Legal Question in Personal Injury in Indiana

To whom this may concern,

Two months ago, I was driving to a friends home to help move some firewood, when I came around a curve at around 20mph, lost control of my car's brakes and steering, and went front first into a tree, totaling my car. When I stepping out of my vehicle, thankfully unharmed, I noticed that the road was coated in a very thick layer of sand, which had been dumped by the highway department several weeks ago during a snow storm. The sand was supposed to have washed away weeks ago before this event, but it had not. The whole road was coated in this thick sand as well. The sheriff arrived on the scene, inspected, and took me the accident was technically my fault, but the sand is what did me in. He also took a picture of the sand with the tire marks. It is two months later, my family is out the money for a replacement car, and the sand is still on the road quite heavily. Infact, it is on almost all of the county roads. The sand has been a problem for many years in my county. A few years ago, some teenage girls were killed by the sand while driving down a steep hill. The sand has thrown my brothers car off before, although he was lucky to have not wrecked. It poses a great danger to motorists, yet the highway department will not clean up the mess they have created.

So hear is my question; How might I go about filing a small claim against the county highway department? I am an 18 year old male with a crystal clear driving record, and have no criminal history. The sheriff did take a photo of the sand and wreck, but the actual speed of the car was not recorded, although the sheriff estimated the speed to ahve been only 20 mph. The car I had could have been sold for around $6000 pre-accident, so I plan to sue for just that. I also want them to clean up the sand, because it is still very dangerous. Whenever there is sand on the state roads, the state highway department cleans up the mess, so why shouldn't the county highway department?

Sincerely,

Ben Hensel

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