At the Scene of Your Car Accident
. . . Make No Agreements

If the other driver offers to pay for your injuries or for the damage to your car, make no agreements at the scene of your car accident.

It may be tempting. Perhaps . . . you don’t feel injured right after the accident . . . you don’t see much damage to your car . . . it probably doesn’t need to be repaired. Why not pocket a few hundred bucks and call it done? Besides, that would help the nice guy who hit you but doesn’t want to involve his insurance company and jack up his insurance rates.

There may be damage to your vehicle that isn’t obvious, such as inside the bumper or under the car.

And you may have injuries that you don’t know about yet. After a surprising and stressful event like a car accident, your body produces hormones called endorphins. They mask pain. You may be hurt but not know it yet or you may be hurt more seriously than you know because of the endorphins.

No matter how you feel at the scene of your car accident, I predict that you will feel worse the next morning. Most accident victims tell me that when they woke up the morning after they felt like they had been run over by a truck, even if they literally hadn’t been.

So give yourself a few days . . . at least . . . before you make any decisions about your accident.

Actually, my advice is to never make any agreement directly with the driver who caused your accident.

Why?

It’s too risky. If it turns out that there is more damage to your car than you thought . . . or that you are more seriously injured than you thought at the scene . . . the other driver may change his mind and decide that he can’t afford to pay out-of-pocket for your losses. However, if too much time has passed, his insurance company might deny coverage because he didn’t report the accident to them. All insurance contracts require drivers to promptly report accidents.

The insurance company might not get away with avoiding the claim . . . but they could. Don’t take the chance. Make no agreements with the other driver, at the scene or later.

What if you made an agreement at the scene of your accident, and have changed your mind . . . can you get out of it?

Maybe. (How’s that for sounding like a lawyer?)

There are a number of possible defenses against the enforcement of the agreement made at the scene of your car accident. For example, if the other driver threatened you, the agreement may be void. Duress is a defense against enforcement of the agreement that it brought about. Or, there may have been a mutual mistake of fact. If both you and other driver based your agreement on a certain fact . . . for example, that there was no damage to your car that wasn’t visible . . . but it turns out that there is much more damage than you see, that mutual mistake of fact may void the agreement. And there are other possible defenses.

So, it’s possible that you might be able to get out of an agreement that you made at the scene of your accident, but why take a chance? Make no agreements with the other driver.

By the way, the same is true from the opposite perspective.

You should not propose any agreements at the scene of your accident. Why? Too risky. In a worst case, an unscrupulous driver who accepted your money may simply deny the agreement and the payment. If that happens, you have no provable agreement . . . and you have lost your money.

Besides, if you don’t have a signed release from the other driver, your agreement at the scene may not be enforceable anyway. In fact, even if you get a release signed at the scene (you carry one with you, right?), it still may not be valid because the person signing it at the accident scene may not be in a frame of mind to make important decisions and release valuable legal rights.

Propose no agreements at the scene. Instead, report the accident to your insurance company and let them handle it. This is why you have car insurance.

Click here to return from “make no agreements” to the list of 8 things that you should do . . . and not do . . . at the scene of your car accident.