Injury Lawyer Discusses Electronic Data Recorders and How They Impact You

As an injury lawyer, we work with a lot of clients, representing people after they have been in a car wreck.  If you have been injured, we can help to ensure that your rights are protected so that you can receive financial compensation for your injuries.  This typically includes money to pay for current and future medical expenses, repairs to your car, and lost wages.  In order to start building your case and determine liability, we will need to sit down with you and learn more about the accident.

During your consultation, we will want to know every detail about what happened before, during and after the accident.  Don’t leave anything out since you never know which detail will provide us the information we need in order to prove liability.  Liability is important to any injury case because it demonstrates who was at fault for the accident in the first place.  If your car was built after September of 2014, there is one more component to consider – the Electronic Data Recorder (EDR).

New cars are required to have an EDR built in.  This device has sensors that are located all over your car and even under your seat.  It records what happens moment by moment so that if an accident strikes, the report will tell how fast you were driving and even how the breaks were applied. It can also tell who was in the car at the time.  These facts can help to prove your version of the story.  As an injury lawyer we are concerned, however, about the data being misinterpreted.

The report from an EDR provides a variety of facts that are time stamped.  While this can be helpful, it may also pose challenges.  For example, what if the EDR stopped working leading up to the accident?  The report would, therefore, be insufficient and incomplete.  Simultaneously, an EDR gives a report of data only.  This means that the data has to be interpreted by someone and can potentially be manipulated to prove a point that may or may not be in your favor.  If the insurance company accesses this report, they could try to use it against you in an attempt to limit the financial award that you receive.

As an injury lawyer, our job is to ensure that the full picture of what happened is presented in court.  With that in mind, we will continue to build your case using traditional methods such as photographic evidence and interviewing witnesses.  We will paint the entire picture that the EDR data may fit into, rather than allowing the insurance company to use the data as the isolated and only means for demonstrating what happened.  In order to help us with this, provide as many details as you can remember along with information on any witnesses.  When the entire story is put together, the EDR data may simply work to confirm it.

To learn more about how we would proceed with your case and how the EDR data may fit into it, call and schedule a consultation.