In the days after a crash you are treating injuries and answering questions from an insurer whose interests are not yours. Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers represent drivers, passengers and pedestrians injured in Mount Airy and across Philadelphia.
Two drivers describe the same Lincoln Drive crash in ways that cannot both be true, and neither one is lying. That road bends where drivers expect it to run straight, and what a person remembers from inside a spinning car is rarely what the physical evidence shows.
Cases like that are decided on what can be documented. Call (215) 875-7030 and we can start with the scene.
What decides fault when accounts conflict?
Physical evidence first. Crush damage, debris fields, final resting positions, skid and yaw marks, and the vehicles’ own event data recorders tell a story that survives cross-examination better than memory does.
Then the record made in the hours after: the crash report, photographs, the timing of a 911 call, and any camera on a nearby business or doorbell. Most of that is gone within a week or two unless someone asks for it, which is the single practical reason to call a lawyer early rather than after the insurer takes a position.
Streets where Mount Airy crashes cluster
Lincoln Drive is the headline, with its curves, its camber and its history of drivers carrying too much speed into a corner that does not accommodate it. Wet leaves in the fall make it worse, and so does the merge pattern at the Wissahickon end.
Germantown Avenue adds the low-speed grind: cars backing out of angled spaces, double-parked delivery vehicles, and pedestrians crossing between shops. Stenton Avenue and Wadsworth carry commuter traffic through residential blocks with school zones layered into them, which is where the pedestrian and bicycle cases in this neighborhood tend to come from.
If a crash on any of those is now an insurance problem, call (215) 875-7030.
Can you still recover if you were partly at fault?
Yes, up to a point. 42 Pa.C.S. § 7102 allows recovery as long as your negligence was not greater than the other side’s, with damages reduced in proportion to your share. Above that line, recovery is barred.
That rule is the reason insurers assign fault percentages early and aggressively in two-car crashes where the accounts conflict. A driver told she is 60 percent at fault has been handed a number, not a finding, and the number changes when the physical evidence is developed. Our resource on Pennsylvania’s contributory fault rules walks through how the percentages work.
What your insurance actually covers
Two different policies usually touch a Pennsylvania crash. Medical benefits under an auto policy pay treatment up to the amount purchased, regardless of fault. The liability claim against the other driver covers the rest, subject to the tort election on your policy.
| Coverage | What it pays | What decides it |
| Medical benefits | Treatment up to the limit you bought | Nothing about fault |
| Liability claim against the other driver | Medical costs, lost income, pain and suffering | Fault, and your tort election |
| Uninsured or underinsured motorist | The gap when the other driver has too little coverage | Your own policy limits |
| Property damage | Vehicle repair or value | Fault, or your collision coverage |
Drivers routinely discover after a crash that the at-fault driver carried state minimum coverage. That is what underinsured motorist coverage is for, and it is a claim against your own carrier with its own notice requirements.
Where a Mount Airy crash case is filed
In the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas, with the Trial Division at City Hall, for any crash inside the city. Municipal Court handles smaller claims.
The Lincoln Drive corridor complicates one thing worth knowing about. Where a roadway design or maintenance failure contributed to a crash, a claim against a public entity may be involved, and those carry notice deadlines far shorter than the two years that applies to a claim against another driver.
If your crash involved standing water, a missing guardrail, a sign that was down, or a surface defect, raise it with a lawyer early rather than at the anniversary of the crash.
Questions Mount Airy clients bring us
The other driver has no insurance, is there anything to do?
Usually yes, through the uninsured motorist coverage on your own policy or a household member’s. Those claims have notice deadlines of their own, so they should be opened early.
How long do I have to file a car accident case in Pennsylvania?
Two years from the crash for most injury claims, with narrow exceptions. Waiting until the deadline is close limits what a lawyer can do with the evidence.
Is it worth hiring a lawyer for a minor crash?
Ask what the injury is, not what the bumper looks like. A claim with modest property damage and a real injury is exactly the case insurers value low, and it is the one where representation changes the number most.
Have the crash looked at before the insurer sets the file
Insurers assign fault, value the injury and close the file on their own schedule. Once a percentage is written in, it takes evidence to move it, and the evidence is easiest to collect now.
Zavodnick & Lasky Personal Injury Lawyers handle Mount Airy claims on a contingency basis, so the fee comes out of what is recovered. Call (215) 875-7030, see our Mount Airy personal injury page for other claim types, or start with our Philadelphia car accident page.
