Written by Ali Razavi

Most people who come to us after a crash on Santa Monica Boulevard or Sunset Strip already suspect the other driver was on their phone. They saw it happen — the swerve, the delayed reaction, the driver who never even touched the brakes. But suspecting it and proving it are two different things, and that gap is exactly where good legal work happens.

At Razavi Law Group | Who Hurt You?, we handle car accident cases across West Hollywood and throughout California. One of the questions I get most often is whether we can actually find out if the other driver was texting. The short answer is yes. The longer answer explains how, and why acting quickly matters more than most people realize.

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Can Car Accident Attorneys Find Out if Someone Was Texting in West Hollywood?

Yes — and in many cases, we can prove it. California law makes distracted driving a serious offense, and courts have consistently allowed phone records as evidence in civil accident cases. Under California Vehicle Code Section 23123.5, using a handheld device while driving is illegal. When that illegal act causes a crash, it becomes a powerful piece of your negligence claim.

Here is what we actually do to establish that someone was texting at the time of a crash in West Hollywood:

Phone Records via Subpoena. This is the most direct method. We issue a formal legal subpoena to the at-fault driver’s wireless carrier — AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, whoever — demanding call logs and text message timestamps for the period surrounding the crash. Carriers are required by law to preserve and produce this data when subpoenaed through proper legal channels. Those records will show exactly when texts were sent or received, often down to the second. If the timestamp lines up with the moment of impact, that is damning evidence.

Expert Witnesses. We work with accident reconstruction specialists who can correlate vehicle speed and trajectory data with the timeline from phone records. If a phone record shows a text sent eight seconds before a collision, and a reconstruction expert can show the driver made no braking attempt during that window, the picture becomes very clear to a jury.

Surveillance Footage. West Hollywood has significant camera coverage from businesses and traffic systems along its main corridors. I have had cases where footage from a restaurant’s exterior camera caught a driver with a phone in hand two blocks before the crash. That footage is time-stamped and can be cross-referenced with the collision timeline.

The Driver’s Own Statements. Drivers sometimes admit at the scene that they were looking at their phone. That admission, documented in the police report or captured by a witness, becomes part of the evidence record. I have seen cases resolved quickly because the responding officer noted the driver’s admission.

Spoliation Letters. The moment we take a case, we send what is called a spoliation letter to the at-fault driver and their insurer. This letter puts them on legal notice to preserve all electronic data, including phone records. If they delete records after receiving that letter, they face sanctions. California courts take evidence destruction seriously.

The one thing that kills these investigations is waiting. Carriers typically hold detailed records for 12 to 18 months, and some data — like precise timestamps for individual text messages — has shorter retention windows. If you wait six months to call a car accident attorney, you may have lost your best evidence. Call the day of, or the day after.

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Do Attorneys Help You Get a Car Rental During an Accident Case?

They do, and this is one of the practical benefits of having legal representation that clients often do not expect. Your rental car entitlement is part of your property damage claim, and insurance adjusters frequently try to limit it in ways that are not actually supported by California law.

Under California Civil Code Section 3333, you are entitled to the full cost of restoring yourself to where you were before the accident. That includes transportation while your car is being repaired or while the liability dispute is still open. What I see constantly is adjusters offering a 10-day rental when a repair takes 22 days, or they cap the daily rate far below what equivalent vehicles actually cost to rent in Los Angeles.

When you have an attorney handling your case, we write directly to the carrier and reference the applicable statutes. We negotiate the daily rate and the duration based on documented repair timelines, not whatever number the adjuster prefers. If the other driver’s insurance drags its feet on accepting liability — which they often do to pressure unrepresented claimants into quick settlements — we can help you access your own collision coverage’s rental provision while the dispute plays out, and then recover that cost from the at-fault party later.

If your car is totaled, the rental obligation extends until you receive the settlement check for your vehicle’s value and have had a reasonable amount of time to replace it. Most clients do not know this, and most adjusters do not volunteer it.

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Do I Need an Attorney to Claim Lost Uber Wages From a Car Accident Without Injury?

We have covered the Uber wage question in depth in a separate post specific to West Hollywood drivers, so I will keep this brief and direct you there if you want the full breakdown. The short version: you do not legally need an attorney, but the practical reality is that Uber drivers face specific documentation challenges that make the claim significantly harder without one.

Lost earnings for a self-employed or gig-economy driver require you to prove what you would have earned. That means producing Schedule C tax records, weekly earnings statements from the Uber driver app, and ideally some comparison to your earnings in the same period the prior year. Insurers frequently challenge these claims by arguing the income is inconsistent or unverifiable.

If there is no injury, you are not entitled to pain and suffering damages, so the only items in play are your vehicle damage, any out-of-pocket costs, and the lost income. The claim is smaller, which means insurers are less afraid of litigation and more likely to low-ball you. Whether an attorney makes financial sense depends on the size of the wage loss and whether you can document it cleanly. Contact us for a free consultation — most attorneys, including our team, will tell you honestly within 15 minutes whether it is worth pursuing with representation.

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Has Anyone Used KNR Attorneys for a Minor Car Accident?

KNR (Kisling, Nestico & Redick) is an Ohio-based personal injury firm. They are not licensed to practice in California and do not handle cases in West Hollywood. If you found their name through a Google search or a referral, you would need to verify whether the attorney you are speaking with is actually licensed in California — you can check that through the State Bar of California.

For minor accidents specifically, what matters more than the firm’s name is whether the attorney you hire has experience with California’s insurance regulations and Los Angeles County’s court system. Minor accidents can become complicated fast — injuries that seem minor at the scene sometimes worsen over days, and insurers are sophisticated at using early low-ball offers to close claims before the full picture is clear.

The American Bar Association recommends consulting an attorney before accepting any settlement offer, even in minor accident cases. That consultation is typically free and costs you nothing. If you are in the Los Angeles area, you want someone who appears regularly in California courts and knows how local carriers operate, not a firm headquartered in another state.

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Are You Liable if Someone Gets an Attorney for a Car Accident Injury?

This question reflects a genuine worry I hear from drivers who caused accidents — sometimes even those who were minimally at fault. The answer is that hiring an attorney does not create liability. Liability is determined by the facts of the crash, California’s comparative fault rules, and the applicable insurance policies. Whether the injured party has a lawyer or not does not change what you did or did not do.

What it does change is how effectively the other party can pursue their claim. An unrepresented claimant may accept a lowball offer and walk away. A represented claimant is more likely to obtain full documentation of their damages — medical records, lost wage calculations, expert opinions — and present a complete claim. That can result in a larger settlement or jury verdict.

California follows a pure comparative fault standard, meaning your liability is proportional to your share of fault. If you are 30% at fault and the other driver is 70%, you are responsible for 30% of their damages. That percentage is determined by the facts, not by whether they hired a lawyer.

If you caused or partially caused an accident and someone has retained an attorney against you, your own insurance company assigns a defense attorney to represent your interests. Your financial exposure in most cases is limited to your policy limits, though there are exceptions for gross negligence or cases where damages exceed your coverage. This is worth a conversation with a California personal injury attorney who can assess your specific situation. For general reference on how liability works in civil cases, Justia’s legal information has a clear breakdown of California tort law.

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Can You Get Attorney Fees in a Car Accident Case in South Carolina?

South Carolina law handles attorney fees differently from California. In most personal injury cases in South Carolina — as in most U.S. states — attorney fees are not separately recoverable as damages. Personal injury attorneys in South Carolina typically work on contingency, meaning they take a percentage of the settlement or verdict rather than charging by the hour. The fee comes out of what you recover, not as an additional line item the defendant pays.

There are narrow exceptions. If a defendant acted in bad faith during the claims process, South Carolina courts may allow fee-shifting in some insurance bad faith cases. South Carolina Code Section 38-59-40 governs bad faith insurance practices, and courts have awarded fees in cases where insurers unreasonably denied valid claims. For full detail on how South Carolina handles fee awards in civil litigation, Cornell Law School’s legal information institute is a reliable reference.

Our firm practices in California and does not handle South Carolina cases. If you are in South Carolina after a car accident, look for a licensed South Carolina attorney who focuses on car accident claims. The contingency fee arrangement means the attorney only gets paid if you win, which is the structure used in almost all personal injury cases regardless of state.

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How the Evidence Investigation Shapes Your Entire Case?

I want to spend a moment on something that ties the texting question back to the bigger picture, because it comes up in almost every case we handle.

The strength of your car accident claim is almost entirely dependent on evidence gathered in the first few weeks after the crash. This is true whether we are talking about phone records proving distracted driving, surveillance footage, witness statements, or medical documentation of your injuries. Evidence degrades, gets overwritten, and gets lost. People’s memories fade. Businesses delete security footage on 30-day cycles. Carriers are not obligated to retain detailed records indefinitely.

The clients who get the best outcomes are the ones who contact a car accident lawyer immediately and let us start the preservation process before anything disappears. We send spoliation letters, subpoena records, hire investigators when necessary, and secure the factual foundation of the case long before we ever talk to the other side’s insurance company.

For clients involved in larger commercial crashes, the same principle applies — we handle truck accident cases and other commercial vehicle matters where electronic logging device data and fleet management records face similar retention limits. The clock starts at the moment of impact, not when you decide you want to pursue a claim.

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Reach Out to Our West Hollywood Team

If you were in a crash in West Hollywood and you suspect the other driver was on their phone, do not wait to find out whether you can prove it. Call us first. We will tell you quickly what evidence is available and whether we can recover it.

Razavi Law Group | Who Hurt You? represents car accident clients throughout California on a contingency basis — no fees unless we win.

Call (323)-612-8002 to speak with our team directly, or schedule a consultation online. You can also visit our office at 925 N La Brea Ave, West Hollywood, CA 90038, United States. The consultation is free. The conversation about your case is confidential. And if we can help you, we will get to work on evidence preservation immediately.