Lingering neck pain after a rear-end hit — when do you actually call a lawyer?
So this happened about three weeks ago now. I was stopped at a red light and got rear-ended pretty hard. The other driver's insurance accepted liability pretty quickly, which I thought meant things would be smooth — but now I'm not so sure.
The car stuff got sorted fast enough, but here's the thing: my neck felt stiff right after and I figured it would fade in a few days. It hasn't. I went to urgent care and they said soft tissue stuff, gave me some exercises, told me to follow up if it gets worse. It's not worse exactly, but it's definitely not gone either. I'm waking up stiff, I had to skip the gym for weeks, and I'm starting to wonder how long this actually takes to resolve.
Meanwhile the adjuster keeps texting me asking for updates and dropped a hint about wrapping things up soon. That kind of pressure feels weird to me — like, why the rush if they already admitted fault?
I've never dealt with any of this before. I always assumed lawyers were only for like, really serious crashes. But I'm starting to second-guess that. Did other people here get attorneys involved even for something that seems "minor" on the surface? How did you know when it was the right call?
I don't want to be dramatic about it, but I also don't want to sign something and then still be dealing with this neck pain six months from now with no recourse. Any honest thoughts appreciated.