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There are myriad types of car accidents, including serious car accidents and minor fender-benders. If everyone is okay, and there is only minor property damage, the police are not usually called and the parties are expected to handle things themselves, including sharing identification.
Car accident types can also be defined by their cause. Some people may look at a car accident and consider it a drunk driving accident, a hit-and-run, a rear-end collision, or a situation of intoxicated, drowsy, or distracted driving. In reality, one accident could encapsulate all of these factors. This often does happen, and we see it every day.
Who Typically Responds to a Car Accident?
There are many ways to categorize a car accident. And one of the primary ways that government authorities and the public record will view your accident is via the law enforcement agency that fields the call.
Police often categorize accidents based on the agency responding and their jurisdiction—for example:
- A car accident for city police
- A car accident for the county sheriff’s department
- A car accident for state police or highway patrol
In practice, we see these split roughly down as thirds for each category above. While these are the police agencies that may respond and thus hold your police report (which is vital to double-check to ensure its accuracy), there are a number of other aspects that will be used to categorize and describe your case.
Identifying Car Accidents With and Without Injuries
Some types of car accidents are often thought of as injury accidents or accidents without injury. If an accident has no injuries, and there seems to be minimal property damage, often the police will not need to be called.
However, you still have the right to see someone’s ID and insurance documents and to photograph vehicle damage at the scene. People cannot flee the scene of an accident, or it will become a hit and run accident.
Per South Carolina Code § 56-5-1210 and Georgia Code § 40-6-270, a hit-and-run becomes a felony if serious injury, death, or extensive property damage has occurred.
Types of injuries often seen in car accidents include:
- Whiplash
- Traumatic brain injury (TBI)
- Broken bones
- Cuts, scrapes, and bruises
- Burns
- Internal organ damage
- Disfigurement
People may receive these injuries and others from car accidents. A car accident lawyer can help you understand if you may have any hidden or latent injuries from your collision. Doctors are sometimes busy and may miss things, especially if there is a miscommunication between the patient and doctor.
A lawyer can also help cross-check your symptoms with a second opinion, utilizing telemedicine options to see if other medical providers may be able to confirm a diagnosis that an original provider missed. This cross-check can save lives.
The symptoms of a mild brain injury or concussion can also be hard to spot or as subtle as one eye’s pupil being larger than the other or a behavioral pattern change.
Physical Types of Car Accidents
There are a number of different physical types of car accidents that occur on the roads, in terms of which parts of the vehicles materially make impact. Some of them include:
- Rollovers
- Rear-end collisions
- Side-impact collisions
- Head-on collisions
- Odd-angle collisions
One of the worst types of accidents is vehicle rollovers. These can occur for a variety of reasons, but they are so dangerous because they repeatedly expose the vulnerable sides or flank of your vehicle to the hardest-hitting impact—the ground. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), vehicle rollovers are more likely to result in fatalities or more serious injury to the occupants than other types of accidents.
Side-impact crashes are also especially dangerous when an occupant is there on the other side of the door that gets struck by another vehicle. A lot depends on the speed, weight, height and shape of the vehicles involved, as well as the slope of the road. A worst-case scenario side-impact is when there are no side airbags, and a tall, heavy truck makes impact going downhill, but each of these factors is compounded by vehicle speed.
Rear-end crashes are also very serious, especially if a large vehicle is making impact on a smaller vehicle that is occupied in the rear seat. Whiplash is one of the most common injuries from car accidents, and this is very common in rear-end collisions.
Whiplash can also occur after odd-angle impact collisions, which encompass the glancing blow-style impact that can occur when cars impact at a 45-degree angle or similar from any direction. These types of accidents usually occur when a car has changed lanes without warning and a car is already there.
Odd-angle accidents on their own are one of the least dangerous types of accidents, but can be made worse by other factors. The combination of other factors including near-road obstacles like trees or telephone poles or someone not wearing their seatbelt can escalate an odd-angle collision into a life-threatening situation.
Call George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers Today
George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers represents people hurt in all types of car accidents. We do not charge a penny to our clients up-front as we fight for their rights, taking cases to court if need be. However, we usually settle our cases, and may be able to surprise you and do better than your expectations.
To get started with our process, call our office or fill out our online form to request a free case evaluation with a car accident lawyer today.