Road accidents are an unfortunate reality all over the world and Saudi Arabia is not an exception. There are dozens of road accidents reported in different roads of Saudi Arabian cities ranging from minor damages to severe injuries causing deaths. Road accidents ratio has however greatly decreased after strict enforcement of traffic laws with adequate speed limits monitored with cameras and after increasing penalties for the traffic violations caused. However, despite all the safety measures, such cases can’t be completely avoided and road accidents do happen quite often. What to do in case of a road accident and what steps you should follow if your vehicle is involved in any road accident in Saudi Arabia?
In this post, we will explain steps that you should follow in case of a road accident of your car/vehicle in the roads of Saudi Arabia.
Recommended Reading: Driving in Saudi Arabia: Don’ts & Don’ts
Steps to Take in case of a Road Accident of Your Car in Saudi Arabia
Stay Calm and Don’t Panic
Accidents are a reality and can happen for a number of reasons even if you are a defensive driver. In any case, if your vehicle is involved in an accident, don’t panic and remain calm as you are in a country with very well defined laws and with excellent enforcement of laws.
Once your car results in any kind of collision with any other car or any other object; try to stop the car immediately to minimise the risk for yourself and other fellow street users (cars as well as any pedestrians). Don’t indulge in any offensive remarks, arguments or any kind of brawl with other parties involved in the accident even if you find any of them aggressive.
It is also important that you don’t move your car from the accident place until Police/Najm has arrived so that they are able to investigate the cause of the accident and identify the cause.
Step 1: Call Najm or Traffic Police (Moroor)
In case of any road accident in Saudi Arabia, you need not to settle with other party at your own rather you need to involve Najm or traffic police. Najm is a company which deals with all road accident cases where at-least one of the involved parties has a valid insurance. Najm deals for only those road accidents where no deaths, injuries or fires take place. In any cases where some unfortunate death has happened, injuries are caused or a fire has broken; It is necessary to call and involve Traffic Police (Moroor) instead of Najm.
In case of an accident where no casualties or injuries happened and at-least one the involved parties does have a valid vehicle insurance, you can call Najm by using Najm Mobile App or by calling them on their number 920000560. While reporting the accident to Najm, Please make sure that you provide them all the necessary basic information to facilitate them to serve you efficiently. If you are using Najm mobile app for reporting the accident, you can send the Google Map location of the accident as well which helps them to exactly find the place of accident.
Step 2: Coordinate & Assist Najm or Traffic Police at Accident Location
Once Najm or Traffic police approaches the accident place, they will inspect the accident by checking from different angles and aspects to identify who was at the fault, how much damage is done and what report should be created for the accident. You will need to provide your Istimarah, License and Iqama/National ID to them.
Traffic Police and Najm deal all traffic accidents with a great level of professionalism without any biases or favours for any party and decisions are taken purely on merit no matter which nationality, religion, gender or race you belong to. However, If you can speak Arabic, it will be more convenient for you to explain anything to them.
Once Najm or traffic police has done the necessary inspection of the accident case they will prepare the report and related documents will be handed over to both parties so that both parties may proceed with insurance claim depending on the responsible identified.
Step 3: Get Moroor Stamp on Najm Paper
Once Najm has completed necessary inspection and paper work at the accident site, they will hand over paper to each party where percentage of your responsibility in the accident will be clearly written along with other accident details and useful instructions to follow next.
Take the Najm paper with you and visit Moror Office responsible for dealing with accident cases. Make sure that you visit the moroor office of the region specified in the paper.
For my accident in Jeddah, I first went to Moroor office in Sahafa Street but they asked me to visit Moroor office in Al-Zahra district with location as below:
I visited this moroor office and It took just a few minutes for me to get the Najm paper stamped from this Moroor office.
Note: In case if the party responsible for the accident doesn’t have a valid vehicle insurance available, he or she is still responsible to compensate you for the damages done to your car and police will provide you all necessary assistance to ensure that the culprit pays the damages to the victim.
In any case, It is HIGHLY recommended that you should have a valid insurance (at-least third party) for your vehicle to drive with a peace of mind in the roads of Saudi Arabia.
Further Recommended Reading: How to Purchase Car Insurance Online in Saudi Arabia
Step 4: Visit Taqdeer for Estimation of your Accident Damage
After getting the paper of Najm stamped by moroor, next step is to visit Taqdeer where they do all the inspection of the accidental vehicle and provide you a document with details of the estimates so that you may claim from insurance for the damages.
For Jeddah, you can either go to Iskan or Asfan to get your car damage estimated. Since Iskan is comparatively nearer from the Jeddah city, I went to (شيخ الورش لتقدير الحوادث جنوب) for my car accident cost estimation. The location of this taqdeer center is as below:
This center was open on Saturday as well and to avoid any long queues, I reached by 8AM as they start at 8:30. For me it took just one hour in total and I was provided a paper with my car value before and after accident and asked me to visit the insurance company specified on the paper and submit my claim.
Step 5: Visit Insurance Company and Submit Traffic Accident Claim
Next step of all this hectic process is to visit the insurance company office and submit your claim. I just knew the name of the insurance company and I searched in Google Maps to find exact location and reached insurance company office by 8AM. They asked me to provide car istimarah, IBAN Card/Certificate, Iqama and gave me a form to fill. Form was in Arabic so I sought help from one of the staff to get it filled. It took around half an hour in total and my claim was submitted. They told me that it will take maximum of 15 days to get the claim processed and money will be transferred to my account.
Step 6: Visit Any Workshop and get your Car Fixed
Once you have submitted your claim with insurance company, you can either wait for the money to get transferred to your account or else, you can straight away start your car repairing with the money that you have in your savings.
For me, I contacted multiple workshops and got an estimate of the cost of all the fixes and also visited various spare parts shops to get price quotes of the parts needed.
After doing all the home work done, I visited a workshop in Iskan and got my car fixed with necessary denting and painting. You can visit Iskan, Asfan or workshops anywhere of your choice and get your work done.
Please make sure that you have Najm paper (stamped by Moroor) with you while visiting workshops for repairing of your vehicle as It is illegal for any workshop to take any accidented car without this.
Any questions or any experiences to share? Feel free to comment below for the benefit of community.