Legal Question in Traffic Law in Virginia

Re: property damage

Excellent question... difficult.

There are two parts, really: One is taking care of YOUR CAR, and the other is taking care of the debris on the highway.

You are responsible for your car. But you can get the money back from the other driver if the other driver is at fault.

Normally the police will take the lead and will make sure that the road gets cleaned up, to allow traffic to flow.

But you should -- if you are not injured and taken away to the hospital -- stay and make sure that your own car gets taken care of.

HOWEVER... the ultimate question of the costs for this will depend on who is at fault in the accident (or if both are at fault, somehow).

In terms of the debris on the road, the government should take care of that. That is, the police will call in a clean up crew to take care of it (or should).

For one thing, it is NOT SAFE for a "civilian" to be walking around on the road, not knowing what he is doing, picking up pieces while cars are driving around. An official crew is safer.

HOWEVER... If you know that there is a danger to other cars, and you do nothing about it, this could be "negligence" that could cause damage or harm to someone else.

If you KNOW there are big pieces of debris in the road, and you are not injured, and no one is doing anything about it, you should stay and try to arrange a solution. If you can safely take BIG pieces out of the road, you should do that.

But mainly you should keep after the police until they have someone clean it up. That way you are not "negligent" in allowing a known danger to injure someone else.

But the main thing is the question of who caused the accident.