Until fault has been established, no person can be held responsible for paying compensation to the plaintiff.
Seek evidence that the other drive was negligent, and was, therefore, at-fault.
Had that same driver received a ticket?
Did cell phone records indicate that the same driver had been taking on the phone at the time of the accident?
What was the location of the damage on both vehicles? That can support or rule out a story that has been presented by a claimant or a defendant. Get hold of the police report. Insurance companies often rely on that report, when trying to establish the identity of the person at-fault.
Contact witnesses, even those that did not see or hear the accident. Some of them might be quite familiar with the area where the accident took place. For that reason, one or more of the witnesses might know about some object of some aspect of the road that has contributed to the creation of other accidents in that same area.
Smart claimants take the time to learn the significance of a proximate cause.
If a personal injury lawyer in Sydney could say, but for the fact that such and such happened, there would not have been an accident, then that would offer evidence of a proximate cause. Sometimes, the proximate cause enters the picture before the final cause. For instance, a bicycle might enter a parking lot just as one driver has started to back up. That same driver could suddenly see the bike rider and put on the brakes. Another driver was not ready for that move, and so, slammed into the driver in the stopped position.
The one driver had hit another driver. The driver that caused the impact could be held responsible for the accident’s occurrence. Yet that driver’s actions were not the accident’s proximate cause. Instead, the movement of the bicycle rider was.
If the bicycle rider had not come onto the parking lot at the specific time, the accident would not have happened. Still, the bike rider could not be named as the accident’s final cause. Hence, an understanding of proximate cause makes it easier to prove fault, following an automobile accident. Once fault has been established, then it becomes possible to point a finger at the person or company that must provide the plaintiff with compensation.
By the same token, that understanding could aid defense of an action that had not been the proximate cause of a given accident. That is important, because there are some plaintiffs that seem eager to seek revenge against a driver that has been perceived as the true cause for a given accident. Judges do not want to deal out some form of revenge.
