I have the unlucky distinction of having been in at least 7 automobile collisions, none of which were my fault. Three accidents occurred when my car was stopped and I was rear-ended by someone not paying attention and driving too fast to stop. (I have since changed cars from a compact to a minivan and have never had this problem since!) Three accidents occurred when I was a passenger in a vehicle where the driver became momentarily distracted from the road and crashed.

Being in an accident is a completely unnerving experience. Once you get over the initial physical shock of the impact and have regained your jangled nerves, you face a mass of paperwork and insurance claims for your property damages. If you are lucky, the driver who hit you has insurance. If you are unlucky, as I have been once, the other driver is uninsured and driving a stolen vehicle and you have to claim against your own insurance to be compensated for your losses.

After going through the accident claim process so many times, I have a few helpful tips to pass along:

RULY AUTOMOBILE ACCIDENT TIPS

1. Right After the Impact. Assuming you are not seriously hurt, it is a good idea to pull your car out of the main travel lanes (if possible). If you feel safe, get out of your car and check to see if the other people involved are OK. If you are injured or don’t feel safe, just stay put, call the police and wait for them to arrive. Most insurance companies counsel you not to apologize or claim the accident is your fault. Train yourself to say, “Are you all right?” as your first question. Then call the police to report the accident.

2. While Waiting for the Police to Arrive. This is the time to exchange information, write down details about the accident and take some pictures with your cell phone. Many people in the D.C. area just exchange business cards and drive on. While this generally works in most cases where people are honest, beware that identities can be easily falsified and that if the business card is fake (or belongs to someone else!), you have essentially no information about the other driver or car. In my uninsured motorist situation, the person was very apologetic, claimed he had full insurance and that he would call the insurance company that evening to report the claim. He gave us all a fake name, fake telephone number and was driving a stolen car with stolen plates.

Asking a distraught person to collect accident information is prone to problems. If the police show up and just casually ask you to “exchange information” you might not know what information to exchange. The police might provide a form to help you but you might be too upset or rushed to digest what it means.

After filling out so many accident forms, here is a form that I use in each of our vehicles as a “just in case” accident form. You can fill in the information on your vehicle, your contact information and insurance information in advance. That way, if an accident occurs, you are primarily focused on recording what happened in the accident and the details on the other drivers involved. Print the form double-sided and put a few copies in your glove compartment along with a few pens and pencils. (I have been caught without a writing instrument several times and it is no fun.)

3. After the Police Arrive. I have fortunately never been in an accident where serious injuries were involved. If it is a minor accident, generally the police just help the drivers exchange information and then leave. The police (in the D.C. area at least) are typically not recording information about the accident itself and generally don’t file an accident report. Some police officers might run a quick check on the plates to make sure none of the cars are stolen but this doesn’t always happen. It is a good idea to ask the officer for a card for your records as most insurance companies will ask you who the officer was who showed up on the scene. If you are afraid of contacting the other driver(s) to get their information or if the drivers are not cooperating with your requests for information, ask the officer to get the information for you.

If there is a young driver in your household, take a moment to review this information with them. Having a little more knowledge and practice can help anyone handle a stressful situation a little better. And with luck, hopefully the information will never be necessary!

Have you ever been in an automobile accident? What did you learn from the experience? Please share in the comments.