What to do after a car accident in Texas comes down to this: stay at the scene, check on everyone, call 911, trade information with the other driver, photograph what you can, see a doctor the same day, and tell your own insurer. That is the whole list. The rest of this guide explains why each step matters, so you can work through them calmly, even if your hands are still shaking.
TxDOT counted 244,534 people injured in Texas crashes in 2025, according to its 2025 Texas Motor Vehicle Traffic Crash Facts. You are not the first person to sit on a shoulder with no idea what comes next. This guide covers procedure only. Who is at fault is a separate question, and our guide to the types of car accidents in Texas takes it up.
The Short Version: What to Do After a Car Accident in Texas, in Ten Steps
- Stop and stay at the scene.
- Check yourself and everyone else for injuries, then call 911.
- Move out of traffic only if it is safe and the cars can be driven.
- Exchange names, addresses, insurance details, and plate numbers.
- Photograph the vehicles, the road, and the surroundings.
- Stick to facts with the officer and the other driver. Do not guess about fault.
- See a doctor the same day, even if you feel fine.
- Tell your own insurer.
- Get your CR-3 crash report and read it closely.
- Save the evidence and keep the two-year deadline in view.
The First Ten Minutes at the Scene
Get Safe, Then Check Everyone
Take one slow breath. Turn off the engine, switch on your hazard lights, and check yourself for injuries before anyone else. Adrenaline hides pain, so feeling clear-headed is not proof you are unhurt.
If the cars still run and nobody is badly hurt, move them out of the travel lanes. On a metro freeway where every vehicle can be driven normally and safely, Texas law directs drivers in a property-damage-only crash to a frontage road, cross street, or other suitable spot (Tex. Transp. Code § 550.022(b)). If someone is badly hurt, do not move them unless staying put is more dangerous, as in a fire or oncoming traffic. Moving a person with a neck or back injury can make it worse. If a car will not move, stay out of the lanes. Behind a guardrail is safer than beside your bumper.
Call 911
Call if anyone is hurt, a car cannot be driven, the road is blocked, or the other driver seems impaired or tries to leave. An officer on scene also starts the report insurers rely on. Tell the dispatcher where you are, how many people are hurt, and whether a vehicle sits in a lane. If you are unsure about an injury, ask for an ambulance. You can decline a ride after paramedics check you.
What Texas Law Requires of You at the Scene
Chapter 550 of the Texas Transportation Code sets the rules. Most of the work is done by four sections.
Stay and Give Your Information
- Injury or death (§ 550.021). You must stop at the scene or as close as you safely can, return if you left, check whether anyone needs aid, and stay until you have done what § 550.023 requires. Leaving is a crime, and a felony when someone dies or suffers serious bodily injury.
- Property damage only (§§ 550.022 and 550.024). If the other vehicle is driven or attended, stop and stay until you have given your information. If you hit an unattended car, find its owner or leave a written notice, placed conspicuously or attached to the vehicle, with your name and address, the vehicle owner’s name and address, and a description of the crash (§ 550.024).
- Information and aid (§ 550.023). Give your name, address, vehicle registration number, and liability insurer’s name to anyone hurt and to the other driver or occupants. Show your driver’s license if asked. Give reasonable help to anyone injured, including arranging a ride to a hospital when treatment is clearly needed or the person asks.
When a Crash Must Be Reported
Under § 550.026, a driver whose crash injures or kills someone, or leaves a vehicle unable to be driven normally and safely, must immediately notify the police (or the sheriff or DPS outside a city) by the quickest means available. A 911 call is how most people do it.
You may have heard a $1,000 figure. That comes from § 550.062 and tells officers when they must write a crash report. It is not the trigger for your own duty to report. Texas also no longer asks drivers to file a separate written report: TxDOT says it holds no driver’s crash reports (the old Form CR-2) after a 2017 law change. Some cities add their own reporting rules (§ 550.067). If no officer comes, write your own account the same day and keep any form the local agency hands you.
What to Photograph and Why
Your phone is your best evidence tool. Take more photos than seems reasonable. Deleting extras is easy; going back is impossible.
- Every vehicle from all four corners, plus a wide shot showing where they came to rest, before anything moves if it is safe.
- Close-ups of the damage and every license plate.
- The road and conditions: skid marks, debris, lane markings, signals, signs, anything blocking the view, and the weather and lighting.
- The other driver’s license and insurance card. A photo beats a hurried scribble.
- Your injuries, then again over the next few days as bruises develop.
- Cameras on businesses, signals, and doorbells. Note where they are.
- Witnesses. Get names and phone numbers, and ask for a few words on video or a short text account while memory is fresh.
The crash report reflects what the officer saw on arrival and what people said in a few stressful minutes. Photos show what happened before the cars moved. Skid marks fade, debris gets swept, and tow trucks come. Which details matter most depends on how the vehicles collided, and the fault guide linked above covers the evidence for each crash type.
What to Say, and What to Leave Out
Stick to what you know: where you were, where you were headed, what you saw. Answer the officer plainly. If you do not know a speed or a distance, say so.
- Don’t say “I’m fine.” Say “I’m shaken up and I want to get checked.”
- Don’t assign blame, even politely. “Sorry, I didn’t see you” can be repeated later as an admission. Kindness is fine. Deciding fault is not your job at the roadside.
- Don’t sign or accept anything from anyone’s insurer on the spot.
- Stay off social media. Adjusters and defense lawyers look, and a photo of you hiking next week can be read as proof you were not hurt.
- Speak up in Spanish if you need to. Tell the officer English is not your first language, ask for an interpreter or a Spanish-speaking officer, and do not sign anything you cannot read. Hablamos español.
Why You Should See a Doctor the Same Day, Even If You Feel Fine
After a crash, your body runs on adrenaline, and it can mute pain for hours. Neck and back strain, concussions, and internal injuries often announce themselves the next day or the next week.
There is a second reason, and it has nothing to do with medicine. An adjuster reading your file looks for the date of your first treatment and for gaps between visits. A three-day or three-week gap gives the adjuster room to say you were not hurt badly, or that something else caused it. A same-day exam draws a straight line from the crash to the injury. Call it the gap-in-treatment problem: easy to avoid, hard to repair.
- Go the same day: the emergency room for a blow to the head, loss of consciousness, numbness, chest or belly pain, or severe pain, and urgent care or your own doctor for the rest.
- Tell the provider it was a car crash, and name every symptom, even small ones. Records only show what you reported.
- Follow the treatment plan and keep your appointments. If you stop, write down why.
- Keep a short daily note on pain, sleep, missed work, and what you cannot do.
Check your own auto policy for personal injury protection (PIP). Texas insurers must include it unless the named insured rejected it in writing (Tex. Ins. Code § 1952.152), and it does not depend on who caused the crash.
How to Get Your CR-3 Crash Report
When an officer investigates a crash with an injury, a death, or apparent property damage of $1,000 or more, the officer must file a written report electronically with TxDOT no later than the tenth day after the crash (§ 550.062). That report is the CR-3, the Texas Peace Officer’s Crash Report. TxDOT keeps the state’s crash records and releases them under § 550.065.
- At the scene, get the officer’s name, the agency, and the report or crash ID number.
- Wait a few days. It will not be ready the day of the crash.
- Order it online through TxDOT’s crash report system. It arrives by email.
- Know who can order. People involved, their authorized representatives, vehicle owners, and their insurers can (§ 550.065(c)). The full report is confidential and goes only to the people the statute lists. Anyone can request a redacted version, which leaves out names, addresses, license numbers, and plate numbers (§ 550.065(c-1), (f)).
- Read it the day it arrives. Check names, plates, insurance details, the date and place, the diagram, and the narrative.
When the Police Report and the Evidence Disagree
Officers arrive after the crash and build the report from what they see and what people say in a stressful few minutes. So reports are sometimes wrong or incomplete: a vehicle in the wrong position, a witness left out, a contributing factor assigned on one driver’s account alone.
Texas has a process for this. Under § 550.068, only the officer who wrote the report may change a material fact in it. Anyone else may add a written supplement that names its author. In practice:
- Compare the report to your photos, video, and witness details.
- Politely ask the agency to have the officer review it, and send your evidence.
- If the officer will not change it, submit a written supplement and keep copies.
A crash report is a starting point, not a verdict. Insurers lean on it, but it sits beside photos, video, vehicle data, and testimony.
Talking to Insurance Companies: Yours and Theirs
Your own insurer first. The Texas Department of Insurance advises filing a claim as soon as you can, and if you file with the other driver’s company, still tell your own. Policies require prompt notice of a loss, and late notice invites trouble. Give the date, time, place, who was involved, and the report number, accurately and completely.
The other driver’s insurer. It will probably call within days, and the caller will be friendly, but the adjuster works for the company. You can take a name and a claim number and say you will call back. Nothing in the Texas crash-reporting statutes requires you to give the other driver’s insurer a recorded statement. A recorded statement locks in your words before you know how badly you are hurt. “I feel okay” on day two can be played back when you are in a neck brace on day nine. Do not sign a medical authorization or a release until you understand what it covers, because a signed release generally ends the claim.
Preserving Evidence Before It Disappears
- Dashcam. Copy the footage off the card right away, before it records over itself, and do not trim the original.
- Your car’s recorder. Many cars have an event data recorder that logs speed and braking. Under Tex. Transp. Code § 547.615, that information belongs to the vehicle’s owner, and others can retrieve it only with the owner’s consent or a court order, with narrow exceptions. Ask your insurer and the shop or tow yard not to repair, sell, or scrap the car until someone has decided whether to download the data.
- Outside cameras. Many business and doorbell systems record over old footage on a schedule, so ask quickly, in writing if you can.
- 911 audio and body-camera video. The agency holds both. Request them in writing and early, because retention varies.
- Your own record. Write down what happened today, keep your paperwork, and do not delete texts, call logs, or photos.
A lawyer can send a preservation letter asking the other side to keep its own video and vehicle data, which is one reason an early call helps.
The Two-Year Deadline and Why Waiting Hurts
Texas gives you two years from the day a personal injury claim accrues to file a lawsuit, and for most car-crash injuries that is the date of the crash (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003(a)). The same two years apply to damage to property. If someone died from the injuries, the two years run from the death (§ 16.003(b)). Time spent under age 18 is not counted (§ 16.001). If a government vehicle was involved, the government is entitled to written notice of the claim within six months, and some city charters set shorter periods (§ 101.101(a), (b)). Notice is not required if the governmental unit already has actual notice of the death, injury, or property damage (§ 101.101(c)).
Nothing in § 16.003 pauses the clock while an insurer negotiates, so a long back-and-forth can use up months. Our guide to a car accident lawsuit in Texas walks through how filing works.
Two years sounds like plenty. The trouble is rarely the last day. It is everything in between: video gets overwritten, witnesses move, the car is sold, and gaps open in treatment. A claim started in month two is built from fresh evidence; one started in month twenty-two is built from whatever survived. None of this means you must decide anything today. It means an early conversation is worth having.
