New Mexico Woman Sues Over DWI: How to Protect Yourself in an Accident

Josephine Torres was traveling down the road when a truck driven by Juan Gallegos swerved into her lane, causing a head on collision, injuring Torres. Once police arrived on the scene, a deputy was under the suspicion that the driver was highly intoxicated but Sheriff Thomas Garza ordered the deputy to let the driver go. He was issued several citations which included driving without insurance or registration, careless driving, and failure to wear a seatbelt but no charge for a DWI.

Torres has now filed a lawsuit against Sheriff Garza, who presumably has a history of letting DWI cases walk, claiming that his inaction caused her accident. Because Gallegos was uninsured, the entire cost of the accident has fallen on Torres. Even with insurance, some of her medical care is still not covered, such as physical therapy. Garza has failed to comment. Unfortunately, despite the fact that states have laws against driving uninsured, there are still drivers on the road who continue to travel without insurance. It’s important to know how to handle a situation and your insurance if one of these drivers hit you.

Uninsured Drivers

Every state in the U.S., minus New Hampshire, requires drivers to have some form of insurance but there are some that persist on driving without. Those without insurance claim they cannot afford it or have bad driving records and avoid insurance to sidestep high premiums. If a person cannot afford insurance and they are in accident with someone who is insured, it unlikely that the insured will directly come after the at fault driver because there will be no assets to claim so insurance companies often end up footing the bill for the uninsured. David Corum, Vice President of the Insurance Research Council says, “Over the last 20 years, uninsured motorists and the unemployment rate have tracked fairly closely.”

And with today’s economy still recovering, the chance of running into an uninsured motorist is higher. 13.8% of drivers are uninsured and in 2007, the National Associate of Insurance Commissioners revealed that insured drivers were footing $10.8 billion for those drivers that had no policy. That’s not a cheap sum. These numbers are meant to scare you and there’s no need to roll down your window at every stop light and ask those around you if they are insured. You should know how to protect yourself, your passengers, and your car if you end up in the same unfortunate situation Josephine Torres found herself in.

Protecting Yourself

It can be a very unfair situation. You are driving down the road and suddenly get hit by someone you find out has no insurance. After the shock of the physical accident wears off, you may find the results are not so pleasant either. Because the at fault driver has no insurance and more likely, no assets, it is your auto insurance policy that must cover everything, including medical expenses and damages for the at fault driver. For this reason, it is best to review your policy and choose the options that will protect you the best.

Uninsured Motorist Coverage

By choosing to add uninsured motorist coverage to your policy, you are protecting yourself and your car in the situation that you are hit by an uninsured driver. This type contains two categories: property damage and bodily injury. When you go to add this to your insurance, you will be asked to choose a certain amount of coverage you would like and the price of this policy will be based on that final amount. The amount of property damage will cover any damages to your car and/or other property and the amount of bodily injury will cover you and your passengers. While it may ultimately seem unfair that you have to pay for someone else’s irresponsible decision to not have insurance, adding this to your policy may end up saving you thousands of dollars if you find yourself in an accident.

Underinsured Motorist Coverage

So there are drivers out there that choose to operate their vehicle without any insurance and then there are those that only do the bare minimum to meet the law. From the law’s point of view, this is perfectly acceptable and the driver is doing nothing wrong but from your totaled car’s point of view, it seems all wrong. When people buy the bare minimum insurance, this means they have liability

insurance, more than likely with low limits that won’t cover all the expenses of an accident. Many policies won’t be able to pay if any major injuries are sustained. If you add an underinsured motorist policy, you can make sure that you are protected if the other driver is doing just enough to obey the law.

Other Areas to Look Into

Two other aspects of your insurance you might want to take the time to review are your collision coverage and what kind coverage you have on rental cars. With collision, this type of coverage will pay for damages to your car if it collides with another car. This often has a deductible, which is the amount of money you will pay out of pocket before the insurance company starts to cover your losses. The higher the deductible, the lower the premium. Another important area to look at is replacement rental car coverage. This does not cost a lot and covers a rental car during the time period after an accident while your car is being repaired.

For Josephine Torres, her health may never be the same but the decision to protect herself with insurance has saved her the additional worry of paying for car damages. It can seem like a good idea to skip some of these policies to save money but if you are hit by uninsured driver, the costs can be enough to saddle someone with a high amount of debt. Do yourself a favor and make the smart decisions when it comes to your insurance.