If you’ve just been in a car accident, the first things to do are check for injuries, move to safety if you can, call 911, and stay calm about what you say to everyone who shows up next. The hour after a crash shapes the insurance claim and any lawsuit that follows, so the goal is to secure the scene, gather evidence, and avoid the small mistakes that quietly cost people money for years. What follows walks through the steps roughly in the order they happen.
Check for Injuries and Call 911
Look at yourself and your passengers first. If anyone is hurt or unresponsive, call 911 right away. Concussions and internal bleeding don’t always announce themselves at the scene, so a crash that looks minor can still be serious.
If your car runs and nobody is seriously injured, move it out of the travel lanes onto a shoulder, median, or parking lot. Most states require you to clear a drivable vehicle from the roadway, both to prevent a second collision and to keep traffic moving. Turn on your hazard lights. If you have flares or reflective triangles, set them behind the vehicle; federal commercial-vehicle rules place warning devices roughly 100 feet back on a straight road, and farther on curves or hills.1Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration. Emergency Warning Devices (392.22) Those distances work fine for passenger cars too.
Call 911 even when injuries seem unlikely. Many states legally require you to report any crash with a visible injury or property damage above a set dollar amount, with thresholds commonly running from $500 to $2,000 depending on the state. The officer who responds will create a formal accident report, and that report becomes one of the most important documents in any later claim because it reads as a relatively neutral account of what happened.
Watch What You Say at the Scene
This is where people quietly sabotage their own claims. Stick to observable facts when the officer asks what happened: which lane you were in, which direction you were heading, what color the light was when you entered the intersection. Don’t speculate about the other driver, and don’t guess at your speed if you aren’t sure.
A few phrases to avoid:
- “I’m sorry.” Natural to say, but the other driver’s insurer can treat it as an admission of fault.
- “I didn’t see them.” It suggests you weren’t paying attention, which is negligence.
- “I’m fine.” Adrenaline masks pain. If symptoms show up later, the other side will quote this back to argue the injuries aren’t real.
- “I think what happened was…” Speculation locks you into a theory before anyone has looked at the evidence.
Be polite with the responding officer. If they suggest you were at fault or write you a citation, don’t argue on the spot. Calmly state the facts that support your position and save the dispute for later. A traffic ticket is not a final fault determination, and it can be contested.
Exchange Information With the Other Driver
Before anyone leaves, collect the following from every other driver involved:
- Full legal name, phone number, and address.
- Driver’s license number. Ask to see the physical card and photograph it.
- Insurance company name and policy number. Photograph the insurance card if you can.
- Vehicle year, make, model, color, and license plate number.
- The 17-character vehicle identification number, which is typically readable through the lower-left corner of the windshield.2eCFR. 49 CFR 565.13 – General Requirements
If the registered owner isn’t the driver, note the owner’s name from the registration. In rental and borrowed-vehicle situations, the driver’s insurance and the owner’s insurance can both come into play, and you’ll need both names to sort it out.
Rideshare and Delivery Drivers
Crashes involving Uber or Lyft drivers add a layer because coverage depends on what the driver was doing at the moment of impact. If the driver was logged into the app but had not accepted a ride, the rideshare company’s liability coverage is relatively limited. If the driver was on the way to pick up a passenger or actively on a trip, coverage jumps to at least $1,000,000 for injuries and property damage.3Uber. Insurance for Rideshare and Delivery Drivers Record whether the driver was using a rideshare or delivery app, whether they had a passenger, and the platform name. Ask them to show their app screen if they’re willing.
Document the Scene
Your phone camera is the single most valuable tool you have. Take more photos than you think you need. Adjusters consistently say people under-document.
- Damage close-ups of every dent, scrape, and crack on all vehicles, including the other driver’s car.
- Wide shots of the full scene showing the final positions of the vehicles relative to lane markings and the intersection.
- Road evidence: skid marks, broken glass, debris, and gouges in the pavement. These tell the story of speed and direction of impact.
- Traffic lights, stop signs, yield signs, and lane markings at or near the crash location.
- Conditions that affected visibility or traction: wet pavement, fog, sun glare, poor lighting, construction zones.
If you have a dashcam, save the footage immediately so continued driving doesn’t overwrite it. Dashcam video can be powerful, but it cuts both ways. If you were speeding or distracted, the footage will show that, and once it exists, the other side can generally obtain it in a lawsuit. Audio recordings raise additional privacy concerns in states that require all-party consent.
Get Witness Information Before They Leave
Bystanders who saw the crash are valuable because they have no stake in the outcome, and their accounts carry more weight than either driver’s version. Get the full name and phone number of anyone who stopped. If they’ll describe what they saw, record it on your phone with their permission or write it down word for word. Witnesses tend to disappear, so collect this on the spot.
File the Required Reports
If officers responded, they’ll file their own report. Ask for the report number and the responding officer’s name before you leave. Getting a copy later usually costs a small administrative fee, and many departments offer online access within a few business days.
Many states separately require drivers to file their own accident report with the state’s department of motor vehicles when damages pass a certain dollar amount or anyone is injured. Deadlines vary and commonly fall around 10 days after the crash. Missing it can result in a license suspension in some jurisdictions, so check your state’s DMV website as soon as you get home. The police report captures the officer’s observations and sometimes a preliminary fault assessment; the DMV report is an administrative filing that keeps the state informed and triggers certain insurance processes. Where both are required, you need both.
Notify Your Insurance Company
Contact your insurer as soon as reasonably possible, even if you believe the other driver was entirely at fault. Most policies require notification within a few days, and waiting too long can give your insurer grounds to reduce or deny coverage. You’ll get a claim number and an assigned adjuster. Stick to the facts when describing the crash; the same rule about not speculating applies on the phone.
A few things to keep in mind when dealing with adjusters:
- You don’t owe a recorded statement to the other driver’s insurer. Your own insurer can generally require one under your policy, but the at-fault driver’s insurance company has no such right.
- Don’t accept the first settlement offer if you have injuries. Early offers almost always undervalue claims because the full extent of medical costs isn’t known yet.
- Ask about rental reimbursement. If your policy includes this optional coverage, it pays for a rental while yours is being repaired, typically with a daily cap and a maximum number of days.
See a Doctor Within a Day or Two
Get checked out within a day or two of the crash even if you feel fine. Whiplash, soft-tissue injuries, and mild traumatic brain injuries routinely take 24 to 72 hours to produce noticeable symptoms. By the time you’re in pain, the insurance company has already started building a timeline, and a gap between the crash and your first medical visit is the easiest argument they have for claiming your injuries aren’t serious or weren’t caused by the accident.
Follow the treatment plan your doctor prescribes. Skipping follow-up appointments or stopping physical therapy early gives the adjuster room to argue you made your own condition worse. Keep every receipt, every explanation of benefits, and every provider note. That paper trail is the backbone of any injury claim.
Fault and What It Means for Your Payout
How much you can recover depends heavily on how your state assigns fault, and the systems differ sharply. Some states reduce your payout by your share of fault but let you recover something even if you were mostly responsible. Others apply the same reduction up to a 50% or 51% cutoff, past which you get nothing. A handful of states bar recovery entirely if you were even 1% at fault.
Insurance adjusters determine fault by reviewing the police report, scene photos, witness statements, traffic-law violations, and vehicle damage patterns. They look at specifics: Did someone run a red light? Was a driver following too closely? Did road conditions contribute, and did the drivers adjust their speed? An admission of fault at the scene, even something as casual as “I’m so sorry,” can carry serious weight here.
If the Other Driver Has No Insurance
Roughly 1 in 8 drivers on the road carries no insurance. If one of them hits you, your own uninsured/underinsured motorist coverage is the primary safety net. It lets you file a claim with your own insurer, which then pays what the at-fault driver’s policy would have covered.
File a police report immediately. You’ll need it to support the UM/UIM claim. Notify your insurer quickly, since some policies require uninsured motorist claims to be reported within 72 hours. Collect the uninsured driver’s name, address, phone number, and license plate even though they have no policy information to share. That identifying information matters if you later need to pursue them directly in court.
If Your Car Is Totaled
An insurer declares a vehicle a total loss when repair costs exceed a set threshold relative to the car’s value. Some states set a fixed percentage ranging from 60% to 100% of actual cash value. Others use a formula where repair costs plus salvage value must exceed the pre-accident market value.
The insurer determines actual cash value from recent sales of comparable vehicles in your area, factoring in mileage, condition, and options. If the number looks low, you can challenge it. Gather your own comparable listings from dealer websites and private-sale platforms and present them to the adjuster. Initial total-loss offers tend to come in on the low side, and accepting the first number without pushing back is almost always a mistake.
If you accept the payout, the insurer takes ownership of the wrecked vehicle. If you want to keep it, because the damage is cosmetic or you want to repair it yourself, the insurer deducts the salvage value from your check, and the vehicle receives a salvage or rebuilt title. A salvage title permanently reduces resale value and may affect your ability to insure it.
When to Call a Lawyer
Not every fender-bender needs an attorney. Certain situations call for legal help sooner rather than later:
- Anyone was seriously injured or hospitalized.
- Fault is disputed or unclear.
- Multiple vehicles were involved.
- The other driver’s insurer is denying the claim or offering an unreasonably low settlement.
- The crash involved a commercial vehicle, government vehicle, or rideshare driver.
- Someone died as a result of the crash.
Every state imposes a statute of limitations for filing a personal injury or property damage lawsuit. These typically run from two to six years depending on the state and the type of claim, and some are as short as one year. Missing the deadline permanently bars the lawsuit no matter how strong the case. If there’s any realistic chance you’ll need to sue, talk to an attorney well before that clock runs out.