Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney
Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson
The Right Choice in Personal Injury Accident Attorneys in Palm Desert and Palm Springs
For well over 35 years, Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson has specialized in representing injured accident victims of auto, truck, motorcycle, bicycle and pedestrian accidents. In that time, we’ve built up a reputation for honesty and hard work that keeps our clients coming back when they or a family member are unfortunate enough to be involved in another car accident.
If you’ve been injured in a car or truck accident in Palm Desert or Palm Springs or anywhere in the Coachella Valley, it’s all about making the right choice of who you want to represent you in your claim against the other driver’s auto insurance company for all the injuries you’ve suffered from your car crash.
At the law offices of Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson we value having you as our client and we appreciate your offering us the opportunity to represent you. When you call our office, you’ll speak to attorney Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson, not to a paralegal, and not to someone in the mail room tasked with making a haphazard determination of whether or not you have a case worth handling.
We specialize in car accidents and serious injuries and we know what tricks auto insurance companies employ to try to pay as little as they can for the injuries you’ve suffered in a crash like yours. With decades of experience representing car accident victims with serious injuries in California and with years of experience as well in London, Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson has gained a wealth of respect for his talent, his understanding of the needs of his accident clients, and his knowledge of how to obtain the results his clients deserve.
Over the years Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson has helped thousands of car accident injury victims and recovered millions and millions of dollars including numerous million dollar plus settlements, some without even having to file suit. When we take on a case for an injured client, we feel confident we can get you compensated not only for the value of your car or its repair (for which we take no fee) and for your medical bills, pain and suffering and wage losses all on a contingency fee basis which means you won’t pay any fees or costs unless your car accident is successfully settled.
With offices in the Palm Springs and Palm Desert area as well as in Orange County, Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson is able to offer clients representation for their car accidents and personal injury cases throughout California from San Diego to the San Luis Obispo and from Newport Beach to the Coachella Valley.
Causes of Car Accidents on Palm Desert Streets and Coachella Valley Freeways
It isn’t simply drivers speeding or running red lights that cause collisions these days. If you spend time commuting in your car, or you have decades of experience representing injured victims of accidents, you see collisions involving everything and accidents you wish you had never imagined.
When you put some serious miles on your car driving the freeways, you will see mattresses in the lanes, tools flying off of trucks and bouncing toward your windshield. In rural areas its sadly not uncommon to see cows or other animals wandering across lanes of traffic and being hit as has even happened on the I-10 freeway near Palm Springs in the past.
With more and more 18 wheeler big rig trucks, tractor trailers, semi trucks and commercial trucks clogging up the right two lanes of freeways or passing each other in the fast lane of two lane highways, there are more and more big rig accidents involving these trucks on the freeways.
On the I-10 freeway in the Coachella Valley from Indio to Palm Springs it seems that not a week goes by without a big rig truck accident closing lanes of traffic if not the entire freeway in one direction or another. In a recent horrific accident that closed the 10 freeway near Palm Springs in October 2016, a casino tour bus crashed into the back of a big rig truck killing 13 and injuring dozens.
In cities like Palm Springs and Palm Desert, there are also more commercial vehicles and trucks on the roadways than ever delivering parcels and supplies to businesses, hotels and restaurants.
The Coachella Valley is host to so many great events now which bring in tourists from all over the country and from all over the world. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, Stagecoach and now Desert Trip bring in hundreds of thousands of music festival goers for six weekends, and other events such as the Palm Springs International Film Festival and the BNP Paribas Open Tennis Tournament in Indian Wells bring in hundreds of thousands more to these and other events.
Sometimes it’s inattention of drivers that cause rear end accidents. Other times it’s an elderly driver who mistakenly hits the gas pedal instead of the brake. Teenage drivers are prone to cause accidents by being distracted by their cell phones, the radio or someone walking on the street or riding their bicycle. With the growing popularity of Uber ride sharing, there are today a growing number of Uber and Lyft accidents taking individuals and groups to and from events like these.
Motorcycle riders are often seriously injured, many fatally, when they are cut off by drivers not checking whether it’s safe to change lanes, while pedestrians are frequently badly injured crossing busy streets outside of crosswalks after misjudging the speed of oncoming vehicles.
On Highway 74 in Palm Desert, drivers frequently drive their cars or motorcycles too fast for conditions, too fast for curves and find themselves and their passengers rolling their vehicles down the mountainside. On Highway 62 in Twentynine Palms, there have sadly been scores of deaths and injuries to Marines and other members of the military coming into Palm Springs for a meal, some nightlife or an event, or returning home late at night.
It would be remiss to not mention drinking as a significant cause of car and motorcycle accidents despite the frequent drunk driving checkpoints that are frequently set up to prevent such car accidents in the Coachella Valley.
While we rarely receive rain in the Palm Springs and Palm Desert area, when it does rain, drivers not used to driving when roadways are wet are prone to brake too late to avoid hitting other cars and cause injuries to themselves and others.
The Most Important Things Car Accident Victims Should Do After Suffering Injuries In A Traffic Collision, If Possible
1. Check your passengers and the other driver for injuries in order to make sure they’re okay and to render aid if needed.
2. Get medical assistance (call 911 for an ambulance or paramedics) for yourself and anyone else injured or who thinks they may be injured.
3. Call the police and ask the responding traffic collision officer to prepare a report after letting them know of any injuries. Don’t fall for the other driver’s plea not to involve the police or their promise simply to pay for your car repairs.
4. Take photos of the scene while the vehicles are still in their positions following the impact if possible, and after they’ve been moved, take pictures of all the vehicles from every angle. Also take photos of debris in the roadway and any other damage to property.
5. Obtain the names, addresses, phone numbers and insurance information of all the parties and the contact information of any and all witnesses to the accident and to any statements made by the parties.
6. Write down any admissions of fault by the other driver(s) in the accident. Ask them why they did what they did if they aren’t volunteering any information.
7. Go by ambulance or paramedics to the hospital for emergency treatment for your injuries if you or any passengers are in pain and you have health insurance, Medi-Cal, Medicare, medical payments coverage on your car insurance or you feel certain you were not at fault and that either the other driver has car insurance or you have uninsured motorist coverage.
8. Assuming the above, go to the hospital emergency room the same day as the accident if possible, if you’ve declined an ambulance or treatment for your injuries by paramedics.
9. Follow up with a doctor as soon as possible being seen in the emergency room for your injuries.
10. Call Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson for a free consultation before speaking to any insurance company or allowing them to take a recorded statement.
Additional Injury Advice for Car Accident Victims – Photos, Photos and More Photos
If your injuries include bruises, cuts or an injury to any part of your body that shows externally, take frequent photos of your injuries with your cell phone. Don’t worry about the quality of the photos. Cell phones today have very good cameras and we can blow up the photos to show the details of your injuries.
Photos should be taken not only soon after your car accident, but days later when the bruising becomes worse, during the healing process and after your treatment is complete.
But those aren’t the only times to take photos. Take photos or have someone else take them while you’re in the hospital getting treatment for your injuries and later in doctor offices. In some cases, a photo of you in a hospital or in your doctor’s office with your injuries highlighted on a computer or other device can have a major impact on a jury and equally on an insurance adjuster.
The Biggest Mistake Made by Car Accident Victims Before Retaining A Personal Injury Attorney
The biggest mistake a car accident victim can make is to attempt to deal with the other driver’s insurance company on their own, believing that an insurance company will recognize their moral duty to act fairly with them. Unfortunately, the reality is quite different.
Insurance company adjusters are trained to ask you questions that will provide them with the ammunition to offer you less than you deserve for the injuries you’ve suffered from your car accident. A simple admission that you didn’t look both ways once a light turned green can result in an insurance company blaming you for an accident when their own driver ran a red light and in fact caused the crash.
Even though you have no control over what a doctor or hospital charges for treating your injuries, an insurance company will claim the charges aren’t reasonable or that they are mostly diagnostic charges which do not constitute actual treatment.
They will claim that your medical records are inadequate, the billing was done improperly and that your doctors treated you excessively. Your past medical records will be obtained to look for any previous injuries or treatment to the same parts of your body and if found, any previous injuries will be blamed as the cause of your current symptoms and pain.
Most car accident victims simply do not know how to respond to such arguments, but an experienced car accident attorney does and can respond with even more persuasive arguments on your behalf.
Unfortunately, after a car accident victim goes so far as to attempt to negotiate their own settlement with an insurance company, many car accident lawyers won’t take the case when the victim finally decides to retain an attorney. The problem the attorney faces is that the car insurance company has now become entrenched in their valuation of the case and simply retaining an attorney will no longer bump up the value without proceeding to mediation, arbitration or trial.
The Type of Accident For Which You Need To Retain A Personal Injury Lawyer
Any type of accident in which you’ve been seriously injured is one in which you should hire an experienced accident lawyer. If you’ve suffered injuries in a car accident, motorcycle collision, truck crash, bicycle accident, pedestrian hit and run, or if you’re the victim of a dog bite, you should at least have a free consultation with Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson.
If after seeing a doctor only once and you’re absolutely pain free, you had no fractures, your car or other vehicle only suffered minor damage, and some weeks have passed since the accident, you probably don’t need an attorney. However, you should still call our office so we can give you some guidance over the phone and give you our analysis of your case.
But if your vehicle was seriously damaged or you were a pedestrian or riding a bicycle when the car accident occurred, or if you were seen at the hospital or you’ve been receiving treatment and your symptoms haven’t disappeared, you’re probably going to need ongoing medical treatment, and you would benefit greatly by the guidance of an experienced car accident lawyer.
The Difficulty of Dealing With Insurance Companies After A Car Accident
Auto insurance companies have become more and more difficult to deal with over the years, whether you’ve had a major impact causing your vehicle to be totaled and suffered catastrophic injuries or a car accident that’s caused just a thousand dollars worth of damage and some neck or back pain. And this is the case even where there is no question the other driver was at fault. If there is any question of liability, you can expect even more trouble trying to get the insurance company to accept liability for the accident.
There is one situation in which you can expect smooth sailing with an insurance company these days. That’s if you are willing to accept a nuisance value settlement of $250 or $300 and sign a full release of all claims before you even know the extent of your injuries or the extent of any treatment that will be necessary. When we see this type of injustice has occurred, it is simply heartbreaking to a car accident lawyer and the accident victim in our office when we tell them how much more their case was worth.
It’s not simply nuisance value settlements made by unrepresented car accident victims that are disheartening. It’s people with broken arms or legs who settle for $5,000 or motorcycle accident victims with brain injuries who settle for $10,000. It’s truck accident victims and families of loved ones who have been fatally injured who settle for what they believe are policy limits, not realizing there is an even larger layer of insurance coverage on that big rig truck that struck their family member.
If you’ve been injured in an auto accident, motorcycle, truck, bicycle or pedestrian accident and you’ve required treatment for your injuries, you’re more vulnerable to more serious injuries the next time you’re in a car accident or injured in any other type of vehicle collision. An insurance company, however, won’t put any extra value on your likelihood of further injury in the future.
And if you do have another car accident in the future, just to add insult to injury, an insurance company will argue that some if not all of the treatment you need for your future injury is due to your previous accident (the preexisting condition argument).
Although insurance companies place a higher value on a car accident victim’s case when he or she has immediate pain and takes an ambulance to the hospital, it is just as common for a person in a serious car accident not to feel pain at the scene of the accident only to feel excruciating pain from their injuries hours later, the next day or over the next several days when the endorphins and adrenaline have worn off an no longer mask the pain.
Additionally, some accident victims will develop an entirely new area of pain such as hip pain or knee pain when they compensate for an injury to their back or leg and walk differently, causing injury to this different part of their body.
The best advice we can give to an injury victim is to follow their doctor’s advice, within reason of course. Some doctors have been known to overtreat. Others have been found to recommend over aggressive and unnecessary treatment. That’s why it’s important to have an attorney you can talk to in order to get their opinion of what would be good for your case and in the event a surgery is being considered, to suggest getting a second opinion from another doctor.
Misperceptions Of People Who Don’t Retain An Attorney For Their Personal Injury Accident
1. Believing they can negotiate as if they are an attorney willing to go to trial. An individual without an attorney simply can’t bluff an adjuster that they will take their case to trial if they don’t get a reasonable offer. The insurance company can see you don’t have an attorney and they know you will settle once the adjuster says he or she has no more money to offer.
2. Having a belief that an insurance company will pay the same amount whether you have an attorney or not. In reality, your case will be handled by an insurance company adjuster who will factor into their offer the fact you don’t have to pay an attorney. They will then ignore your calls, delay making any offer until you’re desperate or take charge of getting the medical records and bills leaving you in the dark. On top of that, they will pick apart your medical bills and use other tricks personal injury lawyers have seen hundreds of times that an individual simply isn’t aware of.
3. Believing an insurance company is concerned for your well being. Adjusters are psychological experts. They prey on your hope an insurance company, especially yours, will act responsibly and morally to give you the best possible offer they can.
4. Believing an insurance claims adjuster when they tell you, “that’s simply all the money I can offer on your case” when in fact, the offer is way below what is reasonable and nowhere near what the insurance company could offer you if you had an attorney representing you.
5. Believing that one’s serious injuries will heal by themselves or that the pain from one’s injuries will go away. Getting too much treatment (such as seeing both a chiropractor and a physical therapist at the same time) without seeing specialists to oversee the treatment and determine the underlying causes of one’s pain, is equally damaging to your accident claim.
6. Believing that an insurance company will reward a person if they show an eagerness to settle their claim without a car accident attorney.
7. Believing an insurance company will give an accident victim a referral to a good doctor for treatment of their injuries. Insurance companies hope you don’t get any treatment. Consequently, you will be waiting a long, long time for a referral. If you don’t receive any treatment for your injuries you can expect either no offer of settlement whatsoever or only a nuisance value offer to pay up to a very small amount of what the insurance company will determine to be “reasonable” treatment.
You Have A Right To Be Fairly Compensated For Your Car Accident Injuries And More
If you’ve been injured in a car accident that’s not your fault, or any other type of big rig truck, motorcycle, pedestrian or bicycle accident, a scooter accident, an accident while in a robotaxi, Lyft or Uber vehicle, or an accident caused by a hit and run driver or an uninsured motorist, you have the right to obtain a settlement from either the other driver’s insurance company or your own if you have uninsured motorist coverage when the other driver has none or drove away after the accident without stopping to exchange information.
If you were not the cause of your car accident and you’ve been injured and have been to the hospital or need to see a doctor for your injuries, call us. Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson can refer you to specialists to treat your accident injuries by doctors who will wait to be paid until your car accident case settles. If you have health insurance, Medi-Cal or Medicare, or if you have medical payments coverage on your car insurance, this is the time to use that coverage for your car accident injuries.
An accident victim has a limited amount of time to either settle their case or to file a lawsuit in a court of law for their injuries. This is the same whether your accident was a car accident, or a truck, motorcycle, bicycle or pedestrian accident. It’s even the same if you were attacked by a dog and received dog bites or if you’ve lost a loved one in any type of vehicle accident.
Don’t let an insurance company skate by without paying you for your medical bills, your pain and suffering, your wage losses, out of pocket expenses and for your future pain and suffering and wage loss. If you don’t start receiving treatment for your injuries soon after your accident and document the pain and suffering you’re going through, the value of your case will be significantly diminished.
Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson – Uniquely Talented Representation For Your Car Accident
If you’ve been injured in a car accident, it is essential to obtain the best possible representation by an experienced auto accident attorney. Evidence disappears over time as do the memories of parties and witnesses. We know how to obtain and preserve evidence so in the event of trial, it can be utilized to prove the other driver’s negligence.
Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson is an experienced personal injury attorney with well over 40 years of experience in California and internationally. With law degrees in both California and in Great Britain, Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson is uniquely talented to represent you in your car accident.
An inexperienced attorney on the other hand may provide you with either no guidance or may make decisions which will badly affect the outcome of your case. The simple choice of a bad mediator by your car accident attorney for instance can make the difference between obtaining a superior settlement or having to take your case to trial and running the risk of a costly defense verdict.
If You’ve Been Injured In A Car Accident, Call Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson
Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson has been named a Top Lawyer for the past 14 years in a row by Palm Springs Life Magazine. He’s been rated a “Superb” Lawyer by Avvo (their highest rating) which rates lawyers all across the U.S.
If you’ve been hurt in any type of car accident, truck crash, motorcycle collision, bicycle or pedestrian accident, suffered a dog bite or lost a loved one in a wrongful death accident, call Palm Desert and Palm Springs Accident Attorney Sebastian Gibson today at (760) 776-1810.
