Ryan Zavodnick | November 9, 2025 | Car Accidents
The moments immediately after a traffic accident can be chaotic. Even drivers who think they are familiar with the basic procedures to follow after a car accident in Pennsylvania can find themselves taken aback by the specific circumstances of a particular case. One possibility that appears relatively often but takes many Pennsylvania drivers and passengers by surprise is the involvement of a vehicle operating a “rideshare” service, like Uber or Lyft. While most of the steps to take after an Uber accident will be similar to what you might do after any other traffic incident, developing a clear picture of how the different parties involved may affect the post-accident process can set you up to navigate those initial steps more efficiently. For answers to more of your questions about Uber accidents, or to seek legal advice regarding an Uber accident claim, call Zavodnick & Lasky at (215) 774-6467 and arrange a free one-time consultation with a member of our team.
What Is a Rideshare Accident?
Since Uber was founded in 2009, rideshare companies like Uber and Lyft have become fixtures of the American economy. Facilitated by the rapidly increasing availability of smartphones in the early 2010s, the “rideshare” industry takes its name from the older practice of ride-sharing, which overlapped with “carpooling” for much of the 20th century. Today’s ridesharing companies use apps rather than social networks to connect would-be passengers who want transportation with drivers who “share” their personal vehicles for a fee, picking up the passenger at the requested location and dropping them off at their destination. From the passenger’s perspective, the experience of using a rideshare service tends to be broadly similar to that involved in taking a taxi. The differences at this level tend to lie in the greater flexibility and convenience many rideshare users experience in traveling with Uber, Lyft, or one of their competitors, compared to the process of hailing traditional taxi services.
A rideshare accident can be any accident that involves a vehicle actively engaged in a ridesharing job. Because drivers for ridesharing companies participate in the “gig economy” by using their own vehicles to offer rides during their preferred times of day and often between other scheduled jobs or tasks, ridesharing vehicles may not always be immediately obvious through the same visual signals as a more traditional cab operated by a taxi service that hires drivers for designated shifts. The maintenance requirements and obligations for vehicle safety and upkeep are also distributed differently in rideshare accidents compared to those involving either taxi cabs or personal vehicles operating as private transportation at the time of an accident. All of these factors can complicate determinations of liability in an Uber accident.
What Happens if Your Uber Gets In an Accident?
If you are involved in an Uber accident, your experience at the scene of the crash will likely depend on a few key factors. To set yourself up for the smoothest possible experience in the first few minutes to hours after a crash, consider the following:
- The severity of the crash and injuries: The more destructive the crash is, and the more obviously serious the injuries are at the scene, the more complex the activities of emergency responders are likely to be. If you yourself are severely injured, then your injuries may keep you from taking many actions on your own behalf at the scene of the accident. Even if you are injured in such a way that your immediate symptoms prevent you from taking photos or attempting to collect contact information from other individuals involved in the accident, if law enforcement or paramedics are trying to remove critically injured drivers or passengers and administer time-sensitive, potentially life-saving emergency medical care, then you may be asked to stand back to make sure that the emergency response personnel have room to perform their jobs unimpeded.
- The conduct of the drivers: Both your own rideshare driver and whoever is driving the other vehicle (or other vehicles) involved in the collision will have their own responsibilities to fulfill. How they react in the moment will, to some extent, determine your options in the first few moments after an Uber accident.
- The location of the collision in relation to your own origin and destination points: For purely practical reasons, your “next steps” immediately after any rideshare accident may be dictated in part by whether you are close to home when the accident occurs, as opposed to traveling in a distant city or even out of state. Rideshare services like Uber are much more likely than private passenger cars to be used by individuals who are not local to the area where an accident occurs, particularly in a city like Philadelphia that sees a great deal of both tourism and business travel. If you are a local taking an Uber ride for convenience, you are far more likely to be familiar with the location of local hospitals and urgent care centers than if you are visiting from out of state. You may also be operating under different time constraints and economic pressures.
Most of the key actions you will need to take in the first few minutes and hours after an Uber accident will be broadly similar, regardless of the circumstances, but how you go about taking those actions is likely to be influenced by how these factors combine in your particular situation.
What To Expect From the Uber Driver After an Accident
Uber’s own website contains instructions to drivers, directing the steps they should take if they are involved in an accident while on duty. If you are involved in an Uber accident, one of the very first things you can do to prepare yourself for the process of recovering compensation for any injuries is simply to pay attention and watch whether the driver does what he or she is supposed to do, based on the publicly available instructions given by the company.
Initial Steps
The first of those instructions, understandably, is to make sure that all drivers and passengers involved in the accident are safe. Uber directs drivers to call emergency services “if” anyone is injured or there is damage at the scene of the accident. Accidents in which no vehicles are damaged at all would be rare, so in most rideshare accidents, you can expect that the driver will make a call to law enforcement to report the incident, and possibly a call to other emergency services to request medical assistance.
Reporting an Uber Accident
Both rideshare passengers and the drivers and passengers of other vehicles have the option to report the accident to law enforcement if the rideshare driver, for any reason, fails to do so. If a driver, tragically, is too injured to make the necessary calls, Pennsylvania law places an obligation on others at the scene to notify the local police under PA § 3746. For notifying Uber of traffic events involving their rideshare service, the company places responsibility for reporting any traffic incidents to their team on the drivers personally. Assuming that the driver fulfills this obligation promptly, the rideshare company’s own insurance team will likely take a role in reviewing the circumstances of the accident soon after it occurs to anticipate any potential insurance claims.
Evidence Collection at the Scene of the Accident
Another instruction to drivers that you may notice is that they are to take photos at the scene of the accident. From Uber’s perspective, obviously, these photos are intended to preserve evidence that might exonerate the company. If an insurance claim arising from an Uber accident ends up in court, however, any photos taken by the rideshare driver at the scene and submitted to the company can become evidence that the other party has a right to request and review during discovery. An Uber accident lawyer with Zavodnick & Lasky may be able to help you understand how the discovery process works in rideshare accident cases.
Steps You Can Take as an Uber Passenger
Uber provides a separate portal through which passengers using their rideshare service can report accidents independently. You may want to take this step even if you believe the driver has already reported the incident as required by company policy. If you do use the portal to report your Uber accident, be sparing in the details you provide and do not volunteer information about your medical condition or property losses.
The reason for being cautious in what you share is not to conceal pertinent information, but to avoid introducing inaccurate impressions that may be difficult to correct later. In most accidents, whether they involve rideshare services or not, it is very difficult to have a fully accurate picture of even whether any of your own belongings have been lost or damaged in the collision, never mind whether anyone involved has internal injuries or how serious those injuries might be. Assuming that nothing is lost or broken because you have not noticed a problem yet, or that you are not injured simply because you are not visibly bleeding, can lead you to make mistakes in the present and set up the conditions for unintentionally misleading all parties involved.
Steps To Take After Any Vehicle Accident
As important as it is to think about the specific parameters brought into play by vehicle collisions involving rideshare services, it is also critical not to forget the basic steps you should always take after any accident. These steps include:
- Reporting the accident to the authorities
- Seeking medical attention for anyone obviously injured at the scene of the crash
- Exchanging contact details and insurance information with others involved in the accident
- Taking photos of the vehicles and any injuries from multiple angles, if you are well enough to do so and can take the images without interfering with emergency responders’ work
- Getting a thorough medical evaluation to identify any issues that may not have been immediately apparent at the scene of the accident
- Requesting an accident report from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to assist in the processing of your insurance claim
Following these steps can help you to ensure your own safety as well as prepare you with the information you may need later as you are pursuing your claim.
Speak With a Pennsylvania Rideshare Accident Lawyer
Pennsylvania residents and visitors to the state may be affected by Uber accidents, whether they are rideshare passengers themselves or the drivers, or occupants of other vehicles involved in a collision. Understanding the steps to take immediately after an Uber accident, or an accident involving one of the several rideshare services now competing with Uber for passengers, can set you up for the smoothest possible process to the fulfillment of your insurance claim. To learn more about how the insurance claim process works after an Uber accident, or to seek assistance in recovering compensation in your own Uber accident case, schedule a no-cost, no-obligation conference with one of the experienced Philadelphia car accident lawyers at Zavodnick & Lasky. Call us today at (215) 774-6467 to find a time that works with your schedule.
