(no subject)

[rivka]

Back in February I witnessed an accident: car vs. pedestrian. It was Sunday afternoon, and I had just left the parish hall after coffee hour, pushing Colin in the stroller and Alex at my side. Just a few feet in front of us, an SUV turned onto the small side street behind the parish hall and hit a man crossing the street. We saw him bounce off the hood and land in the street. I called 911, waited until the paramedics came, and gave a statement to the police. Other members of our church provided first aid and comforted the driver, who was distraught. The guy seemed essentially all right.

Two months later, the kids still talk about it. Alex had a lot of questions the day it happened, but then seemed satisfied with our answers. She was initially upset (acceberskoorb helped a lot by talking to her while I was talking to 911 and the cops) but not afterward. Colin wanted to talk about it again and again for weeks: "Man hit a car. He's okay. Ambulance came and helped the man. I saw a police car." Again and again.

Last week I got a call from an insurance adjuster who wanted to talk to me about the accident. She got my permission to record the call and then questioned me for about half an hour. We spent most of the time trying to establish the basic scenario: where was I, where was the pedestrian, where was the car, what were the streets and crossings like. I think of myself as a good communicator, but she kept sounding confused and asking me to re-explain or saying the wrong thing and needing to be corrected.

"I don't have a lot of confidence in the investigator," I told Michael afterward. "She didn't seem to have a very good grasp of what happened." As I was saying it, it sounded weird to me, and I realized: "Wait: by the time she got around to calling witnesses, there's no way she wouldn't have known that Charles Street is one-way and that the man was crossing Hamilton."

Now I think she was trying to see if I would give credible testimony, and if she could shake me off my story. She did come pretty close to confusing me - I wound up having to draw a map while I talked to her, so that I could keep track of what was, in reality, a very simple scene. I'm sure she had a map in front of her the whole time. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth.

At the end she asked me who I thought was at fault. I said that I didn't think that the driver had been reckless, but that I couldn't think of any way that the accident wasn't her fault. She said that the insurance company had just about figured that they were responsible, but wanted to talk to me before concluding the case. I hope that means that they're planning to settle and that I won't have to testify in court.

Comments

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

"Now I think she was trying to see if I would give credible testimony, and if she could shake me off my story."

That seems pretty likely. And I don't think this should necessarily leave a bad taste in your mouth, although of course it's your mouth, not mine. People do volunteer as witnesses who weren't actually there, who weren't paying attention, and (worst case) who are affiliated with the insured party. This is *especially* true of car/pedestrian accidents, where there's a small industry of throwing yourself in front of a sufficiently slow-moving car.

The investigator was trying to determine the truth, which is a good thing.

I'm sorry about the months spent reassuring Colin; I remember similar catch-phrases and routines with my children. I've always been grateful they were elementary-school aged for 9/11.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I don't object to being closely questioned. I object to the way she kept introducing false information in her questions, to see if I would correct her. "So what direction did the car turn onto Charles Street?" "No, the car was on Charles Street, turning onto Hamilton." And that would have been after I had already specified the car's position two or three times.

There's a large body of cognitive psych research showing that introducing incorrect information via questions makes witness testimony less accurate. People remember the information they took in about a subject, but not necessarily where they saw/heard it - in real life, or in your questions. She was potentially damaging my ability to testify accurately in court, and she had a financial interest in doing so. That's not okay.

[mme-hardy.livejournal.com]

Aha! I missed your point, which is excellent.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

No, that isn't okay.

My nephew was a little younger and less articulate than Colin when his best friend had a sudden hospital visit that scared all the grownups. I was visiting later, while the little boy was recovering, and I heard the story over and over. "Braden sick, Braden hospital, home. Balloon in tree, man climbing!"

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

Having been both a witness to and a participant in far too many traffic accidents, I suspect that you're right, that the investigator was double- and triple-checking your recollection and testimony.

And I can understand it leaving a bad taste in your mouth, but that's what investigators are supposed to do, to make sure that everyone involved is both accurate and truthful.

My most annoying episode of being questioned by an insurance investigator was last summer when the car I was driving was hit by the guy who ran the red light. His insurance adjustor just asked me to tell him what happened, then said, "Yep, that agrees with what our insured said. Send me your medical bills and we'll pay them."

My own health insurance, on the other hand, even though the other driver's insurance had already agreed to cover my bills, kept me on the phone for nearly an hour, asking questions like, "Where you coming from and going to? You don't work in that building? Why were you there? Where were you going to stop for lunch on the way back? Could the other driver see you leaving the driveway? Could you see the other driver before he hit you? What could you have done to avoid the accident? Did you have to be at that building at that time? Were you in a street or a driveway when you were hit? Why were you driving a rental car? What is the speed limit there? Were you traveling above or below the speed limit?"

It was very frustrating.


Also, I sympathize like heck with Alex and Colin wanting to talk about the accident over and over. It's been nine years since my run-in with the semi-trailer, and I still am working through it. (I think the reason I've had so much trouble with that one is that I have no memory of the accident itself. That's probably a good thing, but it nags at me and nags at me. I don't think it's traumatic amnesia, I think it's hitting my head, probably being unconscious, and certainly having a concussion amnesia, because I have clear and detailed memories of all my other accidents.)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Sheesh. "What were you wearing when he hit you? Did you do anything to make him think you wanted it?" I'm sorry that happened to you. (Where were you going to stop for lunch?! What the hell?)

I remember that accident you were in. Has it really been nine years? Wow. We've all known each other a long time, haven't we?

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I guess, the "Where were you going to lunch" question was a follow-on to "Where were you coming from and going to?", since I had answered, "I was leaving Kingston Pike Building and was going to get lunch on the way back to my office in Hoskins Library." (For the record, the answer to "Where were you going to lunch" was "I hadn't made up my mind -- whichever fast food place on Cumberland had the shortest line at the drive-through.")

Yes, it really has been nine years, and we've known each other since before then. I don't remember when you first came into the Usenet group, but I've been on the Internet in one place or another just under 17 years. (I know this because I found Usenet when I started working at UT, which was 17 years ago last month.)

[ratphooey.livejournal.com]

For whom was the adjuster working? The driver, or the victim? That can make a big difference in how they approach potential witnesses.

9 times out of 10 (at least), the person who does the hitting is found to be at fault (whether they hit a person, another vehicle, or some other object).

[puzzlement.livejournal.com]

Argh, way to make the whole thing even more unpleasant by having this weird confusing challenging ending instead of Colin's version of the ending.

I hope you don't have to testify too. Presumably if she actually said that the insurance company had reached a conclusion unfavourable to their own client, they're not going to court? That seems like a weird thing to say otherwise to a witness.