Accident in a tunnel or on the motorway

A tunnel is the one place where the standard advice — stop, photograph everything, complete the CID — can get you hurt. The priority order changes, and knowing it in advance is worth more than any checklist.

Safety comes before evidence

If the vehicle still moves, take it out of the tunnel or onto the hard shoulder before doing anything else. Hazard lights on, high-visibility vest on before you open the door, warning triangle at the prescribed distance, and get behind the barrier — not between the vehicles.

In a tunnel, use the emergency telephones rather than a mobile: they identify your position automatically, which on a five-kilometre tunnel is the difference between help arriving and help searching.

Do not walk back into a tunnel to take photographs. Nothing in a claim file is worth that.

What to record when you cannot stop where it happened

Note the tunnel name or the kilometre marker and the direction of travel. On the A1 through the Apennines or the A22 towards the Brenner, "just after a tunnel" describes dozens of locations.

Photograph everything at the first safe place: both vehicles, all damage, the other party's documents and insurance details. The final positions are lost, so the damage geometry carries more weight than usual — photograph every contact point on your own vehicle, not only the worst one.

Ask which force attended and note the reference. On the autostrada it is normally the Polizia Stradale, and the recovery is logged by the motorway operator, which is also how you find out later where your vehicle was taken.

Afterwards

Motorway impacts happen at speed, and speed puts damage into places you cannot see: the underbody, the subframe, the suspension geometry. A vehicle that drives after a motorway collision is not necessarily a vehicle that should be driven eight hundred kilometres home.

Send us photographs the same day. The first question we answer is whether the car is fit to travel; the second is where it can be inspected along your route.

Frequently asked questions

We could not complete a CID because we had to clear the tunnel.

That is the right decision. Complete it at the next service area or lay-by instead, or exchange details and complete your own half. A CID filled in twenty minutes later at a safe place is worth far more than one that never got written.

The motorway operator towed my car and I do not know where it is.

Call the operator with the location, direction and approximate time. Recovery on Italian motorways is logged. Once you have the yard name, we can arrange access and an inspection.

The car drives fine. Do I need it looked at before heading home?

Send photographs and tell us the impact speed and direction. Motorway damage frequently extends beyond what is visible, and the assessment before a long drive is quicker and cheaper than the recovery halfway across the Alps.