A Crash Where the Phone Does Not Work

Coverage gaps are normal across Trinity, Humboldt, Mendocino, Lassen and Modoc counties, and on plenty of roads closer in. Your obligations after a collision do not pause because you cannot call anyone. What changes is the order you do things in, and how much depends on what you write down at the scene.

What the law requires of you

• Property damage only. Vehicle Code section 20002(a) requires you to stop immediately at the nearest safe location and either locate and notify the owner, presenting your driver's license and vehicle registration and giving your address and the registered owner's, or leave a written notice in a conspicuous place on the damaged property with those names and addresses and a statement of the circumstances — and then notify the police without unnecessary delay.
• Anyone injured or killed. Section 20008(a) requires a written report within 24 hours to the Highway Patrol, or to the local police department if the accident happened inside a city.
• The DMV report. Section 16000(a) requires a report to the DMV within 10 days of an accident causing injury, death, or more than $1,000 in property damage to any one person. It can be made personally or through an insurance agent, broker or legal representative.
• Proof of insurance. Section 16028(a) requires drivers to provide evidence of financial responsibility that is in effect at the time it is demanded by a peace officer or a traffic collision investigator.

Read that list again with no signal in mind. Every deadline is measured in hours or days, not minutes, which means the correct response to no service is to gather everything now and report as soon as you reach coverage — not to treat the lack of a phone as an excuse that will hold up later.

What to collect at the scene, on paper

Assume you will have to reconstruct this from your own notes. Take photographs even with no signal, because the camera works regardless and the images carry timestamps. Then write down, by hand if necessary: the other driver's name, address, phone number, license number, plate, insurer and policy number; the vehicles and the damage; the location as precisely as you can describe it, including a mile marker or a nearby landmark; the time; the weather and light; and the names and numbers of any witnesses, who on a rural road may be the only people who ever saw it.

Getting help when you cannot call

• Move to high ground or a ridge if it is safe. Coverage in mountain country is often a matter of a few hundred yards.
• Try a text rather than a call. A message will sometimes get out on a signal too weak to hold a voice call, and it will send itself when service returns.
• Know that satellite messaging exists on many recent phones for emergencies, and find out before a trip whether yours has it and how it is triggered.
• Flag down a passing vehicle, which on these roads is a normal and reasonable thing to do.
• Note where the nearest ranger station, fire station or business is. On long rural routes these are worth knowing in advance.

Prepare before the drive

Download offline maps for the region rather than relying on live routing. Keep a paper insurance card in the car, since electronic proof is only proof if the device will display it. Tell someone your route and expected arrival time, which is the oldest advice in rural travel and still the best. And keep a pen and paper in the glovebox — it sounds quaint until it is the only working device you have.

Calling your carrier

Report the claim as soon as you are back in service, even if you are still unsure of the details. Delay is the thing that complicates rural claims most, because evidence on an unwatched road disappears quickly and the other driver's memory improves in their own favor. Everything you wrote down at the scene is what makes the call short.

Make sure your policy details are somewhere you can reach them offline — we can send you a card that works without a signal.