The first steps after any accident are much the same: get safe, call 911 if anyone may be hurt, report it the way your state requires, and write down what happened while you remember it. What changes with the type of accident is who may be responsible, which insurance pays first, which records can disappear and how early some deadlines run out. This section takes each accident type in turn: car crashes, rear-end and hit-and-run crashes, trucks, motorcycles, slips and falls, and dog bites.
This page is general information, not legal, tax or medical advice, and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Injury law and deadlines vary by state and change. Ask a lawyer or the court about your situation.
If you have just been hurt, look after your health first and follow whoever treats you. Nothing on this page has to be done today except the few things the law asks at the scene. Injury Handbook sells nothing and refers no one.
What every accident has in common
Four things hold across every page in this section.
- There is no national deadline. Each state sets its own time limit to sue, with exceptions for children, injuries found later, deaths and claims against a government. Claims against a city, county, state or federal agency can need written notice within months, not years. Our injury deadlines by state shows the rules we have read, with their statutes and the date we read them.
- Fault is shared out under state law. An injured person who was partly to blame may get less, or in some states nothing. The fault rule lookup gives each state’s rule where we read it, and “not confirmed” where we didn’t.
- Records made early carry the most weight. Photos, names of witnesses, the police report number and your medical records are hard to rebuild later.
- No public data shows what claims settle for. We looked for a dataset of settlement amounts by accident type and didn’t find one, so no page here gives an average or a range. Each page explains what decides a claim instead.
Car crashes
Start with what to do after a car accident, legally. It separates what the law requires at the scene from the habits that only help a later claim. In Texas, for example, a driver must stop, help anyone hurt, swap names, addresses, registration and insurance details, and “immediately by the quickest means of communication” tell the police if anyone is injured or killed or a car can’t be driven normally and safely (Transp. Code 550.026, read 6 November 2026). The page sets out each Texas duty with its statute, then how California, Florida and New York differ.
Hit from behind
When a stopped car is hit from behind, the driver behind is usually looked at first, but that is a starting point, not a verdict. Florida’s Supreme Court calls it a “rebuttable presumption of negligence” that evidence about the front driver can overcome (Birge v. Charron, 2012), and New York’s appellate courts ask the rear driver for “an adequate nonnegligent explanation” (Reyes v Gropper, 2023). Rear-ended while stopped explains how fault shares, chain-reaction crashes and no-fault insurance change who pays.
When the other driver drives off
After a hit and run, report it to the police straight away even if no one is hurt, and write down everything you remember about the other car. If the driver is never found, the claim turns to your own coverage, and its conditions can be strict. In California, uninsured motorist cover for an unknown driver needs physical contact, a police report within 24 hours and a sworn statement to your insurer within 30 days after that (Ins. Code 11580.2(b), read 6 November 2026). What to do after a hit and run covers who pays when the driver is unknown, crime victim compensation and the early periods in four states.
Trucks
A crash with a large truck starts like any other, but there is often a company behind the driver, and federal rules sit on top of state law. Two of them matter early. A for-hire carrier hauling ordinary, non-hazardous freight across state lines in a truck of 10,001 pounds or more must carry at least $750,000 in liability coverage (49 CFR 387.9, read 6 November 2026). That is a legal floor, and says nothing about what any claim is worth. And the driver’s hours records only have to be kept for 6 months (49 CFR 395.8(k)(1)). What to do after a truck accident explains what to write down about the truck, how to look up the company, which records may not last and the government notice periods if a public vehicle was involved.
Motorcycles
Riders face the same first steps, plus two of their own: keep the helmet, gear and bike as they are, and check which insurance actually reaches a rider. No-fault coverage is built around a state’s definition of “motor vehicle”, and some definitions leave motorcycles out. Florida’s, for personal injury protection, means a vehicle “with four or more wheels” (Fla. Stat. 627.732(3), read 6 November 2026). What to do after a motorcycle accident covers the scene, helmet laws and insurance, how fault is argued, and the deadlines that can start on the day of the crash.
Slips and falls
A fall on someone else’s property is a different kind of claim. There is no traffic code and often no police report, and most disputes turn on one question: did the owner know, or should it have known, about the hazard? Read the two pages in this order.
- How liability is proved in a slip and fall: the four things an injured person generally has to show (control of the place, a dangerous condition the owner was careless about, a fall it caused and real harm), the three usual routes to showing the owner knew, obvious hazards, and how courts in five states put it.
- Slip and fall settlements: what decides them: no table or formula sets the amount, so the page goes through what does: fault, your own share of the blame, the losses and their proof, who owns the property and who insures it.
Falls on public property follow separate rules with shorter clocks. In Texas, a governmental unit is entitled to notice of the claim within six months (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code 101.101(a)); in New York, a notice of claim against a city or county, where required, must be served within 90 days, or after a death within 90 days of the appointment of the estate’s representative (General Municipal Law 50-e(1)(a)). Both read 6 November 2026; city charters can set their own periods, which we haven’t read.
Dog bites
Whether a dog’s owner is liable for a bite depends almost entirely on the state. Claims run along three routes: a dog bite statute that makes the owner liable without proof that it knew the dog was dangerous, a rule based on what the owner knew, and ordinary negligence. California’s statute is one of the first kind: the owner is liable “regardless of the former viciousness of the dog or the owner’s knowledge of such viciousness” (Civ. Code 3342(a), read 6 November 2026). Dog bite claims, with a state table gives each statute we read with its exceptions, and covers bites to children, shared blame, deadlines and who usually pays.
After the first weeks
Once the accident-specific steps are done, most claims follow the same path, and other sections pick it up: what a claim is made of, dealing with the insurer, bills, liens, fees and tax, and damage to your car. If a crash was fatal, our wrongful death section covers who can bring a claim and the deadlines that apply.
Your next step
Open the page for your type of accident and use its checklist. Today or tomorrow, put in one folder: what you remember, written down with the date and time; every photo; the names and contact details of anyone who saw it; the police report number; and your medical records and bills as they arrive. Then find your state’s rows in the deadlines section, and if a government body owned the vehicle, road or building, find its notice period first, because it may run out in months.
For the deadline that applies, the court clerk and your state court’s self-help pages can point to the rule; a lawyer can apply it to your facts, and legal aid offices help people who qualify. We can’t answer questions about individual cases or recommend lawyers.
Sources checked on 6 November 2026.
