Advice from attorney

TriNismo

Saw this post on a Z group I belong to on FB from an attorney. Thought there's some good suggestions to avoid issues like being sued or screwed. These are his words:

Car insurance
1. Don't mod your car. Yes, I know you will. Yes, I know you hate reading that statement. This is legal advice, though, not racer-religious text. Why do I say that? Because if you modify your car and get into a crash that hurts or kills someone, a plaintiff (or his survivors) will try to use those mods against you. All it takes is loss of control resulting in catastrophic injury or death , and a smart plaintiff's attorney will have your insurance company preserve you car for evidence as well as have an expert examine it. Anything that affects its handling potentially opens you up to a huge verdict against you. Even worse, combine badly worn tires due to bad alignment and excessive speed with a bad crash, and you might face a negligent homicide charge.

I know you probably won't listen to my advice in Number One. So be it.

2. If you mod your car, then buy custom parts and equipment coverage ("CPE"). Your insurance company only owes you for the risk it agreed to when it insured your car, and that risk is the actual cash value ("ACV") of the car your VIN says it is. Got a $5K turbo, $2K of custom wheels, LS1 swap or other CPE on what is otherwise a $10K car? You get $10K unless your insurance contract says otherwise. Protect yourself and buy CPE or be prepared to get screwed.

3. I assume you have collision coverage, but if you don't, you'd better be prepared to buy a new car on your own if you don't. That's because most people have only personal injury coverage ("PIP") and $10K of property damage ("PD"). $10K of property damage coverage doesn't go far--especially if there are multiple cars involved. Plus, about 25% of people driving on our roads have absolutely no insurance coverage at all.

4. About that 25% on uninsured or under-insured drivers: Protect yourself from them. Buy as much stacked uninsured motorist coverage ("UM") as you can. I carry $300K stacked times two cars, so I have $600K available to me or my family if I'm injured or killed. You'll need to buy bodily injury ("BI") liability coverage to get UM. That's the law.

5. If you're driving without BI and hurt someone--even mildly, and that doesn't take much--the State will take your license until you pay off that debt. You could wind up paying tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars until you can get your license back. Think about THAT for a second.

6. The same goes for PD coverage. I carry $100K in PD coverage. That'll handle a multiple-car collision in most cases, but I need to increase my PD coverage just in case I hit an expensive import or two. It happens. Crash into a car lot and imagine the ACV of every car you've just totaled out and the repairs you owe for the others.

7. Stop posting stupid things on social media like how worn out your tires are from drifting. I'll find it if I need it in my cases against negligent drivers. It's great evidence in a lawsuit. Stop admitting on here that you drove X over the speed limit when you got caught. Cops mine social media for admissions and confessions, and you are only hurting any defense you might have.

8. No texting or doing anything else while driving. I send insurance companies "spoliation letters" that tell them to reserve their insured driver's cellular records AND phone. If you text, drive, and crash, then that's called "aggravated lisbility" and increases a plaintiff's damages. I'll have an expert clone your phone and tell me exactly what you were doing when you crashed. The same goes for your in-car tablet, smart-watch, and your car's event data recorder (its black box). I demand all the electronic discovery I can in cases involving serious injury or death. See my link below about black box data.

9. Florida is a pure comparative negligence state, and that means a plaintiff can recover the amount of damages for which he is not at-fault. Very few crashes are 100% one driver's fault or the other's--even rear-end collisions are often disputed liability cases due to no brake lights or sudden stops or lane changes. So even if the other driver is 99% at-fault, she can collect 1% of her damages. What's 1% of a crippled or dead person worth? A whole lot.

10. About comparative negligence and coming full circle back to mods: If you alter or remove safety equipment from your car, like its airbags, a defendant in your case will argue you at least partially caused your own injuries. Yes, I know a naked steering wheel looks cool and lean, but it's a risky thing to do. I've seen a lot of injuries as a cop, claims adjuster, and personal injury attorney. Don't put your health and enjoyment of life at risk.

Most of you are far younger than I. I had my 54th birthday last Friday, and I vividly recall when I didn't listen to much of what anyone else said either, but I wish i had.

Here are a few pictures to illustrate this post:

1. The first one is me at age 24. (It was the 80s, so quit laughing.) I was young, uninjured, and never thought anything bad would happen to me.

2. Next, my first bad crash while a patrol officer responding to a robbery in progress. No airbags in those days and the antilock brakes failed. I crashed at a high speed.

3. Next, me after a woman who was texting and crashed into my Wrangler. She finished off the job. What you see in that picture is a a cadaver bone that replaced my c6-7 disc, an Atlantis plate, and two screws. Not shown are the six pins in my left shoulder.

Here is the moral of this post: Protect yourself. I live in pain every day. Literally every day. Think about how to minimize your risk of becoming like me.

Be safe. Not sorry.


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