Palm Springs Personal Injury Lawyer Sebastian Gibson provides these 2010 tips to you to help you, and to show you why it will be to your advantage to retain a Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney and Dog Bite Lawyer in the event you have been seriously injured in a Personal Injury Accident in the Palm Springs area or anywhere in Southern California.
While some of these tips may be too late for you if your Accident in Palm Springs was some hours or days ago, as a Personal Injury Lawyer in Palm Springs, we provide these tips in the hope they may yet be useful for you in connection with your Palm Springs Personal Injury and for any future Accidents you may have.
First, take a look around and determine if you or anyone else is hurt. If so, taking steps to prevent further injury or loss of blood are the most important thing you can do until help arrives. The worst thing you can do is get angry or start a fight. As your Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney, it is much easier to obtain the compensation you deserve if we don’t also have to deal with claims that your accident turned into a brawl or was the result of road rage.
Second, make sure any other drivers and passengers in your Palm Springs Accident are safe from being injured further. If you are in the middle of traffic and can safely get out of the way, walk to where it is safe. If you aren’t dizzy and can help others without risk to yourselves or risking injury to them, help them. If your vehicle is a hazard to others and you have warning devices such as triangles or flares you can safely place in the road, put them out on the road to warn other drivers and get away from any danger. Let the Palm Springs police or other emergency personnel investigate the scene with all the vehicles in place and let them move the vehicles at a later point.
Third, if no one else already has, call the local police or the California Highway Patrol or 911. Accident reports are extremely helpful if they will prepare one. Let the Palm Springs police know you are injured immediately. Answer all the questions honestly but if you are dazed or confused, let them know you need medical attention and answer only what you are certain about. Statements you make will later appear in the police report and if you make a mistake, it is unlikely a later statement will be believed over your initial statements as your best recollection is usually immediately after an accident.
Fourth, obtain the other driver’s information including their name, address, driver’s license, make and model of their vehicle, license plate number, insurance company and policy number. If there are witnesses, obtain their information as well. If the other driver makes any admissions of fault, write them down as well. The police will likely separate you once they arrive so try to obtain this information while you can. Although we can obtain a copy of the police report as your Palm Springs Personal Injury Lawyers, it often takes a week to 10 days or longer for the report to be completed.
Fifth, if you have a camera or a cell phone with a camera built in, take some photos of the vehicles, the scene of the accident and the others involved. If you failed to do so immediately after the accident, take some now of the scene of the accident in Palm Springs or wherever it occurred and of your vehicle, if one was involved. As your Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorneys, we can obtain additional photographs or police photographs, if any, later.
Sixth, if you are hurt, obtain medical treatment. Don’t decline the ambulance or hospital examination to save your insurance company money or to be stoic if you have coverage. Take your valuables out of your vehicle and get checked out at the hospital. If you are not hurt, don’t get treatment you don’t need. However, remember, after an accident, you may feel a rush of adrenaline that causes your symptoms to go unnoticed by you until a few hours later. If you have a health plan that requires you to obtain permission before going anywhere for medical treatment, call them first to find out where you can go for treatment that is covered by them. As a Personal Injury Lawyer in Palm Springs and other areas of California, nothing is more important to you and your case than obtaining proper medical treatment promptly.
Seventh, call a good Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney as soon as you have had your initial medical treatment so your Palm Springs Personal Injury Lawyer can gather important evidence and prevent the other party’s insurance company from taking advantage of you by obtaining things such as a recorded statement from you. A good Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney can save you from making mistakes and can shoulder much of the hassle that results from an accident. Your Palm Springs Lawyer can also advise you in connection with how to obtain vehicle repairs, a car rental, medical treatment on a lien, etc. An experienced Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney can almost always obtain higher settlements, obtain reductions of medical bills and insurance liens that have to be repaid. Most Lawyers will also advance the costs of obtaining police reports, and medical records that are crucial to a good settlement.
Eighth, report the Palm Springs accident to your insurance company. However, before you do so, it is good advice to retain a Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney first as even your own insurance company will want to take a recorded statement. If the other driver did not have insurance, remember, your own insurance company will be your adversary. You will also need to report the accident to the Department of Motor Vehicles and your Palm Springs personal injury Lawyer can provide you with the form.
Ninth, do not agree to settle your claim privately with the person at fault for the accident in Palm Springs or with their insurance company when they want to offer you a paltry amount before your injuries have been checked out or treated. Neither of these scenarios work to your advantage. Private individuals rarely want to pay you for anything more than your car repairs. And if you agree to not involve the police, the other driver may change his or her story and blame you later when the police are no longer willing to investigate the accident. Insurance companies offering a quick settlement are usually taking advantage of you at a time when you can least afford it.
Tenth, don’t pay a traffic ticket without attempting to fight it if you weren’t at fault and don’t accept a small payment from the other driver for your vehicle repairs without knowing that the amount will in fact cover the entire cost of repairs. As your Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney, we can usually persuade the insurance company to pay for additional repairs beyond the initial estimate if the body shop finds additional damage from your accident once the repairs have begun.
If you’ve had a Palm Springs Personal Injury, auto, bicycle, truck, car, big rig, motorcycle, or pedestrian accident or a dog bite in Palm Springs, or anywhere in Southern California, we have the resources and knowledge to be your Palm Springs Personal Injury Lawyer and your Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney and will see that you are properly represented to obtain the compensation you deserve for your accident.
Palm Springs California 2009 - Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorney News - California Food Poisoning and the New Country of Origin Labeling Law Goes Into Effect.
California Food Poisoning News - Until now, Palm Springs and California consumers who suffered food poisoning and the investigators looking for the cause, had no idea from which country the food that was eaten came from. Palm Springs personal injury lawyers also had a monumental investigation to perform. With the new COOL (Country of Origin Labeling) law taking effect after September 30, 2008, all that will change, with a few exceptions.
Now when you get food poisoning in Palm Springs or Indio, whether it is from food you bought at a grocery, when the Department of Health investigates what made you sick, Palm Springs Personal Injury Attorneys may be able to determine this more accurately and without causing major economic damage to agricultural interests not at fault, which will greatly assist Palm Desert personal injury lawyers.
After years of lobbying for delays by grocery lobbying groups who argued the law would be too costly to implement, and who lobbied for delays, COOL has at last taken effect.
Now investigators in Palm Springs will have an easier time tracking down the country of source. As it has often been raw food, such as peppers from Mexico most recently, the effect of the law will immediately help investigators. Health conscious consumers may feel more loyalty to a retailer who doesn’t just comply grudgingly with the law but who touts their going an extra step or two to let their shoppers know exactly what came from where.
Other food poisoning outbreaks in recent years have involved spinach, and beef. Now with salmonella epidemics and baby formula scares from China, there are calls to extend the law to dairy products. The food poisonings from peanut butter now has Congress investigating what else can be done to improve food safety in the U.S. As a Palm Springs personal injury attorney and Palm Desert personal injury lawyer, Sebastian Gibson applauds these efforts, late as they may be.
There are exceptions in COOL for butchers, fish markets, restaurants, restaurants in hotels, school cafeterias, and small retailers. Additionally if spices, sauce or breading has been added, no labeling is required. Though not exactly food, the law also does not apply to pharmaceuticals, though there are calls to extend the law to them. Produce mixed in Palm Springs displays may simply be labeled as being "from two or more countries of origin."
Lawmakers, this Palm Springs personal injury lawyer and consumer groups are angry that the USDA seems to be attempting to evade congressional intent by allowing steaks and other meat cuts to be labeled with multiple country of origin labels. Congress only intended that exception for ground beef or for animals raised in more than one country. It has been said that there is a chasm of difference between the statutory language that was passed by Congress and the rule allowing multiple of country origin labels drafted by the USDA.
There are other discrepancies with how the law will be applied. Fish caught off the coast of Alaska by a Chinese or Japanese owned ship may be labeled as a product of China or Japan. Beef raised in another country that spends 30 days in a feed lot in the U.S. can be labeled as coming from the U.S.
Retailers are given discretion how they label the food. Meat counters, for instance, may simply list all the countries where the meat is produced, or they can label each cut. Hamburger will still likely give the Palm Springs consumer pause as meat that is ground up may come from numerous countries.
Once compliance goes into effect, businesses may be fined $1,000 per violation. The law is expected to cost at least $2 billion to implement.
Palm Springs personal injury attorney and Palm Desert Personal Injury lawyer and Wrongful Death Attorney Sebastian Gibson has been a practicing Personal Injury lawyer in Palm Springs and Southern California as well as in London, England, for over 30 years and has over 25 years of experience as a Palm Springs personal injury lawyer and Palm Desert personal injury attorney as well as years of experience in San Diego and the Orange County areas of California.
California Personal Injury 
