Can't Drive After Your Accident? How to Hire a Lawyer Without Leaving Home
Your car is totaled, your body hurts, and everything the insurance company needs from you seems to require a trip somewhere. Here's how to run the whole recovery — medical, car, and legal — from your couch.
The Double Bind Nobody Warns You About
A serious wreck takes two things at once: your health and your transportation. Each one would be manageable alone. Together they feed on each other — you need to get to the doctor to heal, you need a car to get to the doctor, and the car is sitting in a tow yard with the front end folded in. Meanwhile an adjuster is calling your cell wanting a recorded statement.
I've sat at a lot of kitchen tables with people stuck in exactly this spot, because driving to clients is how my practice works. This is the practical playbook I walk them through — the medical piece, the car piece, and the part where getting real legal help stops requiring a trip downtown.
Keep the Medical Care Going — Even Carless
The single most damaging thing you can do to both your health and your claim is to stop treating because getting there became hard. Insurance companies read your medical records the way accountants read ledgers: a four-week gap between appointments becomes their argument that you must have healed at week one. Your body doesn't get healthier from missed appointments, and your case certainly doesn't.
So solve the transportation problem like it's part of your treatment plan, because it is:
- Say yes to rides. The spouse, the sister, the church friend who offered — this is what they offered for. Injured people burn energy protecting everyone else from inconvenience. Stop. Take the ride.
- Use rideshare apps deliberately. A scheduled ride to physical therapy costs far less than the appointment gap costs your case. Keep the receipts — out-of-pocket transportation costs connected to your treatment belong in the file.
- Ask every provider about telehealth. Plenty of follow-ups — medication checks, progress reviews — can happen by video where your provider offers it. Ask; the worst answer is no, and a telehealth visit documents your recovery just like an office visit does.
- Tell the scheduling desk you can't drive. Providers' offices deal with carless patients every day. They can cluster appointments, suggest closer locations, and work with whoever is driving you.
And write things down as you go — pain levels, missed workdays, who drove you where. The notes you keep this month become the evidence that explains this month a year from now.
Getting a Car Back Under You
The property-damage claim runs on a separate, faster track than your injury claim — and you don't have to wait on one to move the other.
If the other driver was at fault, their liability insurance is generally responsible for repairing or totaling out your vehicle and for the time you're deprived of it — which is why at-fault carriers routinely set up rental cars while a claim is sorted out. South Carolina requires drivers to carry property-damage liability coverage for exactly this. The catch: the at-fault carrier moves at its own pace, and "we're still investigating" can drag on while you're bumming rides.
Your own policy may be the faster door. If you carry collision coverage, your insurer can fix or total the car now and sort out reimbursement with the other carrier later. If you bought rental reimbursement coverage, use it. Check your declarations page — many people don't know what they paid for until the week they need it.
Don't sign the total-loss paperwork blind. Before the car disappears into an auction lot, it needs to be photographed — the damage pattern in the metal is evidence of how the crash happened. This matters even more in truck accident cases, where the vehicles tell a story the trucking company's insurer would rather not have told.
One form you can't ignore: in South Carolina the officer at the scene hands each driver an FR-10 insurance-verification form, and it has to get to your insurance company within 15 days so coverage can be confirmed to the DMV. It's paperwork you can handle entirely by phone and photo — no driving required — and when I take a case, I make sure it hasn't fallen through the cracks.
"Every client gets my personal cell number. Call or text me directly — you'll never chase a case manager."
Clients hear back from me the same day — and for emergencies, anytime.
— Thomas Spiro Conits
Hiring a Lawyer From Your Couch — Two Ways to Do It
Here's something the injury-law industry doesn't advertise: you have never actually needed to visit a law office to hire a lawyer. Most firms will sign you up by phone and e-signature in minutes. That's one way to do it, and for some people it's fine.
But notice what you give up. You've hired someone you've never met, based on a phone screener's script. Nobody has looked at the crumpled car in your driveway, the stack of paperwork on your counter, or you. The details that make your case yours — the ones that don't fit an intake form — stay at your house.
The second way: the lawyer drives to you. I wrote a full, honest piece on whether personal injury lawyers make house calls — short version: most don't, and I built my practice on doing them. When you can't drive, the difference between those two models stops being a preference and becomes the whole ballgame.
What the house call gets you when you're stuck at home
- The paperwork happens at your table. Fee agreement, medical-records authorizations, everything — signed in one sitting, explained line by line, with your family in the room if you want them there.
- The evidence gets collected where it lives. I photograph the vehicle damage, the bruises, the bills, the discharge folder — on the spot, before any of it fades or gets thrown out.
- The adjuster stops being your problem. From the day you hire me, the insurance company talks to me. No more calls fishing for a recorded statement while you're on pain medication.
- The case starts at full speed while you heal. South Carolina generally gives you three years to file an injury suit, but evidence doesn't keep that long — witness memories, road marks, and camera footage go fast. Your inability to drive costs the case nothing, because the case never needed you to drive.
My footprint covers Greenville, Spartanburg, Laurens, Anderson, Pickens, and Abbeville counties — from Travelers Rest at the top of Greenville County, down I-385 to Fountain Inn, and across the Saluda River into Powdersville and the Anderson County towns. See all the areas we serve and how I Come To You works.
One More Thing: The Bills Will Come Before the Money Does
The ER bill lands in your mailbox long before any settlement lands in your bank account, and figuring out who pays what — health insurance, MedPay, the at-fault carrier — is its own maze. I wrote a separate plain-English guide on who pays medical bills after a car accident in South Carolina. If the bills have started arriving, read it next — or skip the reading and call (864) 777-1000 and ask me directly. The consultation is free either way.
FAQs: Legal Help When You Can't Drive
Do you charge extra for driving to me?
No. The consultation is free wherever it happens, and if you hire me the fee is contingency — no fee unless we win. The miles are on me. House calls are how my practice works, not an upsell.
Can you help with the car itself — the total loss and the rental?
Yes. When I take an injury case I help my client navigate the property-damage side too — pushing the claim along, making sure the vehicle is photographed before it's crushed, and keeping the pressure on so you're not carless any longer than necessary. The injury claim and the car claim run on separate tracks, and I keep both moving.
What if I'm still in the hospital and can't even get home yet?
I make hospital-room visits the same way I make house calls. Call or text (864) 777-1000 — or have a family member do it — and I'll work around your care team and visiting hours. Starting from a hospital bed is common in serious-injury cases, and nothing about it slows the claim down.
What should I have ready when you arrive?
Whatever you have, and don't stress about what you don't: photos from the scene, the FR-10 insurance-verification form the officer gave you, your insurance cards, discharge papers, bills, and the claim number if an adjuster has already called. I photograph and organize everything at your table — that's part of the point of coming to you.
No car? No problem. I'll come to you.
I personally drive to clients' homes across Greenville and the surrounding counties — hospital rooms and kitchen tables included. You were just hurt; the last thing you need is a trip to a law office.
— Thomas Spiro Conits
Stuck at home with a case that won't wait? Call Tom.
Free consultation. No fee unless we win. If getting to an office is hard right now, Tom will come to you.
Office: 100 Williams St, Greenville, SC 29601 · (864) 777-1000