an explanation as to why you had to do what you did by leaving the accident scene, avoid over explaining. Anything that they find odd coming from your mouth can be the defining term for sending you to get a penalty that you might not be subjected to.
