An accident abroad: the European accident statement and the photographs

Secure the scene, see to the people, call the emergency services, then document — in that order and without exception. Hazard lights, vest before you get out, a warning placed to suit the road, and the occupants out of the danger area. Only once nobody is in danger does it become about evidence.

The vehicles stay where they are until they have been photographed — unless they block the traffic or there is danger. Then you clear them, but not without a record: photograph first from where you stand, badly if need be, with shaking hands if need be. A poor photograph of the resting positions is worth immeasurably more than a good photograph of a cleared road.

Only then comes the form. It is completed calmly, standing at a bonnet or sitting in a car behind the barrier, not in traffic. Reverse the order and you end up with a neatly completed sheet about a situation nobody can reconstruct any more.

It is a standardised form whose structure is identical across the participating countries: the same fields, the same numbering, the same layout — only in each national language. That is where its real purpose comes from: a Swiss copy and a Spanish copy can be read against each other box by box, even when neither party speaks the other's language.

It is a joint record of facts and not an admission of liability. The signature confirms that the entries describe what happened; it does not settle who is liable, and the form says so itself. Refusing to sign out of fear of admitting something does not remove your liability, only the joint description — and then both sides are without it.

You have to obtain the form before the trip, from your own insurer. It lives in the car together with a pen that works, and it is worth reading through once at home in peace. A form read for the first time at the scene of an accident is a form filled in wrongly.

The circumstances are ticked in a column, and next to it sits a small box for the number of ticks. That box is not a formality: it is the reason no further tick can be added afterwards. Leave the number out and you give up exactly that safeguard.

The sketch is drawn jointly and contains four things: the layout of the road with its lanes, the direction of travel of both vehicles with arrows, the resting positions, and the position of the signs or traffic lights. A north arrow or a place name helps later. What is missing from the sketch, no memory will supply.

Two boxes are regularly confused: the point of first impact — an arrow on the vehicle diagram — and the visible damage. They are not the same thing, and an assessor reads them separately. And finally the observations box: that is where what you see differently from the other party belongs. It is the place for disagreement, and it is better than a refused signature.

A form records what two people agreed on under pressure. A photograph records what was there. When the accounts later contradict each other — and they often do, once an insurer is reading along — an assessor reconstructs the event from positions, marks, debris fields and the geometry of the damage. All of that lives in the pictures and nowhere else.

Photograph in two passes. The first is the wide one: from four sides, so that both vehicles, the carriageway and the background are in one frame together. These pictures feel useless at the time and are the most important later, because only they show where everything stood in relation to everything else.

The second pass is the close one. And one simple rule applies: thirty photographs too many are better than one too few. A picture you did not take cannot be produced later in any proceeding.

Photograph the documents instead of copying numbers down. Copying produces transposed digits, and a transposed digit in a policy number costs weeks. What you need: insurer and policy number, registration document, driving licence, and the certificate that confirms cover in international traffic.

Watch for a discrepancy that regularly causes trouble: driver and keeper are not the same person, or the car is registered to a company, a leasing firm or a rental provider. In that case note both names and the relationship as it is described to you.

If the other party cannot or will not produce proof of insurance, the situation changes: the police report then becomes the most important document in the case, and you insist on one even where the damage is only to bodywork.

Here the countries genuinely differ, and considerably. In some, any damage-only collision is recorded by the police; in others the police as a rule do not attend a bodywork-only accident at all and you are referred to a form. What applies is what the local emergency number tells you, not the habit you brought from home.

If the police do not come, still note that you called, when, on which number, and what you were told. That note is later the evidence that no reporting duty was breached — and it costs thirty seconds.

For damage caused by a vehicle from another state, the European framework provides a route that requires no travel and no correspondence in a foreign language. The foreign insurer appoints a claims representative in every participating state, whom an injured party can approach in their own language and in their own country.

To find the insurer behind a foreign plate you apply to the national information centre set up for precisely that. Where the party at fault remains unidentified or was uninsured, a compensation body or guarantee fund exists alongside. Which body is responsible in your own country, which time limits it states and which details it needs, those bodies publish themselves — that is where you get it, not second hand.

Switzerland is not part of the EU legal framework but does take part in the international green card system. What applies to a specific trip is on your own insurer's confirmation, and that confirmation belongs in the car before you set off.

Report the incident to your own insurer immediately, even if you were not at fault and even if you intend to bear your own damage yourself. A late report is a problem in its own right, quite apart from how the accident happened. Reporting is not a decision to make a claim.

Do not have the car repaired before the damage has been inspected or released, and get a written estimate. Repair first and you have once again removed the evidence — the same order, the same mistake as with a defect after a purchase.

And put everything into a single folder: the accident statement, the photographs, the police reference number, the receipts for towing, hire car and accommodation, the witnesses' contact details. A complete folder shortens the settlement more than any phone call.