Here’s the situation: you’re driving to work, minding your own business, as safely as you can possibly can. Then, you are rear ended by the driver following you. You both pull over to the side of the road and check out the damage. It isn’t that bad, you both can drive away without any issue. You ask for his insurance information, but instead, he pulls $500 out of his wallet and tries to give it to you, with the promise that neither of you will report this incident to your insurance company.
Should you take it? Under no circumstances! Here’s why it is a really bad idea to take money from someone at the scene of an accident:
You might be injured and not know it yet
Some car crash injuries simply will not show up for hours or even days. For example, you might have whiplash and not know it, simply because the adrenaline rush from the accident is tamping down the pain. In the coming hours or days, you might start to realize you have injuries related to this accident, and if you didn’t get his insurance information, you will be paying for those medical bills yourself.
The damage is worse than you initially thought it was
There is no good way to evaluate how much the repairs to your vehicle are going to cost while you are standing on the side of the road, having just been in an accident. What looks like a dented bumper might turn out to be extensive body damage to your vehicle, that costs thousands to repair.
You’ll have to pay for your own rental car
If you take the accident to the insurance company, they will likely pay for your rental car. If you take cash at the scene of the accident, that rental car will have to come out of your own pocket.
You don’t know why they want to pay you cash
Do they want to give you cash because their vehicle is stolen? Do they not have insurance? Are they going to go to the police later that day and claim that you backed into them and then fled the scene of that fake accident? You just don’t know. It’s much better to take the safe route and alert your insurance company.
