What to do in the first week after a crash in El Paso

The first week after a crash does not feel like a legal week. It feels like phone calls, a rental car and a sore neck. It is still the week that decides what proof exists later, because most of the evidence that settles a claim has a short life.

What to do on the first day after a crash

Start with your body and the record, in that order. Everything else can wait a day. These two cannot.

• Get checked by a doctor or an urgent care clinic, even if you walked away.
• Make sure law enforcement was called and a report was made. Texas requires drivers to report a crash involving injury, death or vehicle damage above a threshold set by statute.
• Photograph everything before the vehicles move: both cars, the debris, the skid marks, the position in the lane, the traffic control at the intersection.
• Photograph your own injuries, and keep photographing them as they change over the week.
• Get names and telephone numbers of witnesses. Not just the other driver.
• Write down what happened while it is still today.

If the vehicles have already been moved, go back to the location and photograph the intersection anyway. Sight lines, signal timing and a blocked view from a hedge or a parked trailer are facts about the place, and they matter as much as the damage.

Why you should see a doctor even if you feel fine

Two reasons, and only one of them is legal. The first is that soft tissue injuries, concussions and disc injuries commonly show up a day or three later, after the adrenaline is gone. People who feel fine on the roadside are frequently not fine on Thursday.

The second is that a gap between the crash and the first medical visit is the single most common argument an insurance company makes. The longer the gap, the easier it is to say the injury came from something else. That argument is much harder to make against a record that starts the same day.

Follow through on what the doctor tells you. Missed appointments and abandoned physical therapy get read as evidence that you recovered, whether or not that is what happened.

How to get the crash report in El Paso

The report is written by whichever agency worked the scene, which in this area may be the El Paso Police Department, the El Paso County Sheriff's Office or the Texas Department of Public Safety. It usually takes some days to become available, so the first week is the right time to start asking.

Read it carefully when you get it. Check the direction of travel, the lane assignments, the time, the listed damage and the narrative. Reports contain errors, and an error in a diagram can follow a claim for a year. The officer's opinion about contributing factors is an opinion, not a verdict, and it can be addressed.

If a citation was issued, note which court it goes to. City of El Paso ordinance citations and many fine only Class C offenses go to the El Paso Municipal Court. A citation written by a sheriff's deputy, a constable or a state trooper outside municipal jurisdiction may go to an El Paso County Justice of the Peace court instead. The citation controls where you answer, not where you live.

What to say to the insurance companies

Report the crash to your own insurer promptly. Your policy requires it, and delay can create a coverage problem separate from the injury claim. Give them the basic facts: when, where, who, which vehicles.

The other driver's adjuster is a different conversation. They will call early, they will be pleasant, and they will ask for a recorded statement and a signed medical authorization. You are not required to give either one, and doing it in the first week is rarely to your benefit.

• Do not guess at speed, distance or timing. I do not remember is an honest answer and a safe one.
• Do not say you are fine, feeling better, or that it was not that bad. Those three phrases get quoted back constantly.
• Do not sign a blanket medical authorization. It can open your entire history, not the part connected to the crash.
• Do not accept an early check to cover the immediate bills without knowing what it releases.
• Do not post about the crash, your recovery, or your weekend. Adjusters look.

How fault is divided in Texas after a crash

Texas uses comparative fault. Your recovery is reduced by your share of the responsibility, and it is barred entirely once that share passes half. That rule is why the other side spends its energy assembling small pieces of fault against you rather than denying the crash happened.

This is also why offhand comments matter so much. Saying sorry at the scene, guessing that you might have been going a little fast, or agreeing that the sun was in your eyes are all pieces someone can use to move a percentage. None of them are confessions. All of them get used.

Fault is rarely obvious from the damage alone. It comes out of the sequence of events, and the sequence comes out of evidence collected early.

Evidence that disappears in the first week

This is the part that cannot be fixed later, and it is the reason the first week carries more weight than the first month.

• Video from a business, a parking lot, a gas station or a doorbell camera near the intersection. Many systems overwrite themselves within days.
• The vehicles themselves. Once a car is repaired or sold for salvage, the physical evidence of the impact is gone. Photograph it thoroughly before you release it.
• Data stored in the vehicle, which goes with the vehicle.
• Witness memory and witness telephone numbers. People move, change numbers and stop answering.
• The scene as it was. Debris is swept, signals get retimed, construction ends and a blocked sight line is cleared.
• Your own recollection of the details, which is sharper today than it will ever be again.

Keep the physical paper too. Repair estimates, rental agreements, medical bills, prescription receipts, and a simple note of days missed from work. A plain list kept as it happens is worth more than a reconstruction attempted months later.

Crashes involving a government vehicle or a city street

If a city, county or state vehicle was involved, or if the claim is about the roadway itself, the rules change. Claims against a governmental unit carry notice requirements and deadlines that are considerably shorter than an ordinary claim, and missing one can end a case that was otherwise fine.

There is no safe way to wait and see on that kind of claim. If a government vehicle, a government employee or a public road condition is part of what happened, get the question answered in the first week rather than the first month.

When the crash happened outside El Paso County

Geography changes the whole case here. A crash in Anthony, Sunland Park, Santa Teresa or Las Cruces is a New Mexico matter in Doña Ana County and the Third Judicial District. New Mexico has its own fault rules, its own deadlines and its own procedure, and the Texas framework above does not control it.

Hudspeth County is a separate Texas county with its own courts and filing offices, so a crash east of the El Paso County line is filed there. Smaller property damage claims can also belong in a justice court, which hears eligible civil cases up to the 20,000 dollar justice court limit. A defendant in justice court generally answers within 14 days after service, so a suit papers envelope is not something to set aside for a week.

This is general information about Texas procedure rather than advice about a particular crash. Deadlines, coverage and fault all turn on the specific facts, and the answers change with them. Wyatt, Underwood and Grasheim practices in El Paso at 705 Texas Ave #100, and the telephone is (915) 485-9100. Spanish is spoken at the firm.