If your cell phone doesn’t have a camera attached to it, please call your carrier right now and get a free upgrade with one that does. There is absolutely no excuse to not have access to a camera at all times to help you gather evidence if you are involved in a car crash.

Now that you have a shiny new camera phone, what should you be taking pictures of? Everything! Don’t let the other person move their car until you get lots of pictures of the damage, the accident scene, bruising, cuts and bleeding, weather conditions, traffic conditions, or just about anything else you can think of. The more pictures the better so don’t be timid in documenting the accident.

The reason you want to take your own pictures is because you can’t rely on the insurance companies to document your accident fairly. For example, you may be driving a pickup that has a trailer hitch. If the person that hit you was driving a compact car like a Honda Civic, their car may be totaled out, but your truck may have little to no damage at all. Does this mean that the impact was not severe enough to injury you? Of course not. However, the adjuster may try and make that very argument with you. The problem you will face if you did not gather your own pictures, will be trying to overcome this argument if you do not have your own evidence. Do you really think the adjuster will just give you his pictures of their totaled out car? Don’t count on it.

Injuries are another important thing to document with pictures. If you have bruises, they will eventually heal and how will the adjuster know how severe they were if you didn’t take pictures of them. Scars fade over time, so take pictures along the way to show how long you had to live with the scar before it finally faded. Did you have blood all over your face? A jury would surely love to see those graphic pictures when trying to assign value to your claim.

If you are the one person in the United States that does not have a cell phone with a camera, please at least buy a disposable camera and stash it in your glove compartment. Eye witnesses are good to have, but pictures never lie.