Almost everything that goes wrong with an accident claim goes wrong in the first twenty-four hours, and almost none of it looks like a mistake at the time.
Here is what actually matters, roughly in order.
At the scene
Call 911. Not just for injuries — you want an officer to produce a report. A crash documented only by two drivers exchanging details becomes, three weeks later, two conflicting stories with nothing between them.
Photograph before anything moves. Both vehicles from several angles, both licence plates, the position of the cars relative to the lanes, skid marks, debris, traffic signals and signs, and the damage close up. Photograph the other driver's insurance card and licence rather than copying the numbers down.
This takes ninety seconds and is the single highest-value thing you will do all week. Once the vehicles are moved, that evidence does not exist anymore.
Photograph the conditions too. Rain, standing water, sun angle, a blocked sign, a signal that was out. In Texas your recovery is reduced by your share of the blame and barred entirely above 50%, so how the conditions get characterised later has a price.
Do not discuss fault. Not an admission, not an apology, not a theory about what happened. Say as little as courtesy allows. You do not yet know what happened — you know what it felt like from inside your own car.
Whether to accept the ambulance
People decline transport constantly, usually because they feel fine and are worried about the bill.
Adrenaline and cortisol are effective short-term painkillers, and they wear off over hours. Soft-tissue injuries build with inflammation over a day or two. Concussion symptoms — light sensitivity, difficulty concentrating, sleep that stops working — characteristically arrive late.
If you are offered transport and there is any doubt, take it. If you decline, see someone within twenty-four hours anyway. The first entry in your medical file should not be dated three weeks after the crash, because that gap is the first thing an adjuster will point at.
Before you leave
Find out where your car is going. Freeway crashes are cleared fast, because keeping the lane moving is the priority, and the vehicle goes to whichever storage facility the responding agency uses.
The daily storage charge starts on arrival. Texas requires the facility to notify the registered owner in writing, but that letter takes days and the meter does not pause for it. People routinely learn where the car is and how much it has cost in the same phone call.
Write down the tow company name if you can see it.
The next morning
Notify your own insurer. Your policy almost certainly requires you to cooperate with them, and doing it promptly is straightforwardly in your interest.
Do not give the other driver's insurer a recorded statement. They will call, probably within a day, and it will be framed as routine. You are generally not obliged to give one — and the reason not to is timing rather than honesty. You give it before you know how badly you are hurt, and "I'm okay, just sore" becomes a quotation in a file that is still open eight months later when your shoulder needs surgery.
Pull your declarations page. Look for Personal Injury Protection — Texas insurers must offer at least $2,500 unless you rejected it in writing, and it pays medical bills and some lost wages regardless of fault. Look for uninsured and underinsured motorist coverage, which is frequently what actually pays given how many uninsured drivers are on Houston roads.
A surprising number of people have both and never claim either.
About the crash report
Your CR-3, the Texas peace officer's crash report, generally reaches TxDOT around ten days after the collision. It costs about $6, or $8 certified, from the official source.
Anyone who contacts you offering to "release" it for substantially more than that is selling you something else. Solicitation calls after a crash are common in Houston, and the volume can be startling.
The week after
Keep treating. Gaps in a treatment record get read as evidence that the injury was minor, which is often unfair — people miss appointments because they have no car — but it happens anyway. If you cannot get to appointments, say so and find somewhere you can get to.
Do not accept a first offer that arrives before your treatment has finished. It will come with a release that closes the claim permanently, including for anything that turns out worse than it looked in week two.
And if you were hit by a commercial vehicle, a government vehicle, or a rideshare driver, get advice early rather than late. Each of those runs on different rules and shorter clocks than an ordinary collision.
TheGuru.info is a referral and coordination service, not a law firm. This article is general information about Texas law and is not legal advice. Deadlines, coverage and fault rules turn on the facts of your specific crash.