A car accident is a road traffic incident which usually involves at least one road vehicle being in collision with, either another vehicle, another road user, or a stationary roadside object, and which may result in injury or property damage.

Many jurisdictions require the collection and reporting of road traffic incident statistics. Such data enables figures for deaths, personal injuries, and possibly property damage to be produced, and correlated against a range of circumstances.

Car collisions usually carry legal consequences in proportion to the severity of the crash. Nearly all common law jurisdictions impose some kind of requirement that parties involved in a collision must stop at the scene, and exchange insurance or identification information or summon the police. Failing to obey this requirement is referred to as hit and run and is generally a criminal offence.

However, most claims are settled without recourse to law. In this case, assuming that both parties carry adequate insurance, the claim is often handled between the two insurers. There may be financial penalties involved, such as an excess or deductible payment and a loss of a no-claims bonus or higher future premiums. Visit the North Carolina car accident lawyer for more about this.

Depending upon the circumstances, parties involved in an incident may face criminal liability, civil liability, or both. Usually, the state starts a criminal prosecution only if someone is severely injured or killed, or if one of the drivers involved was acting illegally or clearly grossly negligent or intoxicated or otherwise impaired at the time the accident occurred.

As for civil liability, in places where healthcare is mainly provided through private insurance, such as the USA, automobile accident personal injury lawsuits have become the most common type of tort. Check out what the North Carolina car accident lawyer has to offer about this.

Because of pre-existing case law, the courts usually need to decide only the factual questions of who is at fault, and their percentage of fault, as well as how much must be paid out in damages to the injured plaintiff by the defendant's insurer. For more information about legal issues arising from car accidents and crashes, then visit the North Carolina car accident lawyer.