Anyone who’s ever been in a car accident is familiar with the feelings that come immediately after – shock, shakiness, accelerated heart rate and mental fog. This is how the body responds after a traumatizing event. With so many thoughts racing through your mind, it’s no wonder the details might be blurry in a matter of hours or days after the car accident.
Eventually, you’ll need to contact your car insurance company to provide a recorded statement detailing the accident. By this time, it’s quite possible you may have forgotten some of the details of the crash. In order to keep your memory fresh, here are some tips to help you remember the facts after a car accident.
- Write it down. This is a simple yet helpful way of remembering things. After you’ve exchanged information with all persons involved and filed a police report, take some time to write down the basics of the accident, such as the location, time, direction in which you were traveling, driving speed and surrounding people, vehicles or landmarks.
- Take a photograph. Taking photos of the scene will be beneficial to the claims process, but it will also help refresh your memory. Aside from zooming in on damages to all vehicles, try take photos of the general area, including shots of the street signs and traffic lights, the intersection, the businesses nearby and of course, the cars themselves from different angles.
- Leave yourself a voice mail. If you’re too shaky to write things down, or perhaps you don’t have a pen and paper handy, call your own cell phone and leave a message with as many details as possible. You can always refer back to the message to remember the small details you might have forgotten.
- Make a drawing. After you’ve taken all the necessary steps after the car accident, take some time to make a simple drawing of the crash scene. Visualization is a helpful technique when you are trying to memorize or recall something. Try to sketch the intersection or lanes you were traveling and how all cars involved were positioned. Along with your personal account of the event and the photos, this may help you remember how everything occurred.
If you don’t already, make sure you have a notepad and pen in your car to write down important information after a car accident. These days, most people have a camera on their mobile phone, but if you don’t, consider buying a disposable camera to keep handy in your glove compartment. By following these simple steps, you’re bound to remember more details of the car accident that you can share with your insurance company for your recorded statement.