What to do in the first hour after a cycling accident

Nobody rides out planning for this. If you have just been knocked off, you are running on adrenaline, your bike is in the gutter and a driver is standing over you insisting they had right of way. It is the worst possible moment to be thinking about evidence, and it is also the moment that decides how straightforward your claim will be.

Here is what actually matters, in order.

Get looked at, even if you feel fine

Adrenaline is very good at hiding injury. Riders routinely walk away from a collision, drive home, and wake up the next morning unable to lift an arm. Head injuries in particular can present hours later.

Two reasons to be seen straight away. The first is your health. The second is that a medical record created on the day of the accident is the single strongest piece of evidence in any injury claim. A gap of a fortnight between the collision and the first medical note is the first thing a defendant's insurer will point at.

Do not agree who was at fault

You will be asked, at the roadside, to accept some version of events. Do not. Not because you should be difficult, but because you genuinely do not know yet what happened, and neither does the driver.

Fault is decided on evidence: vehicle positions, damage patterns, road markings, camera footage. Drivers misremember, and they very often misjudge. Plenty of riders have told us they assumed the accident was their fault and only found out otherwise months later.

Collect what you can

If you are physically able, or if someone with you can do it:

• The vehicle registration, and the driver's name, address and insurance details
• Photographs of the scene before anything moves, from a few angles
• Photographs of both vehicles, the damage to your bike, and your injuries
• Names and phone numbers of any witnesses, including other cyclists who stopped
• The names of the responding officers, and the incident reference number

If the driver leaves the scene, get the registration if you possibly can, and report it to the police straight away. An untraced-driver claim through the Motor Insurers' Bureau depends on that police report existing.

Keep everything exactly as it is

This is the one people get wrong. Do not repair the bike. Do not throw away the helmet. Do not bin the shredded jersey or the broken glasses, and do not let a bike shop dispose of anything.

Your damaged kit is evidence of the forces involved in the collision, and it is also a recoverable loss in its own right. A helmet that has taken an impact must be replaced whether or not it looks damaged, and that replacement is part of your claim.

Download your footage before it disappears

Camera and GPS devices overwrite. Head units loop. If you were running a camera, front or rear, get the file off the device and onto something permanent the same day. Strava and Garmin data showing your speed and line is often more persuasive than anyone's recollection.

Write it down while it is fresh

That evening, or as soon as you are able, write down what happened in your own words. Where you were, what the vehicle did, what was said afterwards. Keep a rough note over the following weeks of your symptoms, the days you could not work, and the help you needed at home. It feels excessive at the time. It is worth a great deal later.

And if you did none of this

You still have a claim. Almost nobody manages the full list, and a claim is not lost because you were too shaken to photograph a junction. We can obtain police reports, trace witnesses, instruct an accident reconstruction expert and recover records that you never had access to.

The point of the list is that anything you do manage makes the claim faster and stronger. Where you could not, we work with what exists.

If you have come off and you are not sure where you stand, call us. It costs nothing to ask, and we will tell you honestly whether there is a claim worth pursuing.