What to do if you are in a car accident

Motor accidents are always traumatic experiences for those involved and invariably they have legal consequences. Civil consequences may include claims for damage to property, or for personal injury, and may arise whether there is a criminal charge or not. Criminal charges could include driving without a license, drunken driving, negligent and reckless driving or culpable homicide if there is a death as a result of the accident.

Your duties as a driver in respect of what you are required to do if you are involved in, or contribute to, an accident on a public road in which any other person is killed or injured, or suffers damage in respect of any property or animal are clearly set out by the law.

They are as follows:

• Immediately stop your vehicle and ascertain the nature and extent of any injury sustained by any person. If a person is injured, render whatever assistance you are able to but if you know nothing about first aid, do not do anything that might aggravate an injury. Rendering assistance includes ensuring that qualified help - such as an ambulance or a rescue unit - is summoned. Unless you yourself are obliged to go for help, you should remain at the scene until a police officer permits you to leave. You can be criminally charged for failing to render assistance.
• Determine the nature and extent of the damage to vehicles and property.
• You are required to supply your name and address to any person who has reasonable grounds for requesting them and the name and address of the vehicle's owner if it is not your own as well as the vehicle's registration number. You will be required to present your driver's licence to the police or traffic officer at the scene of the accident.
• Report the accident at a police station or at an authorised office of a traffic officer within 24 hours if you do not give this information to the police or traffic officer at the scene of the accident.
• If you prevented from supplying this information because of your injuries, you must report it as soon as is reasonably practicable.
• Do not take any intoxicating liquor or drug having a narcotic effect unless it is administered on the instructions of, or by, a medical practitioner in the case of injury or shock.
• If you are requested by a police officer to submit yourself for examination by a medical practitioner, you may not take intoxicating liquor or a drug having a narcotic effect before the examination and before you have given the particulars and reported the accident.

Failure to stop after an accident is a criminal offence if a third party is involved or there is damage to a third party's property or any person sustains injuries. If prosecuted and convicted of such an offence the driver can be fined up to R36000, or sent to prison for up to nine years, or both. You may avoid prosecution if you can prove that you failed to stop because you were unaware of the accident.

It is not required by law that you stop or report an accident if, for example, you collide with a tree and damage only your own car, and injure nobody or only yourself. If, how-ever, you damage someone else's property you must stop and then report the incident at the nearest police station.

When two cars are involved in a collision and nobody is injured both drivers are required to report the incident to the nearest police station within 24 hours. The police need not be called to the scene of such an accident but remember that it is an offence not to report an accident in which another person's property has been damaged.