Alton Attorney Gives Practical Advice on What To Do After a Car Accident

Our Daily Show Interview! Keith Short & Associates: Car Accident Mistakes, and More!

ALTON - Attorney Keith Short has some practical advice for anyone who is in a car accident.

“The number one thing I would tell people to do is, as soon as possible after the accident, make a log of everything you can remember about it,” he said. “The absolute first mistake, absolutely, is not recording everything you can immediately after it occurred. That means going to the doctor and saying, this happened, and telling them the truth. Telling the police officer the truth. If there’s a witness there, make sure you try to get the identification, because that really matters.”

Short, who works with Keith Short and Associates, P.C., in Alton, has seen his share of car accident cases. He urges people to document everything they can and to always tell the truth, as lies “will always come out.”

If you need to go to an emergency room, Short encourages you to go, but never exaggerate your injury. He believes honesty is the best policy when it comes to building your case.

“This is what the insurance company does,” he explained. “If you wait two or three days, they’ll get a doctor who will say, ‘Well, if they were really injured, they would have gone right away.’ If you go right away, they’ll find a doctor who says, ‘Well, they raced to the emergency room so they could record this all.’ So the thing to do is, you just tell the truth. You don’t exaggerate. You do not say your pain is a ten unless your femur is sticking out.”

Unlike most other lawyers, Short often finds himself in the courtroom in front of a jury. He noted that the defense often pushes for specific information. Again, the best thing to do is to tell the truth and never to guess.

“They will want to get you to give them specific numbers,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘How many feet were you away?’ They’re going to make it into a math problem. How many seconds lapsed from the time you looked up? And the answer should always be, ‘I don’t know because I wasn’t looking at my watch. I don’t know. I can only sort of guess.’ Guesses aren’t allowed.”

As an attorney who specializes in injuries, Short is focused on helping people who have been hurt. He has no interest in bankrupting anyone, but rather in providing some sort of healing and justice to those who have been wronged. As such, he often turns down cases that don’t meet that criteria.

“If you come to my office and say, ‘I was in this car accident,’ I say, ‘Okay, well, what’s wrong with you?’ If there’s not much wrong with you, I have no interest in your case,” he said. “Thank God there’s nothing wrong with you. Go on with life. There's no reason to sue anybody over that kind of silliness. You have to have a serious injury, or I’m not interested in it.”

Short is well-educated and very experienced in handling these cases, and he is happy to talk to anyone who thinks they might have a case. For more information about Keith Short and Associates, P.C., visit their official website. Check out their official Facebook page to learn more or participate in their upcoming holiday giveaway starting on Dec. 8, 2025.

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