After a crash
What Happens If a Rental Car Has an Accident in Lahore?
The step by step, from the moment it happens to the moment the bill is settled, on a chauffeur driven hire.
On a chauffeur driven hire with us, your obligations after an accident are to get yourself and your passengers safe and to call us. The driver handles the vehicle, the police report and the recovery, because he is our employee and the car is ours. You are not asked to pay for repairs, you are not asked to deal with the other party, and your booking is continued in a replacement vehicle rather than cancelled.
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What to do, in order
- Get out of the traffic. The single biggest secondary risk on a Pakistani road is the vehicle that arrives next. People first, car second, photographs third.
- Check everyone in your party. Including the driver. If anyone is hurt, that is the only thing that matters for the next ten minutes.
- Call us on 0300 5534187. At any hour. Do not wait for the driver to call, and do not wait to see whether it can be resolved at the roadside.
- Do not negotiate with the other party. Not about fault, not about money. Our driver and our office handle that. A customer agreeing to something at the roadside makes it harder for everyone, including themselves.
- Take photographs if it is safe to. Both vehicles, the position on the road, any number plates. Useful, not urgent, and never worth standing in a live lane for.
- Let the driver deal with the police report. He knows the process and it is his job. If the police want to speak to you as a passenger, you can, but you are a passenger.
- We will tell you what happens next within the hour. Replacement vehicle, onward plan, or a way home. That conversation is ours to start, not yours to chase.
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What you are charged, and what you are not
One published Lahore agreement handles this differently and it is worth reading carefully before you book anywhere: it states that the rental amount continues to be charged while the vehicle is under recovery in the workshop, and that vehicle depreciation charges are payable by the client at a specific percentage after an accident. The percentage is not published. That is a clause under which a crash that was not your fault can generate an open ended bill.
Why this page did not exist before
We searched for an answer to this question across the Pakistani rental web before writing it. What ranks is instructive. Generic affiliate explainers about car rental insurance that never cite a Pakistani statute or insurer. American legal directories. A consumer protection page from the United States Federal Trade Commission. A fourteen year old traveller forum thread where a local operator and a tourist disagree about who bears damage, and nobody with a business at stake ever intervenes.
What does not rank is any Lahore rental company answering the question about its own hires, because none of them have written it down. The highest anxiety moment in the entire customer journey is the one part of the journey the industry has left blank.
What to ask before you book anywhere
If I am in the car and your driver has an accident, what do I owe. Then: is that written down anywhere I can read it. The second question is the one that matters, because the first has a comfortable answer that costs nothing to say.
Questions
Asked before booking
Who is liable if a rental car is damaged in Lahore?
On a chauffeur driven hire the person driving is the company employee, so damage arising from the driving is the company problem. On a self drive hire it moves to you, along with the deposit and the licence you had to produce. This is the single most important practical difference between the two products.
Do I have to pay if the driver crashes the car?
Not with us. We will not hand you a repair bill for something that happened while our driver was at the wheel, and we hold no deposit of yours to take it from.
What do I do first after an accident?
Get everyone out of traffic and safe, then call us on 0300 5534187. Do not negotiate with the other party and do not agree to anything at the roadside. The driver and the office deal with that.
Will I be stranded?
No. Inside Lahore we send another vehicle. On a motorway or intercity trip we get you moving and then get you home; we do not treat a refund as a substitute for a car in the middle of nowhere.
Is there a Pakistani law that settles rental liability?
Not one that publishes a clean answer for consumers. We looked. Liability here is set by the terms of your hire and by who was driving, which is exactly why those two things should be written down before you travel.
More on risk and liability