There are few things in life as frightening as witnessing firsthand the chaos, the heroism and the tragedy of a high-speed vehicle collision on a freeway. Even low-speed car or truck accidents on a motorway can result in tremendous and life-altering situations, but how they affect you and your passengers can be directly traced to how you first react to the situation and the decisions you make in the seconds and minutes afterward. Armed with a little bit of foreknowledge and a smidgen of planning, you can make the best of a bad situation and help potentially avert worse events from unfolding.

The first thing you need to do if a collision occurs in front of you is to try to avoid it at all costs without triggering another accident. If you keep a cushion of space around your vehicle, you should have enough time to adjust your trajectory and make the corrections necessary. This is not always feasible, especially during rush hour, so do your best and try to avoid hitting the collided vehicles or causing an accident of your own.

If you can avoid adding to the woes of the victims of the impacted vehicles in front of you, pull off to the shoulder and dial 911 if you have a cell phone. Chances are that multiple other people are doing the exact same thing you are in trying to alert the authorities, but if everyone thought that way then no one would ever call. Once you get in touch with the operators, tell them what freeway you are on, how many cars are involved, if you can see anyone injured, and give them a location or nearest landmark so that they can pinpoint your location and get help there the quickest.

The best thing to do next is to, if possible, continue on your journey. If that is not possible, and you don’t have specialized medical or technical training, it is wise to stay in your car and turn it off. Though you might want to get out and help, there are dozens of dangerous and potentially fatal conditions that you may not be aware of that can adversely affect your health and safety and well-being, and by staying inside your conveyance with self-propelled internal combustion locomotion that may vary in shape, size, weight and dimension, you limit the amount of risk to yourself.