Car Accident Lawyer, Lakewood NJ

Both, and the company matters more. When the driver was working a route, the employer answers for the crash, and its commercial policy, not the driver's personal one, is normally the policy that pays, so the name on the side of the van and its plate count for more than the driver's apology. That answer holds only if he was on the clock, so we pin down the route he was running at that hour before anyone suggests a personal errand. The summons is heard at Lakewood Township Municipal Court, 231 Third Street, and the driver's plea there goes into our file. Photograph the van's markings and plate, then send them to us with the report number.

Yes, mainly in what evidence exists and how long it lasts. A trucking company keeps records a private driver never has, the driver's electronic hours-of-service logs, the forward-facing camera, engine data showing speed and braking, maintenance files and the dispatch schedule, and federal rules oblige it to keep some of them for only a matter of months, after which they can be discarded lawfully. Its insurer may well have an adjuster on the file within a day, and that adjuster's first task is your recorded statement. Do not give one. Call us the week of the crash so a written preservation demand reaches the company before anything is overwritten, and keep any photograph you took of the truck's number and trailer markings.

You likely still have coverage. New Jersey's PIP system follows the person, not just the car: if you or a relative you live with has an auto policy, its PIP covers your treatment; if not, the PIP on the vehicle that struck you pays; and if that vehicle was uninsured or never identified, the state's Unsatisfied Claim and Judgment Fund is the last resort. Separately, the driver is liable to you for the injury; a driver who does not stop for someone in a crosswalk violates N.J.S.A. 39:4-36. Ask the Lakewood police for the report number, see a doctor before the day is out, and give us the names of the relatives you live with, because one of their policies may pay.

Treat that denial as the start of the claim, not the end of it. Many personal auto policies exclude driving for pay, and in Lakewood, where delivery drivers in their own cars work the same streets as the commuters all day, that exclusion gets raised often; the company that sent the driver then often answers that he was an independent contractor and not its problem. Both positions can be tested, and while they are, your own policy's uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage responds in place of a policy that is missing, denied or too small. Keep the name of the delivery app or company and the crash report number, sign nothing from either side, and let us put the coverage question to both carriers in writing.

The complaint is filed in Ocean County Superior Court, with civil filings at 118 Washington Street in Toms River, and N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2 allows two years from the crash. A bus or truck owned by a public body, or a road or signal defect blamed on whichever government owns that road, adds a much shorter deadline: a written notice of claim within ninety days under N.J.S.A. 59:8-8. Two years is the court's clock, not the company's: a trucking or delivery company may clear driver logs and camera files months after a crash, within the rules, so our preservation letter goes out long before any lawsuit. Give us whatever you noted about the other vehicle before it is back on its route.