I was given an expired out of state license and phony phone number once. Thankfully the driver was using his friend’s car and the police were kind enough to give me the address from the DMV record for the license plate (which i almost didn’t write down). I was able to track him down through his friend but would have been at a total loss without it.

I was in a similar situation. Some person rear-ended me but my bumper was cracked so I did file a claim (his insurance company paid, not mine since it was his fault).

Then a couple years later when I switched insurance companies they asked if I filed any claims before, even if it wasn’t my fault.

I was told by an agent that even if the accident isn’t your fault, it still might count against you.

But you’re right. If you get into an accident that’s not in your local area, I guess there’s no other choice.

Thanks for the write up Jim. Someone recently rear-ended me but it was more like a tap and I didn’t see any damage whatsoever on my car. I thought about filing a claim anyhow but I haven’t thinking there’s really no damage to report. I guess I should rethink that?

I will share the story I’ve shared with many friends and family that happened when I was living in Baltimore about 5 years back. Two cars had a small fender bender around 6am on the outer beltway where it comes around a curve. The drivers called the police but did not move their cars because (we assume) they wanted to wait for the police to assess who was at fault for insurance reasons. In the meantime a tractor trailer came around the curve at the normal posted speed but because of the cars location right around the curve, the truck did not have enough time to safely stop and completely cleared the scene, killing everyone in both cars. Moral of the story – assess your situation and if you could be in danger of causing a larger accident than the one you were just in, move yourself and/or your car somewhere else.