Be Prepared; Take These Steps After a Car Accident

One of the most frightening situations is when you’re faced with an actual emergency. This can happen out on the road when you’re in a car accident.

Collisions on the road happen every day, but they don’t happen to all of us often. If you’ve been in an accident, it’s important you take a few steps and figure out what to do next. Before we get into the checklist of items you need so that you’re prepared when the collision happens, you want to ensure you’re calm and composed, ready to handle the emergency situation.

Are You Injured? This is the First Thing You Need to Figure Out

You’ve just had a sudden stop in your car that results in two vehicles colliding or your car hitting an obstacle. Before you assess the damage to your vehicle, you need to figure out whether or not you’ve been injured. If you have, can you determine how badly? If your head or neck has been hurt, you need to stay put as much as you can. If you haven’t been injured, move on to the next step.

Is Anyone Else in the Accident Injured?

Once you’ve realized that you aren’t hurt and can move without any trouble, it’s time to check on the other people involved in the car accident. Are there passengers in your car? If so, what’s their injury status? Were there other vehicles involved? How are the people in those cars? If anyone is injured, begin first aid if you know how. If you don’t know how you need to ask for some help to ensure everyone stays alive and well until emergency services arrive.

Now Its Time to Assess The Situation

If you’re not injured and can move out of your vehicle, now is the time to assess the damage. If everyone involved in the accident is ok and unhurt, you should begin looking at the vehicles. Take a few pictures of the vehicles involved and the accident area. If your car is still drivable, you need to move it to the side of the road and out of the way once you’ve got your pictures. This will help clear the lanes for traffic to move past. If the vehicles involved aren’t drivable, you need to leave them where they are.

Now Its Time to Get the Police Involved

Once you’ve assessed the accident site and ensured everyone involved is unhurt, it’s time to call 911 and let the police know you’ve been in a car accident and need an officer to come and fill out a police report. A call to 911 should be made sooner if someone is hurt and needs emergency services. The police report is an important part of any collision, and moving forward, make sure you call them and get one filled out.

Wait for Assistance to Arrive

Strangely, all of the previous steps should only take a few minutes to complete. Now, you’ll need to wait for help to arrive. Turn off the car engine and turn on the hazard lights. If you have road flares or reflective triangles, you’ll want to place them in the area to make other drivers aware of the situation. It might take a while for a police officer to arrive; if that’s the case, sit tight and just wait.

Note: If tow trucks stop by and offer to tow your vehicle away from the accident before you’ve called them or the police have arrived, turn them down. Some of these tow trucks are part of a predatory scheme.

When Other Drives and Vehicles are Involved, You Need to Exchange Information

This step in the process can be a little tricky. Even if it’s clear which driver was at fault in the accident, neither should accuse the other. If the other driver is angry or begins to get belligerent with you, wait for the police to arrive before exchanging information. On the other hand, if the other driver is calm and collected, you can exchange information while you wait for a police officer to arrive. The information you need to share with each other includes:

• Full name and contact information
• Insurance company and policy number
• Driver’s license and license plate number
• Vehicle description
• Location of accident

Some of this information will be included in the police report, but there’s nothing wrong with exchanging this information before the report is filed. Avoid discussing fault and the facts of the accident with the other driver. Between the police report and the insurance companies, fault will be determined and assigned.

Document the Accident While You Wait and Once the Officer Arrives

One of the last things you might think of when you’ve been in a car accident is writing everything down, but you should. Make sure you do the following:

• Identify the officer that arrives on the scene with their names and badge numbers
• Get a copy of the police report
• Save the pictures. If you didn’t take any yet, now is the time to do so
• Save the exchanged information for future reference
• Take down names of witnesses, especially those willing to make a statement

Some of the information you’ll collect at the accident site will be in the police report, but some of it will not. Collecting information and comparing it to the police report later is a great way to protect yourself in case there are any discrepancies.

Start Your Insurance Claim Right Away

Don’t take away from the attention the police officers might need but start your insurance claim immediately. It’s important to report a car accident to the insurance provider as soon as you can, especially if you need to find an approved towing company and certified body shop to handle the repairs necessary for your vehicle. Thankfully, most insurance companies now have a mobile app that allows you to have easy access to the information needed to report a claim and get your car sent to the right place that’s covered under your policy.

Being in a car accident is extremely frightening and difficult. Follow some of these steps and have your collision reported appropriately.