What to do when an accident happens?

A road accident can happen to any driver, however carefully you drive. What you do in the first minutes largely determines who will be found at fault and whether you receive an insurance payment. Save this page on your phone.

Step 1. Your first actions

• Switch off the engine, engage the hand brake, turn on the hazard warning lights.
• Get out of the car and place the emergency stop sign — at least 20 metres from the vehicle in built-up areas and 40 metres outside them.
• Assess the consequences: is anyone injured?

Everything that follows depends on the answer to that question.

Step 2. If someone is injured

• Provide first aid, call an ambulance and the police — 103 and 102.
• If that is not possible, ask people nearby to take the injured person to a medical institution, or drive them yourself in an emergency.
• Preserve the traces of the accident — do not change the position of the vehicle.
• Take the contact details of witnesses.
• Photograph everything: the scene, the damaged cars from several angles including the licence plates, road signs and markings.

Step 3. If nobody is injured

• Talk to the other driver about the causes of the accident and check whether they have valid insurance.
• Photograph the scene, the damaged cars from different angles including licence plates, road signs and markings.
• Decide whether a Europrotocol is possible.

Conditions for a Europrotocol

1. No disagreement between the drivers about who is at fault.
2. Both drivers hold valid compulsory liability insurance policies, and the vehicles are operated by the insured persons.
3. Nobody is injured or killed.
4. Neither driver shows signs of intoxication or is under the influence of medicines that reduce attention and reaction speed.
5. Damage is caused to the vehicles only — not to a fence, a pole or other property.

What a Europrotocol gives you

• The drivers complete a joint accident report at the scene, setting out the circumstances and a sketch of the accident.
• There is no need to call the police. If officers do arrive, tell them you are completing a Europrotocol — in that case no administrative offence report is drawn up.
• Neither driver has their licence taken away.
• Under the note to Article 124 of the Code of Administrative Offences, a person whose liability is insured is released from administrative liability for a traffic rules violation that caused damage to vehicles, provided the participants used their right to complete a joint accident report.

If the conditions are not met

• Calling the police is mandatory.
• Until they arrive, preserve all evidence — do not move the vehicles.
• Collect witnesses’ contact details.
• Check for CCTV cameras at the scene and dashcams in other vehicles. Recordings are often deleted within days, so ask for them immediately.

Step 4. What happens when the police arrive

Officers will draw up a sketch of the accident and take statements from you and the other driver. They will decide whether the vehicles are to be moved to an impound lot, and whether there are legal grounds to seize the drivers’ licences of those involved.

Traffic Rules of Ukraine: paragraph 2.10

If involved in a road accident, the driver is obliged to:

• a) immediately stop the vehicle and remain at the scene;
• b) switch on the hazard warning lights and place the emergency stop sign in accordance with paragraph 9.10 — no closer than 20 metres to the vehicle in built-up areas and 40 metres outside them;
• c) not move the vehicle or any objects related to the incident;
• d) take all possible measures to provide first aid to the injured, call an ambulance, and if that is impossible, ask those present for help and send the injured to a medical institution;
• e) if the actions under subparagraph «d» cannot be carried out, take the injured person to the nearest medical institution in your own vehicle, having first recorded the position of the traces of the incident and of the vehicle after it stopped; at the medical institution give your name and the vehicle’s registration number, presenting your driving licence or another identity document and the vehicle registration document, and then return to the scene;
• f) report the accident to the police, write down the names and addresses of eyewitnesses and wait for the officers to arrive;
• g) take all possible measures to preserve the traces of the incident, cordon them off and organise a detour around the scene;
• h) not consume alcohol, drugs or medicines based on them before the medical examination, except those included in the officially approved first-aid kit, unless prescribed by a medical professional.

Traffic Rules of Ukraine: paragraph 2.11 (Europrotocol)

Where an accident involves vehicles covered by a valid compulsory civil liability insurance contract, operated by persons whose liability is insured, with no injured or deceased people, where the drivers agree on the circumstances of the accident and show no signs of alcohol, narcotic or other intoxication or the influence of medicines that reduce attention and reaction speed — and where those drivers complete a joint accident report (Europrotocol) in the form established by the Motor (Transport) Insurance Bureau of Ukraine —

the drivers are released from the obligations set out in subparagraphs «f», «g» and «h» of paragraph 2.10. In other words, the police need not be called.

Download this memo as PDF

See also

• All memos for drivers (in Ukrainian)
• ДТП — порядок дій: пам’ятка для водіїв
• Insurance payment after a road accident in 2026 (in Ukrainian)
• Prices for legal services (in Ukrainian)

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