At the Scene of Your Car
Accident . . . Gather Information and Write it Down

If you are injured or your car is damaged, while you are still at the scene of your car accident, gather information and write it down.

Nonetheless, even if the police write a report about your car accident, you should gather information and write it down at the scene. Why? Because you will probably need more information than the police report includes.

Of course, it is even more important to gather information and write it down if the police don’t come to the scene of your car accident.

What information should you collect? Information about . . .

❏ the vehicles.

❏ the drivers.

❏ the collision.

❏ vehicle damage.

❏ witnesses.

❏ the accident scene and conditions.

❏ your injuries.

❏ police information.

❏ ambulance information.

❏ towing information.

The simple way to collect all of the information that you need is to fill out the accident investigation form that you keep in your glove compartment. You did follow my advice and put it there, right?

If you don’t have the form to guide you, write down as much information as you can at the scene and, as soon as you can, print the accident investigation form to focus and guide your collection of accident information.

I emphasize that you should not only gather the information but also write it down. Don’t trust your memory. It can take months or longer to resolve claims, and your memory will fade, even if you don’t think so.

And write down the information as soon as you can. Your memory of the event will only get worse over time. Get things down on paper while the information is fresh.

My best tip is to print the accident investigation form before you have an accident. Then, at the accident scene, when you are injured, nervous or confused . . . maybe all three . . . all you have to do is go through the form, filling in the information.

Here are a few more common sense tips for how to gather and record critical accident information.

Take pictures.

At the scene, use your mobile phone camera to record the key facts of your car accident. A picture is indeed worth a thousand words.

What do you photograph? The vehicles, before they are moved, to show their positions on the roadway. The damage to both vehicles. Injuries that can be shown on a photo, such as a bruise or a cut. Anything else that you think might be important, such as skid marks, vehicle debris on the road or conditions that contributed to the accident, such as an obscured traffic sign. You can even take pictures of license plates so that you will have a way to locate witnesses who are reluctant to stick around.

What, your mobile telephone doesn’t have a camera? You might want to get one the next time you upgrade your cell phone, just for this reason. You don’t have a cell phone? And you don’t want one? You’re a hopeless 19th-century techno-phobic, like someone I used to know. To protect this person’s privacy, let’s just call her “my wife.” She didn’t think she needed a mobile phone. Of course, as soon as she reluctantly agreed to try one, she became addicted to cell phone use and now is never without it.

If your mobile phone doesn’t have a camera, or you don’t even have a cell phone, the best alternative is to purchase an inexpensive . . . $10 or so . . . disposable camera and keep it in your glove compartment.

Identify witnesses.

Recently, I had a case involving an intersection collision. My client said that he was going through a green light, but so did the driver who came from his right and T-boned his car. One driver said one thing, and the other driver said something completely different. No one was injured and the police had not been called, so there was no police report to help resolve this credibility match.

Initially, the insurance company for the other driver, relying on their policyholder’s statement, took the position that its driver had the green light and the right-of-way. They refused to pay to repair my client’s car.

However, they quickly changed their tune when I told them that there was a witness who had seen the whole thing. After talking to the witness myself, to make sure what he said, I gave his name and telephone number to the insurance company so that they could talk to him, too. (That was a strategic decision. Under different circumstances, I might not have revealed the witness until later.) A few hours later, the insurance company called me and agreed to pay to have my client’s car fixed. That witness saved us a ton of time and made sure that the claim was fairly resolved.

In contrast, only a few days after this case, I had another one involving similar facts but with one important difference. In the second case, my client had not gotten the names of any of the witnesses. Although we were ultimately able to show that my client’s version was more consistent with the physical evidence (damage to vehicles and points of impact), it was much more difficult than it would have been if my client had gotten contact information for the witnesses.

To protect your interests, at the scene of your car accident, gather information and . . . write it down . . . as soon as possible.

Click here to return from this discussion of how to gather information at the scene of your accident to a general discussion of the things to do at the scene of your car accident.