The first seconds after a collision are loud, disorienting, and strangely quiet all at once. Your instinct may be to leap out and inspect the damage. Resist it. Unless your car is on fire or you’re in immediate danger, stay put for a moment.

First, check yourself and your passengers. Is anyone bleeding, dazed, struggling to breathe, or in serious pain? Then call 911. The dispatcher will ask for your location, a quick description of what happened, whether there’s property damage, and whether anyone is injured. If you or a passenger is hurt — even a little — say so, so they can send the right help.

Thirty years ago, drivers were told never to move their cars until police arrived. That advice has changed. With the traffic we deal with around the Puget Sound — consistently rated among the worst in the country — sitting in a live lane can turn one wreck into three.

If the cars are drivable and it’s safe, move them out of traffic until law enforcement arrives. The key words are when it’s safe. Don’t assume other drivers see you or understand what you’re doing. Oncoming cars are weaving around your wreck, often distracted, and some won’t register that anything happened until they’re right on top of it. Move deliberately and keep your head up.

Once you’re sure it’s safe to step out, check on anyone else involved. If you find other injured people, update 911 so they send first responders, and help however you reasonably can.

But here’s the important part: in most cases, don’t move an injured person. Well-meant help can worsen a spine or neck injury. Unless they’re in immediate danger (fire, oncoming traffic), keep them still, keep them calm, and wait for the professionals.

And be cautious about your own exit. On a multilane road or freeway, other drivers may not expect someone stepping out of a car. If you’re on a freeway and your vehicle can’t be moved, it’s usually safest to stay buckled in with your seatbelt on until police arrive.

One of the things the officer notes on an accident report is the injury status of everyone involved. And here’s what I see again and again: most people don’t mention being hurt unless it’s obvious — like being loaded onto a stretcher. The most common thing I hear is, “I was hurting, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

Insurance companies pounce on that. If the report says “no injuries,” they’ll wave it around as proof you weren’t hurt — even though adrenaline masks pain for hours and soft-tissue injuries can take days to bloom. You may not want to look like a complainer, but staying quiet at the scene can quietly sink your claim later.

If police are investigating, they’ll collect most of what you need. But in some cities, officers won’t respond to a no-injury accident at all — so don’t count on it. For every driver involved, get and give the following:

Don’t rely on the officer to capture witness information. Usually they do — but not always. Police are human. Notes get lost, handwriting becomes a mystery hours later, and names slip through the cracks.

Over the years I’ve seen cases where the report listed no witnesses, and the at-fault driver later invented a tidy version of events. With no independent witness to contradict it, the insurer accepted the convenient story — and suddenly there was a “dispute” over who was at fault.

Grabbing a witness name and number — or just snapping a photo of their license plate — takes seconds and buys you enormous peace of mind. Do it at the scene. Once people drive off, your odds of ever finding them again are slim to none.

In a dispute, a picture really is worth a thousand words — whether the fight is about who’s at fault or how badly you were hurt. Insurers put enormous weight on visible damage. To them, “not much damage” must mean “minor accident, no injuries.” That’s often dead wrong.

Take rear-end collisions. The at-fault driver slams the brakes, the nose of their car dips, and it “submarines” under the car ahead. The front car barely looks touched — while the striking car is crushed. Insurers love to point at the clean-looking car and say, “See? Nothing happened here.” It’s only when they’re forced to produce photos of their driver’s mangled front end that the real force of the impact shows. They’d rather those photos never see daylight.

What to capture:

A car wreck is not something to shrug off. Unless you happen to be an injury lawyer or a doctor, you really don’t know what a collision can do to your body — and adrenaline is very good at hiding it.

I’ve heard the same story for decades: “I felt a little off and had some mild pain. I figured it would go away.” Usually it doesn’t. More often, the pain you feel at the scene gets worse over the following days as the swelling and inflammation set in.

Insurers like it when you delay care. Every gap between the crash and your first appointment becomes an argument that your injury “must not have come from the accident.” It isn’t fair, but it’s exactly how the game is played.

To be clear, I’m not telling you to run to the ER over a scraped knee. But if your back aches, your neck is stiff, or your head is pounding after a wreck — that’s usually a sign things are about to get worse, not better. Most of us wouldn’t hesitate to take our child to the doctor after a crash. Give yourself the same care.

An insurance policy is a contract — nothing more, nothing less. And like any contract, it spells out duties on both sides. One of yours is to promptly report an accident to your own insurer.

Why the rush? Because fault is far easier to sort out when a crash is investigated quickly — while memories are fresh, witnesses can still be found, and the cars haven’t been repaired yet. That’s why your policy requires prompt notice, and why, under the wrong circumstances, a long delay can give your insurer a reason not to step in and help you.

If you’re injured, your insurer can open a PIP claim. No PIP? Make sure your medical bills are reported to your health insurer and flagged as accident-related. A reporting delay can stall paid medical bills, repairs, or a total-loss declaration.

It’s routine for an insurance company to call you soon after a crash, friendly as can be, asking for “just a quick recorded statement.” They want your words while everything is still fresh. Here’s the line to remember:

You have a duty to give a statement to YOUR insurance company — lawyers call it the “duty of cooperation.” You do NOT have to give one to the at-fault driver’s insurer. And if you happen to share the same company, you don’t owe a statement to the adjuster handling their driver’s claim, either. It bears repeating because it matters that much.

When the other side interviews you, you don’t yet know whether fault is disputed, why a question is being asked, or how far your medical care will go. Cooperative, decent people tend to minimize — “I’m feeling okay,” “I probably won’t need treatment” — because they don’t want to seem like they’re angling for something. Those exact words come back, weeks or months later, twisted into evidence against you.

Before giving a statement even to your own insurer, it’s wise to talk to an experienced lawyer first. One careful conversation now prevents a costly misunderstanding later.

Plenty of excellent body shops sit on insurers’ “preferred” lists, and there’s nothing wrong with that — my own favorite collision shop is on several. But two stubborn urban legends cause needless confusion in Washington:

Don’t fixate on whether a shop is “preferred.” Worry about whether it’s run by honest, experienced people who won’t compromise quality for the almighty dollar. Be an informed consumer — and often you’ll find the shop you’d have chosen anyway is already on the list.

Your car is worth what comparable cars sell for in your area — a rough rule of thumb is a 200-mile radius, though it varies with the availability of similar vehicles. Insurers use valuation services that weigh mileage, condition, and options to land on a number.

Which is why, if your car has that “lived-in” look, it pays to get to the tow yard and clear out the coffee cups and clutter before the adjuster inspects it. You can own the nicest car in the world, but if it looks like a dumpster inside, the perception is that it’s worthless.

A note on the popular guides: I’ve found Kelley Blue Book and NADA often lag the real Puget Sound market. Insurers are far more likely to move their number when you can point to an actual comparable car for sale nearby. When you counter, bring your receipts, pre-accident photos of your car, and your comparables. Remember the frame: the insurer is the buyer, you’re the seller, and each of you wants the best deal. Don’t take it personally. Stay calm, and don’t be afraid to stand your ground.

The key to any successful injury claim is documentation, and it starts on day one. By writing things down, you’re building evidence of your financial losses and how your life actually changed. Lawyers call these losses damages, and there are two kinds.

Start a journal right away. If you may hire a lawyer, write at the top: “This is being prepared to assist my lawyer with my injury claim.” Then describe the crash in detail — the way you’d narrate a movie, frame by frame, to someone who can’t see or hear. The sounds. Your thoughts. What happened to your body. Whether you were afraid or disoriented. What the inside of the car looked like afterward.

From that day forward, track your pain: how often, where, how bad (a 9 out of 10? a 3?), and what kind — stabbing, burning, dull, throbbing. Note how it touched ordinary life: trouble tilting your head in the shower, getting dressed, sitting through a meeting, giving up a hobby, snapping at people because you hurt. These small, specific entries are what let you explain, much later, exactly how this wreck changed your life. And photograph any bumps, cuts, bruises, collars, or bandages.

In a competitive market, some people will happily tell you the value of your case over the phone, before they’ve seen a single record. Don’t believe them.

The only honest way to value a claim is to review the accident-related medical records, the economic damages, the non-economic damages, and any relevant jury verdicts. A good lawyer will refuse to talk numbers until they’ve done that work. Every case is different and should be valued on its own merits — there’s no magic shortcut (and no, the old “3× the medical bills” rule is not real).

Then there’s the well-meaning friend or relative — the one who knows somebody who was once married to the niece of Uncle Ed, who stubbed his toe and supposedly got $15 million without ever hiring a lawyer. Believable? Hardly. Insurance companies aren’t in the business of giving money away; if they were, people like Warren Buffett wouldn’t invest so heavily in them.

A “Release of Liability” is one of the most important documents you’ll touch in this whole process — because it gives away important legal rights, usually permanently.

Before signing anything that significant, have an experienced injury attorney review it so you actually understand what you’re giving up. Sign without that, and you can accidentally release the at-fault driver and their insurer from all future responsibility — even for harms that haven’t fully surfaced yet.

Even if you pay a lawyer simply to read the release before you sign, it’s almost always money well spent. Once your signature is on it, there’s usually no taking it back.