Subject: car accident

From: [email-masked]
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 94 20:45:33 CDT

Hi, everybody:

   I remembered I have read some reports about car accident in the e-mail
before. At that time I felt very sorry for those people. Now the same thing
happened to my friend. This gives me a big shock.
                                |      |
                                |      |
                                |      |<---This's Rd A               N
                                |      |                              |
               _________________|      |_________________          W--+--E
              This's Rd B               |stop signe                   |
                                                                      S
              _______stop signe_|       __________________
                                |       |
                                |       |
                                |       |
                                |       |
My friend is on Rd A. The direction is from South to North. She wants to have a
left turn to Rd B. Rd A is two ways and one lane on each way. There is no stop
signe of both direction. (from South to North; from North to South) Rd B is two
ways and one lane on each way too. There is a stop signe of both diretion. (from
West to East; from East to West). Rd A and Rd B are local, not high way. There
is a car followed her. After she gives a left signal and have a turn. The car
followed her hit hers. That car right corner hit her left door. At this time
there is no waitness seeing all of this scence. The sound of two cars crashed
makes residence come out to help my friend out of car. And at that time she was
crying and she got shock. (if nobody help her, she can't get out of the car \
because the door's shape changed. ) She was crying and didn't know to tell peopl
e what happened. When policeman come, he even didn't survey and didn't ask my
friend anything and give her a ticket. Because it is dark (arround 7 pm), my
friend didnot know that was a ticket.(this is her first time to have a car accid
ence) The reason give her ticket is that the policeman thought she came from
East to West on Rd B. She did not stop and was hit. The policeman got this point
because he talked to a teenage driver who was behide of the car which hit my 
friends. Actully the teenage did not see all this happened, he arrived after theaccidence happened. The policeman said the teenage said he saw my friend come
from Rd B. (latter my friend talk to the teenage on the phone and ask him what 
he said to policeman. He denied he said that).
  Now my friend will go to court to meet police man to get the justic back. Thisis not her fault. She should not have a ticket. 
  I know this net about Lad. My friend really need help about this accidence 
because she never has a experience before. I am really appreciated for any help and any advice. My friend have some things quite unclear:
1. How can she win this case? Now she has a ticket from policeman.
2. 
2. She has a note with a signature of that teenage to claim he never says he sawmy friend on Rd B. But he doesn't want to go to court with my friend to be wait-ness for what he writes.
3. What should she do to let judge know the truth and not to influence with the policeman's report? What kind of evidence should she prepare for?
4. Does she need a lawyer to go the court with her?

I send this mail to net after thinking for a long time. I really feel it is 
unfair and get very ungry for it. This is not my friend fault and she got a 
ticket. Where is Justic? Please give her a hand. She needs every person's help.

Thank you so much for the reponse in advance. 
Appreciate for your time and your ideas.

---

From: Yucheng Wang <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 24 Sep 94 22:13:05 CDT

Dear [email-masked] :

I feel sorry for your friend. I do feel there might be some discrimination
against foreign students in the policemen mind. In Duke I know some accidents
which involved chinese students and american were solved wrongly by the police.
In one of the cases, the chinese student went to the international office to
ask help. The international office hired a lowyer for the student for free. The
case was finally solved and justice was brought back. So my suggestion is to
find a layer. I don't know about your area, in Durham area after each accident
you would most probably got letters from local law firms asking wether you need 
help or not. Those lawyers are living on helping people who got involved into
car accidents and need help. The worst you would expect is to lose the case 
and pay the lawyer several hundred dollars. But since the policeman couldn't
find a witness, I guess you can get higher probability to win.