What to Do Right After a Collision

Demo content — Ironline Auto Body & Wrap is a fictional shop created to demonstrate this website template. The staff, hours, prices, timelines, and policies below are made up. Nothing here is legal, insurance, or safety advice for your particular situation.

The minutes after a collision are the worst possible time to be making decisions, and they are also when most of the useful information is still sitting on the road in front of you. Once the cars move, it is gone.

This is the practical order. Work down it.

1. People first

Check yourself, then anyone with you, then the other vehicle. If anyone is hurt, or you are not sure whether they are hurt, call emergency services before anything else. Nothing further down this page matters more than that.

Injuries from a low-speed hit often do not show up for a day or two. Getting checked out is not an overreaction.

2. Make the scene safe

• Hazard lights on, immediately.
• If the car is drivable and you are in a live traffic lane, move it to the shoulder or the nearest safe spot. A car in a lane is a second collision waiting to happen.
• If it is not drivable, stay belted in with hazards on until traffic is stopped or you have a clear, safe path out. Standing beside a car on a highway shoulder is more dangerous than sitting in it.
• Off the road and out of traffic, get everyone well clear of the vehicles, behind a barrier if there is one.
• If you smell fuel, or see smoke or steam that is not clearly just a burst hose, get away from the car and stay away.

3. Photograph it before anything moves

This is the step people skip, and it is the one that cannot be redone. Once the cars are pushed to the shoulder, the position they landed in is gone forever.

Two minutes with a phone, if it is safe to stand where you are standing:

• Wide shots from four directions. Both vehicles, where they came to rest, with the road, the lane markings, and any signs or signals in frame.
• The damage on both cars, from a few feet back and then close in.
• The road itself — skid marks, debris field, gouges in the asphalt, standing water, gravel, a pothole.
• Context — the intersection, the speed limit sign, the traffic light, the weather and the light level.
• Anything temporary. Construction cones, a hedge blocking a sightline, a sign turned the wrong way. That is gone next week.

If it is not safe to stand there, do not. Photos are worth a lot. They are not worth being hit.

For the close-up photos we will actually use to price the repair, see How to photograph damage for an estimate — the angles are different, and there are a couple of things you want to keep out of frame.

4. Write down what you will not remember

Your memory of this will be worse tomorrow than you expect. Type it into your phone before you leave.

• Date, time, exact location, and the direction each car was traveling
• Weather, light, road surface
• The other driver's name, phone number, and their insurance company and policy details — exchanging those is normal practice at any collision
• Names and numbers of any witnesses, before they drive off. Witnesses evaporate.
• If police attend, the officer's name and the report or incident number
• Which tow company took the car, and the address of the lot it is going to

That last one catches people out constantly.

5. Before the car leaves on a truck

If it is being towed, four things to sort out on the spot:

1. Ask where it is going. Get the lot address in writing or in a text. A car nobody can find sits and accrues charges.
2. Ask what storage costs per day. Storage is billed daily and it adds up quickly — a lot in this fictional example charges $85 a day, and a car sitting for two weeks while nobody makes a phone call is a $1,190 bill that bought you nothing. Real rates vary; ask the driver.
3. Empty the car. Take everything: garage remote, toll transponder, sunglasses, chargers, child seat, anything in the trunk, anything in the glovebox. A tow lot is not a secure storage unit and you may not be able to get back in easily.
4. Ask what happens next. Where the car sits, who is allowed to release it, and what they need from you to release it.

Where the car is repaired is usually your decision, not the tow driver's and not the lot's. Your own insurer can tell you how that works under your policy — ask them, not us and not the tow company.

6. Then call us

Once people are safe and the car is somewhere known, get in touch or start a photo estimate. What helps us most on that first call:

• Year, make and model
• What was hit, and roughly how fast
• Whether it is drivable, and whether any airbags deployed
• Where the car is sitting right now
• Whether any warning lights came on, or any doors, the hood, or the trunk will not close properly

We will tell you honestly whether it is worth moving the car to us straight away or whether it should stay where it is for now.

What this guide will not do

Claims are between you and your insurer. What is covered, what your deductible is, whether to open a claim at all, what a claim does to your premium — every one of those is a question for the company that wrote your policy. We will not guess at it, and you should be suspicious of any shop that does.

Anything legal goes to a lawyer. Fault, liability, who admits what, and what you should or should not sign are not body shop questions. We fix cars. We are not qualified to advise you on any of that and we will tell you so.

The short version

People, then the road, then the camera, then your notes, then the tow, then the phone. In that order, every time.