You were just hit. What comes first?
Call 911 if anyone is hurt or the cars are blocking a lane. In Texas, a driver in a crash that involves injury must stop, check on the other people and stay until they have shared required information, and leaving the scene is a crime under Transportation Code section 550.021. That law is also why hit-and-run claims are treated so differently.
Then use your phone for evidence, not conversation. Photograph all the cars from several angles, the license plates, the debris field, skid marks, the traffic signals and any damage to guardrails or signs. Take video of the surrounding intersection. Ask any witnesses for a name and number before they leave.
Accept the ambulance or go to the ER. Whiplash, concussions and back injuries often show up hours or days later, and the first medical record is the link between the crash and your pain.
Finally, give the police your account and keep it factual. Do not guess at speeds, and do not say you are fine.
Where do Carrollton collisions tend to happen?
I-35E carries commuters, delivery vans and freight through the city, and the stop-and-go pattern at rush hour makes rear-end collisions a regular result. At the President George Bush Turnpike interchange, drivers merge from several directions at different speeds. On the tollways, speed is the issue. Sam Rayburn Tollway and the turnpike let people drive fast, and high-speed impacts cause the most serious injuries.
Surface streets create a different kind of crash. Josey Lane, Belt Line Road, Trinity Mills Road, Frankford Road, Hebron Parkway and Keller Springs Road all cross heavy driveway traffic, left turns and signals. A left-turn collision in front of a shopping center or a red-light crash at a major intersection often comes down to who had the green, and the answer may sit in a signal timing record or a nearby camera.
Old Denton Road is its own corridor, with turning traffic around the Koreatown Carrollton area at the turnpike. And near the DART stops at Trinity Mills, Downtown Carrollton and North Carrollton/Frankford, drivers share the road with people walking to and from trains.
What does the crash report say, and what if it is wrong?
The Texas Peace Officer’s Crash Report, often called a CR-3, is the starting document for most claims. You can buy it online from TxDOT’s Crash Report Online Purchase System, and people involved in the crash, among others, are entitled to a copy. TxDOT lists a regular copy at $6 and a certified copy, which is meant for legal proceedings, at $8.
Read it right away. Reports sometimes list the wrong vehicle position, check a box for a contributing factor the officer assumed rather than saw, or miss a witness. A report is not binding on a jury, but an adjuster will treat it as the first draft of the truth. If it is wrong, we gather evidence to correct it, whether that is a witness statement, vehicle data or footage, and we bring that to the insurer.
Whose insurance pays for what?
The other driver’s liability insurance pays for your injuries and damage if that driver is at fault. Texas requires minimum limits of $30,000 per person and $60,000 per crash for bodily injury and $25,000 for property damage under Transportation Code section 601.072. Those limits are low compared with the cost of a surgery or a long period off work.
That is why the next layers matter. Uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own policy can fill the gap when the at-fault driver has too little coverage or none. Personal injury protection pays medical bills and some lost income regardless of fault, and insurers must offer it unless the named insured rejects it in writing. Your collision coverage can pay for the car while the fault question is argued, and the insurer then pursues the other side to get its money back.
A rental car, a total loss valuation, towing and storage charges are claims too. We handle those along with the injury claim so that a low property damage figure does not become leverage in the injury negotiation.
What if the other driver ran, has no insurance, or was working for an app?
A hit-and-run driver cannot be billed, but your own uninsured motorist coverage may respond, and police and camera evidence matters even more because you need to prove another vehicle caused the crash. The sooner you report it, the better the paper trail.
An uninsured driver is similar. The claim runs through your own policy, and we also check whether the vehicle’s owner, an employer or someone else shares responsibility.
Rideshare and delivery crashes are different again. The insurance that applies can depend on whether the app was on, whether the driver had accepted a ride, and whether a passenger was in the car. Trip data and app status records are held by the company, and they have to be requested early. A Carrollton crash with an Uber, Lyft or delivery driver should always raise the question of who was behind the wheel and who they were driving for.
How is fault decided when both drivers blame each other?
Texas assigns each person involved a percentage of responsibility. If a jury finds you more than 50 percent at fault you recover nothing, and if you are at 50 percent or below, your damages are reduced by your share (Civil Practice and Remedies Code sections 33.001 and 33.012).
So the argument is rarely all or nothing. It is a fight over how late someone braked, whether a turn signal was on, who entered the intersection first. Evidence settles these fights: vehicle data, the position of the cars after impact, phone records, camera footage and the damage patterns on each car. Statements made in the first days, especially to an adjuster, can quietly shift the percentages, which is one more reason to speak with an attorney before giving one.
Which injuries show up late, and how do they affect the claim?
Neck and back strains are the common ones, and they often feel mild on the first day and worse by the third. Concussions can show up as headaches, light sensitivity or trouble concentrating. Seatbelt and airbag injuries, such as bruising across the chest or fractures of the wrist, also appear later.
An adjuster looks at the timing. A person who waits three weeks for a doctor can be accused of exaggerating. A person who follows through with treatment builds a record that supports the claim. Consistency matters, so attend your appointments and tell your providers everything that hurts. For the mistakes that most often weaken claims here, our guide to mistakes to avoid after a Carrollton car accident is a good place to begin.
When the other vehicle belongs to a business
Box trucks, delivery vans, contractor pickups and company cars show up on Carrollton roads all day. If the driver was working, the employer can be responsible for what the driver did on the job, and the employer’s commercial policy is usually larger than a personal one.
That changes what we ask for. Dispatch records, delivery schedules, driver training files, phone logs and maintenance records belong to the company, and a company that expects a claim does not keep them forever. Telling us at the first call that the other vehicle had a business name on the door saves days.
What should you avoid signing or posting?
Do not sign a broad medical release for an insurer, since it can open years of unrelated records. Do not sign a release for a small payment until your treatment is done, because it ends the claim. And keep social media quiet: a photo of you at a family cookout can be shown to a jury as proof you are fine, whatever it actually cost you to be there.
What is the deadline, and where is the lawsuit filed?
Most Texas car accident suits must be filed within two years of the crash (Civil Practice and Remedies Code section 16.003). If a government vehicle or a road defect is involved, written notice may be due within six months under the Texas Tort Claims Act, and some city charters set shorter periods.
Carrollton lies in Dallas, Denton and Collin counties. A suit is filed in a district court in the county where the crash happened or where a defendant lives, so a Carrollton crash with a driver from Plano or Frisco may belong in a different county than you expect.
What can you recover?
A car accident claim can include medical bills past and future, lost income, reduced earning capacity, vehicle damage, pain and mental anguish. Texas limits recovery of medical expenses to the amount actually paid or incurred. At settlement we also work to reduce hospital and other liens, so more of the recovery stays with you.
If you are ready to talk through your own crash, you can schedule a free consultation.
Which Carrollton car accident cases do we take?
We take Carrollton crash cases of every common kind: rear-end and left-turn collisions, red-light crashes, hit and run and uninsured driver claims, and crashes with rideshare, delivery and company vehicles on I-35E, the President George Bush Turnpike, the Sam Rayburn Tollway and Josey Lane. These cases are handled by our Dallas-area car accident lawyers, from our office here in Carrollton.
Some crashes are bigger than a car case. If a tractor-trailer or another large truck was involved, our Dallas-area truck accident team handles the carrier and its records, and for injuries beyond the crash itself, our Dallas personal injury office can review the full claim with you.
