After a Car Accident in Tamuning: What to Do First

Tamuning carries more traffic than any other village on Guam. Marine Corps Drive, the Micronesia Mall corridor, the hotel strip, the hospital approach — high volume, tight lots, constant merging. Most collisions here are low speed and non-injury, which is exactly why people mishandle them.

The First Hour

Check for injuries. Call 911 if anyone is hurt.
Get out of the lane. A stopped car on Marine Corps Drive at 5pm creates the second accident.
Stop and identify yourself. Required by Guam law. Leaving the scene of a property damage accident is a misdemeanor; if there's an injury, it's a felony.
Call the police if damage exceeds $100 or anyone is injured. You have 24 hours to report.
File with Revenue & Taxation within 10 working days of the police report being completed, if damage exceeds $250 or someone was injured. This one gets forgotten constantly.
Photograph everything before the cars move — both vehicles, their positions, every panel, the other driver's registration and insurance certificate.

Why Tamuning damage is usually worse than it looks

Parking-lot and stop-and-go collisions produce the specific kind of damage that photographs innocently. Bumper covers are designed to flex and return to shape. Behind them sit absorbers, brackets, sensors, and rail ends that do not. If your vehicle has parking sensors, a backup camera, or forward collision alert, a low-speed hit can shift a mount by a few millimetres and quietly change what the system sees. Nothing lights up on the dash. It just stops being accurate.

What a real estimate looks like

A number written from the parking lot is a guess. A body estimate that holds up when the adjuster reviews it comes from photos, video, and a physical teardown — pulling the cover to see what's behind it. That's how our body and paint department writes estimates. It takes longer than a walk-around. It also stops the conversation where the shop calls you three days in to explain the price changed.