North Dakota Injuries Dictionary

Legal and insurance terms explained plainly

You might see this phrase in a crash report, an insurance letter, or a reconstruction expert's notes: "the area of impact was in the northbound lane" or "damage patterns are...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-25

black box data

Information automatically recorded by a vehicle or machine's onboard electronic systems before, during, and after an incident, often including speed, brake use, throttle...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-31

captain of the ship doctrine

Defense lawyers and malpractice insurers sometimes raise this phrase to shift blame away from a hospital or other staff, arguing that one physician had total control over a...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-22

coefficient of friction

Money gets won or lost on this number because it can change a crash from "you were driving too fast" to "the road had almost no grip." In a claim, lawyers, insurers, and...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-25

crush analysis

A method of accident reconstruction, crush analysis measures permanent vehicle deformation after a collision and uses that damage to estimate impact severity, collision forces,...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-24

Event Data Recorder

Like the memory chip in your phone after you drop it, the insurance company does not want you to know your vehicle may have stored a split-second record of what really happened...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-21

failure to stop for emergency vehicle

What does it mean if you were cited for not stopping for an emergency vehicle? It usually means a driver did not promptly pull over, slow down, or otherwise give the...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-23

following too closely

Like walking so close behind someone in a grocery store that they stop and you slam into their cart, driving too near the vehicle ahead leaves no room to react. Legally and for...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-23

gouge marks

Miss this detail after a crash, and a bad guess can harden into the official story: who crossed the centerline, where impact happened, or whether a driver tried to avoid the...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-30

leaving the scene of an accident

People often confuse leaving the scene of an accident with reckless driving, but they are different offenses. Reckless driving is about how a person drives before a crash or...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-23

license compact agreement

Can another state find out about your ticket, suspension, or revoked license? Yes. A license compact agreement is an arrangement between states to share driver licensing...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-31

medical review panel

Miss this step in a North Dakota malpractice case, and the defense may argue your claim is premature, weak, or not ready to move forward at all. Insurance companies and...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-21

motor vehicle record

Like a report card that never forgets, this is the official paper trail of what a driver has done behind the wheel. A motor vehicle record is the government-maintained history...

DICTIONARY 2026-04-03

passing a stopped school bus

Driving past a school bus that is stopped to load or unload children when the law requires traffic to stop. "Passing" can mean overtaking the bus from behind or, in some...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-22

perception-reaction time

A few seconds here can change who pays for a crash. If an insurer, accident reconstruction expert, or jury decides a driver had enough time to see a hazard and respond, that...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-26

photogrammetry

You just got a letter that says the insurance company's crash expert used photos, video, and scene measurements to "perform photogrammetry" and map out what happened. In plain...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-26

point of impact

Think about dropping a coffee mug on a tile floor: the key question is where it first hits, because that spot helps explain the break pattern and what happened next. In a...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-27

reckless driving

Insurance companies and defense lawyers often use allegations of reckless driving to argue that an injured person caused their own crash, failed to use reasonable care, or...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-23

scene mapping

Insurance companies and defense lawyers may talk about a crash "map" as if it settles everything: one clean diagram, one story, case closed. They often lean on that kind of...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-24

sight distance

You just got a letter that says the other driver "had adequate sight distance" and could have avoided the crash. Strip away the fancy wording and it means this: sight distance...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-27

speeding ticket

Like a receipt nobody wants, a speeding ticket is written proof that an officer believes a driver was going faster than the posted limit or too fast for conditions. Legally, it...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-23

throw distance

What trips people up most is that this is not the same thing as skid marks or total stopping distance. It means how far a person, object, or vehicle is thrown after impact,...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-29

time-distance analysis

Insurance companies and defense lawyers often use this phrase to make a crash sound more settled than it really is. They may point to a chart, a speed estimate, or a...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-29

yaw marks

Insurance adjusters and defense lawyers love to wave this one around like it proves a crash victim lost control and caused the wreck. If they can point to curved tire marks on...

DICTIONARY 2026-03-26