Secure the scene, document it, report it: the twelve steps at the accident scene – and what you should never sign there.
In short: Stop, secure the scene and help anyone who is injured. That is required by § 34 StVO (German road traffic regulations) and § 323c StGB (German criminal code). Do not leave the scene before the necessary details can be established – § 142 StGB makes that a criminal offence. After that: record the details, take photographs, sign nothing, report the damage. Notice to the other party's liability insurer must be given within two weeks.
After a road accident, every party involved must stop immediately. That applies even when the damage looks minor. The duty is set out in § 34 (1) StVO and does not depend on the size of the loss.
Switch on the hazard lights before you get out. Put on the high-visibility vest while you are still in the vehicle. Get out on the side away from traffic. Place the warning triangle at a sufficient distance, considerably further back on a motorway than in town. A warning triangle and a first aid kit have to be carried in the vehicle in any case, under § 53a and § 35h StVZO (German vehicle licensing regulations).
Move yourself and others behind the crash barrier or onto the pavement. On motorways and country roads the edge of the carriageway is not a safe place to stand. Only once the scene is secured do you deal with everything else.
If people are injured, you must help. § 34 (1) no. 4 StVO expressly requires it and refers to § 323c StGB. Anyone who fails to render assistance in an emergency, where assistance is necessary and can reasonably be expected of them, is liable under § 323c (1) StGB to imprisonment of up to one year or a fine. Since 2017, § 323c (2) StGB has also made it an offence to obstruct those rendering assistance.
"Reasonably expected" means: without significant danger to yourself. You are not required to put your own life at risk. But you must do what is possible – call the emergency number 112, secure the scene, look after conscious casualties, place an unconscious person in the recovery position, and begin chest compressions where breathing has stopped. Calling the emergency services alone is enough only where nothing more is possible.
The scene itself may only be altered, under § 34 (2) StVO, so far as is necessary to rescue casualties or to make the road safe. Evidence is to be preserved. Where the damage is minor the opposite applies: the vehicles must then be moved aside without delay under § 34 (1) no. 2 StVO so that traffic is not blocked. Photograph the final positions before you clear the road.
The order is deliberate. Safety comes before preserving evidence, and preserving evidence comes before formalities.
Leaving the scene of an accident without permission is not a regulatory offence but a crime. § 142 (1) StGB provides for imprisonment of up to three years or a fine. It applies to every party involved, and under § 142 (5) StGB that is anyone whose conduct may, in the circumstances, have contributed to causing the accident. You therefore do not have to be at fault in order to be a party.
An offence is committed by anyone who leaves before either enabling the other parties and injured persons to establish their identity, their vehicle and the nature of their involvement, or waiting for a period that is reasonable in the circumstances without anyone being willing to establish those details. How long that waiting period lasts is not stated in the statute. There is no number of minutes fixed by law. What matters are the circumstances: time of day, location, extent of the damage and the prospect of the injured party returning.
Leaving after the waiting period does not end the matter. Under § 142 (2) and (3) StGB you must enable the details to be established subsequently and without delay: inform the person entitled or a nearby police station that you were involved in the accident, and give your address, registration number and the location of the vehicle. The vehicle must be kept available for a reasonable time so that the details can be established.
Careful: A note under the windscreen wiper is not enough. It does not protect you from liability under § 142 StGB. Anyone who damages a parked vehicle must wait a reasonable time and then inform the police or the injured party themselves. Alongside the penalty, withdrawal of the driving licence under § 69 StGB is a possibility.
Where there is nothing but property damage and all parties are present, identify themselves and exchange their details, the law does not require the police to attend. The duties under § 34 StVO can then be discharged between the parties. For small dents and scrapes, stations frequently decline to attend.
Call the police in these cases:
If the police do not attend, that is no disadvantage as long as you record the details fully yourself. If they do attend, note the station and the file or record reference. That reference allows access to the file to be requested later.
Under § 34 (1) no. 5 StVO you must, on request, give the other parties your name and address, show your driving licence and vehicle registration document and, so far as possible, provide details of your liability insurance. You may demand the same in return. Check the details against the documents rather than simply having them dictated to you.
| Detail | From whom | What it is needed for later |
|---|---|---|
| Name, address, telephone number | the driver and, if different, the registered keeper of the other vehicle | identifying the party liable; without an address for service a claim cannot be enforced |
| Registration number | every vehicle involved | identifying the responsible liability insurer through the German central motor insurers' enquiry line |
| Liability insurer and policy number | the other party | the direct claim against the insurer under § 115 (1) VVG and notification of the loss |
| Make, model, date of first registration, mileage | your own and the other vehicle | the basis for replacement value, salvage value and diminished value in the appraisal report |
| Date, time, exact location | your own note | calculating deadlines, the start of the limitation period, and reconstructing events |
| Sketch and short description of what happened | your own note, while still at the scene | comparison with the other side's later account; memory fades quickly |
| Visible prior damage | both vehicles | separating accident damage from older damage when the loss is assessed |
| Name, address, telephone number | uninvolved witnesses | proving what happened if liability is contested |
| Station and file or record reference | the police, if they attended | access to the file and evidence for the insurer |
Photographs are the only evidence available to you without anyone else's help. Take too many rather than too few. Start wide and work your way in.
Make sure the camera records the date and time. Do not move anything to get a better shot while the scene is still undocumented. Photographs are no substitute for a technical assessment of the extent of the damage; they do not show hidden damage to structural members, sensors or electronics.
Nobody at an accident scene is under time pressure to make a statement. The statutory duties under § 34 StVO and § 142 StGB require you to make your identity, your vehicle and your involvement ascertainable. They do not require any statement about who caused the accident.
So do not sign any admission of fault and no written statement in which you assess what happened. Do not sign anything you have not read in full, no blank or incompletely filled-in forms, and no waiver or settlement declarations. Take care too with assignments of claim that recovery firms or repair shops present at the scene: with those you give away claims before the extent of the damage is known.
The European Accident Statement is a different matter. It records facts only – parties, vehicles, time, place, sketch, points of impact – and contains no admission of fault. You can complete it, but should only confirm what you observed yourself.
Careful: An admission of fault at the scene does not cost you your own insurance cover – under § 105 VVG a contractual clause releasing the insurer from performance solely on account of an admission is void. The statement nevertheless remains as evidence against you and makes it harder to present events differently later, once the facts have been clarified. Anyone under stress immediately after an impact rarely judges what happened correctly.
There are two routes for notification, and they follow different rules.
You must notify your own insurer of the occurrence of the insured event without undue delay under § 30 (1) VVG, that is, without culpable hesitation. The terms of your policy often narrow that to a short, expressly stated period. Those terms are model terms from which individual providers depart; what governs is your own contract wording alone. Report the loss even if you do not intend to claim on your own comprehensive cover.
As the injured party you must notify the other party's liability insurer of the loss event in text form within two weeks of becoming aware of it, under § 119 (1) VVG. Sending it in time is sufficient to meet the deadline. This notification is a duty of co-operation. If you miss it you do not automatically lose the claim; the consequences follow § 120 VVG, and the claim itself continues to exist until it becomes time-barred. Even so, notification should be given early, because it also suspends the limitation period.
Under § 115 (2) sentence 3 VVG the limitation period is suspended for as long as the claim is registered with the insurer. That suspension ends only when the insurer's decision reaches you in text form. Mere silence does not end it.
The claims themselves become time-barred after three years under §§ 195, 199 BGB. The period begins at the end of the year in which the claim arose and you learned of the damage and of the party responsible. Without that knowledge, a long-stop period of ten years applies to property damage under § 199 (3) no. 1 BGB.
There is no statutory deadline for the insurer's handling of the claim. In practice, four to six weeks are quoted for straightforward property damage with clear liability and complete documentation. That period only starts once all the necessary documents are available. If the insurer falls into default, it owes default interest of five percentage points above the base rate under §§ 286, 288 (1) BGB.
Have yourself examined by a doctor, even where the symptoms are slight at first. Neck complaints often only appear hours later. An early medical finding is hard to replace afterwards.
Have the damage appraised before you repair, sell or scrap the vehicle. Once it has been repaired, the original extent can no longer be established. After a not-at-fault accident you may instruct a qualified appraiser of your own choosing; you are not obliged to shop around for the cheapest. The other party's insurer cannot dictate which appraiser you use.
Case law: BGH, judgment of 11 February 2014 – VI ZR 225/13, and BGH, judgment of 22 July 2014 – VI ZR 357/13. The injured party may instruct an appraiser of their own choosing and need not compare prices beforehand; the cost forms part of the recoverable loss under § 249 (2) sentence 1 BGB.
For very small losses a repair estimate may be enough. There is no nationally uniform minor-damage threshold: the lower courts set it at somewhere between € 600.00 and € 1,000.00 and decide inconsistently. If in doubt, a brief word with an appraisal firm will clarify which route holds up.
If your vehicle is not driveable, arrange recovery and a place to keep it. Wait before selling the damaged vehicle until the appraiser's salvage value offers are available. Decide as well whether you take a rental car or claim loss-of-use compensation – both together for the same period is not possible. Where a rental car is used, the requirement of economy applies; the Federal Court of Justice confirmed this by judgment of 19 May 2026 – VI ZR 67/25 for the hire of a vehicle in a lower class as well.
Keep every receipt. Small outlays such as postage, telephone calls and journeys are covered without itemised proof by a flat-rate allowance; € 25.00 is customary, and between € 20.00 and € 30.00 depending on the court. Pre-litigation legal fees are regularly recoverable where the other side's liability is undisputed or predominant.
Not necessarily. If everyone involved is present, identifies themselves and exchanges details, the duties under § 34 StVO can be discharged without the police. Do call them, however, where there are injuries, where fault is unclear, where alcohol is suspected, where parties are from abroad, or where the other party refuses to give details.
The law states no fixed number of minutes. § 142 (1) no. 2 StGB requires a period that is reasonable in the circumstances. How long that is depends on the time of day, the location and the extent of the damage. Anyone who leaves after that must enable the details to be established subsequently and without delay, for instance at a nearby police station.
No. A note does not protect you from liability under § 142 StGB, because it does not reliably enable the details to be established. It can blow away or disappear. What is required is a reasonable waiting period and, after that, notification of the injured party or a nearby police station.
You are not legally obliged to. § 34 StVO requires only details of your identity, your vehicle and your involvement. An admission does not cost you your insurance cover under § 105 VVG, but it operates as evidence against you. So record only facts at the scene, not judgements.
Your own insurer must be notified of the insured event without undue delay under § 30 (1) VVG; the specific period is in your policy. The other party's liability insurer must be notified of the event in text form within two weeks of your becoming aware of it, under § 119 (1) VVG. Sending it in time meets the deadline.
Normally after three years under §§ 195, 199 BGB. The period runs from the end of the year in which the claim arose and you knew of the damage and of the party responsible. For as long as the claim is registered with the insurer, the limitation period is suspended under § 115 (2) sentence 3 VVG.
Where the damage is minor it is actually required: § 34 (1) no. 2 StVO requires the carriageway to be cleared without delay. Photograph the final positions first. Where there are injuries or more serious damage, the scene may only be altered under § 34 (2) StVO so far as rescue and road safety require.
This article reflects the position as at 3 August 2026 and is no substitute for legal advice in an individual case. Written by PKW Gutachter Service GmbH, automotive appraisal firm, Neu Wulmstorf, Germany.
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