We do not recommend a private settlement, unless the accident is obviously very minor (such as only minor scratches on the vehicle body) and there are no injuries. That is because once a matter is settled privately, you’ll have given up the right to claim compensation from your insurer, and you can never be sure whether the other party will later develop some after-effects and claim compensation from you for personal injury. Therefore, we recommend that after a road accident, you report it to the police immediately, because in our view the only truly safe way to handle a road accident is to wait for the police to arrive to investigate and record the accident.