Car Accident Lawyer, Stafford Township NJ

Your own automobile policy pays first. Under N.J.S.A. 39:6A-4 the PIP coverage on your policy pays crash-related medical bills whoever caused the collision, so treatment does not wait for the other driver's insurer to accept blame. That begins at the first examination: at the Southern Ocean Medical Center emergency room on Route 72, tell the desk it was a motor vehicle crash and hand over your automobile insurance details along with your health card. The driver who ran into the back of a stopped line is the one whose insurer answers for the injury itself, and that is a separate claim we bring. Get examined the same day, then call us.

Then the gap is answered by the uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage on your own automobile policy, which is why your declarations page is one of the first documents we ask for. A driver from another state carries whatever limits that state requires, which need not match New Jersey's, and the injury does not shrink to fit them. A claim on your own underinsured coverage has steps of its own, including notifying your carrier and obtaining its consent before you accept anything from the other side, so settling quickly with the visiting driver's insurer can quietly close the door on coverage you paid for. Send us the crash report and both insurance cards before you sign a release.

It helps, but a ticket is not proof of your claim. A guilty plea to it can be used against that driver in your case, unless the court grants a civil reservation, which that driver's lawyer can ask for. The summons is answered at Stafford Township Municipal Court on East Bay Avenue, in a proceeding separate from yours, decided under a different standard, so a downgrade or a dismissal there does not end your injury claim. Fault is built instead from the crash report and its diagram, where the vehicles came to rest, the damage on each of them, and the people who stopped and gave their names. If the other driver's insurer is treating that ticket as the whole story, let us have that conversation instead of you.

It changes which police department wrote the report, not where your injury claim is brought. The bridges and both small islands on the causeway are on the Stafford side, and Ship Bottom begins where the causeway reaches Long Beach Island, so the point where the cars met decides which department responded and which report you need. Both sides are in Ocean County, so a lawsuit from either is normally filed there, at the Superior Court's civil courthouse, 118 Washington Street in Toms River, under the same two-year limit in N.J.S.A. 2A:14-2. Tell us roughly where the cars came to rest and we will request the right report.

Yes, as long as your share of the fault is not greater than the other driver's. Under New Jersey's comparative negligence law, N.J.S.A. 2A:15-5.1, what you recover is reduced by your own percentage, and it is barred only if more of the fault lands on you than on the person you are claiming against. The carrier for a car that came out of a Route 72 center will raise your speed and your attention, because every point of fault it moves onto you lowers what it pays. That argument is answered with evidence: the report diagram, the damage on both vehicles, video from the center or a passing dash camera, and the data stored in the cars. Let us make it.