If someone has been injured or died as a result of a car accident, then it must be reported to police. However, even if the accident was only minor, it’s a good idea to always report it to your insurance company. Even if you do not intend to claim the accident on your own insurance, the other drive may make a claim against you. This can happen even if they indicate that they will not claim at the scene of the accident. If the driver does make a claim it will assist you if your insurance company already has the details of the accident, including your side of the story.

After an accident you may also receive a letter of demand in the mail. You can pass these letters onto your insurance company. Most will require you to pay your excess before they will accept acting on your behalf for the claim. A letter of demand means that the other drive is holding you responsible for the accident and is asking for compensation. Your insurance company will help determine who was at fault, but you should also decide who you think is at fault, or whether you share liability for the accident.

If you intend to claim any repairs to your own car, you must report the accident to your insurance company, who will then liaise with the other person’s insurance company. If you do not know the details of the person at fault, then you should contact the police. They may be able to help you locate the other driver.

Insurance companies often have a time limit on when you can lodge a claim against your policy, and so it’s a good idea to contact them as soon as possible after any car accident.

Firstly, after any car accident the first thing you should do is determine whether anyone has been injured in the crash. If so, apply first aid where appropriate and call for help where necessary. In Australia, the police must be called for any accident where a person has been injured. You must also call the police if the accident has caused a hazard or threat to public safety, such as a fuel spill or downed power lines.

If the accident is minor enough to not cause any injuries requiring medical attention or any hazardous conditions, then the first step is to exchange information with all others involved in the crash. This includes your name and address, the name and address of the car owner (if not you), the registration number, and any other information required to identify the car. If you suspect that the other driver has provided you with false information, or you suspect drugs or alcohol were involved in the crash, you can also ask police to attend.

After details have been exchanged and any information regarding the crash has been recorded (such as photos of the scene), you can then move your car if it is safe to do so. You can call for a tow truck directly, or call your insurance company who will often arrange this for you. If you car is still roadworthy after the accident, you can drive it away from the scene. However, keep in mind that some damage can be hard to detect. It is up to you to remove your own car from the crash scene. Police will not arrange this for you.

Even the most careful drivers can be involved in a car accident. Firstly, the most important thing is not to admit liability or blame yourself publically. Even if you feel you were at fault, it’s important to protect yourself should legal concerns be raised surrounding the accident.

After you have been involved in a car accident, there are several legal obligations you must fulfil. You must stop if you are involved in an accident, and you must provide your name and address to any other involved parties. If there has been damage to property of someone who is not present, or a person has been injured, then the police must also be notified.

You should exchange full names, address, registration numbers and insurance company details with any other parties involved in the accident. If you are not the owner of the car you’re driving, you should also provide the name and address of the owner of the car.

You may also like to take the opportunity to make a note of the make and model of the car, along with the position on the road and any visible damage to the car. This information may help with insurance claims later. If you have a camera or smart phone with you, you may also like to take photographs of the accident scene.

If there are any witnesses to the accident, it’s a good idea to also exchange contact information with them. Should there be a question or disagreement as to what happened later, witnesses can be helpful in determining what happened during the accident.

Many people assume that most accidents happen on the open highways, the potential drowsiness or repetitiveness of a long drive causing most accidents. You may be surprised to know that in fact most accidents occur within 40 kilometres from home. Experts think the relaxation that comes from driving a familiar route lulls us into a false sense of security, only to leave us unable to react swiftly when we encounter an unusual situation. If you’ve ever pulled up at home only to realise you have no memory of driving there, you’ll know what they’re talking about. By stay alert on all drives, you can reduce your chance of being in an accident. Maintain proper driving form, even when you turn into your own street, and buckle up even if you’re just going around the corner. An unexpected event with an animal or surrounds (such as tree branches) or other drivers acting unpredictably can happen anywhere.

Particular times of day can also contribute to the likelihood of you having a car accident, as can days of the week. Perhaps not surprisingly, most accidents occur in the late afternoon and evening. This time coincides with heavy traffic from people heading home after a long day at work, along with worsening lighting conditions. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 23% of fatal crashes and 27% of crashes where a participant was hospitalised occur between 4pm and 8pm. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the worst days for car accidents are Friday or Saturday, with 17% of all crashes causing death or injury occurring on those days. They followed closely by 15% on Thursday or Sunday.

Lastly, there are other factors that greatly influence the likelihood of a car accident occurring, no matter where you are driving. These include the use of alcohol and drugs, speed, drive tiredness, and illegal/dangerous overtaking and manoeuvring. From accidents where the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) was known, 29% of fatalities and 22% of people hospitalised had a BAC of 0.05 or more.

The best way to avoid a car accident is to stay continually aware of your surroundings. Keep your eyes scanning the traffic and conditions ahead of you – not just the car in front but other drivers all around you. This gives you the opportunity to see a problem early enough to react to it. Also, be aware of your blind spots and do proper head checks when necessary. Don’t rely solely on your mirrors, and consider the blind spots of drivers around you. Can they see you?

Position your seat so that you can rest your wrist on the top of the wheel with your arm outstretched when you sit back against the seat. This position makes sure your arms won’t easily tire, and also puts you in the best position for a last-minute emergency manoeuvre. When driving, keep your hands in the 9 and 3 o’clock position for optimal control over the wheel.

Lastly, keep your own car in good shape, and know its limits. Replacing consumables such as tires on a regular schedule greatly increasing the ability of your car to react when you need it to. Pay attention to how your car behaves in different circumstances and know how it will react in advance. The condition and behaviour of other cars may also help you predict the driving habits of other cars around you, helping you identify a possibly inattentive or tired driver. Be extra careful when driving at night, and make sure that all your lights are functioning correctly.

At Acorn, we deal with car accidents everyday. It’s our business. And every year we deal with thousands of customers who have been in a car accident and who need our assistance.

We have spoken extensively on this blog about the service Acorn provides to those who are involved in a car accident, and particularly to those who didn’t cause the accident. In a nutshell, we provide like-for-like courtesy vehicles to those whose vehicle is either being repaired or replaced after a car accident. And if the car accident wasn’t their fault, we provide the courtesy vehicle for free and recover our fees from the insurer(s) involved in the accident management process.

Our like-for-like courtesy car policy is what separates us from the competition, because it defines our commitment to fit your life into one of our replacement vehicles, to suit your needs, rather than us fitting one of our replacement vehicles into your life, whether it’s a good fit or not.

Our fleet of courtesy cars is extensive and includes:

1. Toyota Yaris Ascent;
2. Toyota Corolla Hatch Ascent;
3. Toyota Camry Altise;
4. Toyota Camry Hybrid;
5. Toyota Aurion AT-X;
6. Toyota RAV4 GX;
7. Toyota Kluger GX;
8. Toyota HiLux;
9. Toyota HiLux Dual Cab;
10. Toyota HiAce LWB; and,
11. Hyundai iMax 14 Hero.

But what happens if you hire one of our courtesy vehicles and damage it?

Well, for starters, we will forgive you. As we said, we deal with car accidents all day, every day. We are professional car-accident managers, so we have a slight immunity to them. In fact, our business thrives when we have the opportunity to manage the recovery process that stems from an accident. So don’t panic.

If you’re involved in an accident while you are driving one of our courtesy cars and you cause damage to it, your first step should be to call our customer support team on 1300 22 67 67. Our team will guide you through the process of dealing with a damaged Acorn courtesy car.

We will make an insurance claim to repair the vehicle, and we will require you to pay the excess on that claim. But unlike our competitors, who can charge excesses of upwards of $1,000, Acorn has a low default excess of $385.

Imposing such a low excess is part of our commitment to ensuring you recover from an accident quickly and easily, and without the hassle that might otherwise stem from a car accident.

What can be just as frustrating as a car accident is when your vehicle breaks down, especially when you are in a hurry and on your way to something important. It can be the difference between a good week and a bad week.

At Acorn, we provide complimentary courtesy cars to those who are involved in a car accident that wasn’t their fault, and competitive prices on courtesy cars to those who are involved in a car accident that was their fault.

But what happens if while you are driving one of our courtesy cars it breaks down?

Above everything else, when your vehicle breaks down, whether it’s one of our courtesy vehicles or not, you need to take steps to guarantee your safety. There have unfortunately been countless instances of road-side fatalities that have occurred because a driver whose vehicle had broken down did not implement the following safety precautions.

If the vehicle you’re driving starts to stall, take steps immediately to take it to the side of the road or highway and turn your hazard lights on while you do it (and keep them on).

If you are on a busy road or highway, you should not leave the vehicle under any circumstances, but if you are in a low-traffic area you can leave the vehicle to open the bonnet. This alerts other drivers to the fact that your vehicle has broken down.

When your hazard lights are on and your bonnet is up (unless you are on a busy road or highway) you will need to call for assistance. If you don’t have a mobile phone and you are in a low-traffic area, you might be able to flag down a passing driver to offer you assistance, or you might be able to seek that assistance from someone in a nearby residence. If you are on a busy road or highway, do not exit your vehicle and attempt to flag a passing driver down. Only if one volunteers to stop and assist you should you seek help in this scenario.

In ordinary circumstances, as soon as you have access to a mobile phone you would call your roadside assistance or car insurance provider. In the situation, however, where you are driving an Acorn courtesy vehicle, your first port-of-call should be to call our customer support team on 1300 22 67 67, who will advise you how to proceed.

Being involved in a car accident isn’t fun, and sometimes it’s downright dreadful. What can make it worse is if you’re car is damaged in the accident and needs repairing or replacing, leaving you without a vehicle for a sometimes extended period of time. This is especially frustrating when you’re not the person who caused the accident.

What you might not know, however, is that if you are involved in a car accident that wasn’t your fault and you need a courtesy vehicle to drive while your own vehicle is being repaired or replaced, you are actually legally entitled to have that courtesy car for free.

How?

What happens is this: you engage a service like Acorn to provide you with a courtesy vehicle and, if you’re not the driver at fault, we provide the service free of charge to you personally, and then we recover our fee from the insurer(s) involved in the claim process.

It’s as simple as that.

And what’s unique about the Acorn service is our like-for-like courtesy car policy. Because we are a large national service we have an extensive fleet of replacement vehicles that suit any style or function of vehicle you are used to driving, so we can make the guarantee that we will replace your damaged vehicle with one just like it.

Our like-for-like policy is what differentiates us from our competitors, companies that don’t have the vehicle fleet size to make the like-for-like promise, and who end up trying to fit one of their vehicles into your life, instead of trying to fit your life into one of their vehicles.

Our jam-packed fleet list includes the following vehicles:

1. Toyota Yaris Ascent;
2. Toyota Corolla Hatch Ascent;
3. Toyota Camry Altise;
4. Toyota Camry Hybrid;
5. Toyota Aurion AT-X;
6. Toyota RAV4 GX;
7. Toyota Kluger GX;
8. Toyota HiLux;
9. Toyota HiLux Dual Cab;
10. Toyota HiAce LWB; and,
11. Hyundai iMax 14 Hero.

To learn more about the process of securing your replacement vehicle with us, read our article that tells you how to recover from the “everyday crash” with an Acorn replacement vehicle.

To find out if you are eligible for a free courtesy vehicle and to get the ball rolling with Acorn, get in touch with our friendly customer support team on 1300 22 67 67, or visit the How It Works section on our website.

What if you are involved in a car accident while you’re driving one of our courtesy cars?

It’s a reasonable question to ask and there have been many instances where our customers have had an accident while driving one of our courtesy vehicles. This is understandable given that a Crash Index report released by AAMI Insurance revealed that the majority of accidents occurring on our roads are the typical fender bender.

If you are unlucky enough to crash one of Acorn’s courtesy cars there is no need to panic. Your starting point should be to exchange particulars with the owner of the other vehicle involved in the accident so we can get in touch with them if we need to. If the person driving the other vehicle isn’t the owner of the vehicle, be sure to clarify this and record the details of both the driver and the registered owner of the vehicle.

Particulars to record include the owner’s full name and address, their contact telephone number and their vehicle registration number. We also recommend that you document the accident by photographing both damaged vehicles so we have a contemporaneous record of the damage caused. This is also an opportune time to identify and collect the names, addresses and contact telephone numbers of any people who might have witnessed the accident take place.

Further, while you should never be dishonest with a person you are involved in an accident with, you are not required to admit liability or partial liability for the accident and you shouldn’t.

Once you are satisfied that you have done all of the above, contact the Acorn customer support team on 1300 22 67 67 as soon as possible and report the incident. We will take your information about the accident and provide advice about what you should do next.

Of course, there is generally a financial consequence to any car accident, but at Acorn we don’t believe in imposing excess and hidden fees on those who have an accident in one of our courtesy vehicles. For that reason, we have a low default excess of $385.

Taking on board all of the above advice, if you happen to be involved in an accident while driving one of our courtesy vehicles, it is important that you call our customer support team on 1300 22 67 67 and give a true account of what occurred.

In this article we will take you through our courtesy car policy as it relates to fuel. However, before we delve into that, we thought we would explore the different petrol grades that are currently available on the market and explain why you might use one grade over another.

We’ve all rolled up to the service station petrol pump and been bamboozled by the three grades of petrol on offer, each with a different price tag. So what do the different grades of petrol do for your vehicle?

The main difference between the petrol grades is their octane rating.

To put it simply, the higher the octane rating (“Research Octane Number” or “RON”) the less chance there is for your fuel to uncontrollably explode in the cylinder of your vehicle. These uncontrollable explosions of fuel are not uncommon, but they result in an inefficient use of the fuel source. Ideally, the mechanisms in your vehicle should control the burn of its fuel, thereby resulting in a more efficient use of that fuel source.

So, there are three basic grades of fuel on offer at the petrol pump: regular unleaded, which has an octane rating of 91RON; premium unleaded, which has an octane rating of 95RON; and, higher grade premium unleaded, which has an octane rating of 98RON.

The higher the RON, the higher the price tag.

What about E10 and E85 petrol blends?

The E10 and E85 labels refer to ethanol blended petrol. Essentially, ethanol is a gasoline additive made from agricultural crops. While ethanol blended petrol isn’t damaging to all vehicles, there are some that it is not compatible with and using it will cause damage to your engine. Acorn courtesy vehicles are compatible with E10 blended petrol, but not E85.

When it comes to hiring a car from Acorn, we only have one requirement when it comes to fuel. We require you to return a courtesy car you borrow from us with a full tank of fuel, and a failure to return a vehicle with a full tank will result in a re-fuelling fee. Because we have that requirement of you, we undertake to provide the courtesy car to you with a full tank as well. It’s as simple as that.

So if you need to hire a courtesy car for whatever reason, then give our friendly customer service team on 1300 22 67 67 and get moving with Acorn.