Scratched a car in a parking lot: call the police or fill in the agreed statement?

I usually open the "what if I have an accident" conversation with students the same way: it isn't the bump itself that scares people — it's not knowing what comes next. Shopping-centre car park, a courtyard, squeezing out of a tight space — the scenario repeats itself: a light knock, a dented bumper, a jolt of panic, and the question, "do I call 112 or not?"

First actions at the scene

Whatever happened, the order is the same:

Stop. Don't try to drive "a couple of metres out of the way" first — that is the single most common mistake.
Turn on your hazard lights.
Check for injuries. If anyone is hurt, call 112 immediately — the agreed statement is simply not the tool for that situation.
Only after that, assess the damage and decide how to document the incident.

When the agreed statement is actually enough

You can use the agreed statement (widely called a "europrotocol" in everyday speech) only when all of these hold at once:

two vehicles were involved;
no one was injured;
no third-party property was damaged — a fence, a lamppost, a shopfront, and so on;
both cars are still driveable and can leave the scene under their own power;
the drivers agree on how it happened.

If even one condition is missing, call the police. And the general rule for anything unclear: when in doubt, or if anyone is hurt — call 112 or the police, rather than trying to settle it on the spot.

One detail worth knowing, because it removes a lot of unnecessary anxiety: signing the agreed statement is not an admission of guilt. It's simply a jointly confirmed description of what happened, for the insurer — who is at fault is worked out afterwards, from the described circumstances, not from the signature.

Three ways to file it

Since December 2025, drivers in Latvia have three channels:

The paper form — the classic version kept in the glovebox.
The LTAB OCTA app (LTAB is the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Latvia; the app has been around since 2018) — a digital version of the same statement on your phone.
LTAB's official WhatsApp bot, running since 17 December 2025. To start, message +371 25570028 with the word "start". Identity is verified via Smart-ID or eParaksts, and photos and video of the scene replace the hand-drawn sketch.

WhatsApp isn't a pilot — it's a fully official LTAB channel alongside the app and the paper form. For many of my students it's actually the easiest option: no need to remember how to sketch a scene by hand, just photograph it properly.

The 10-day deadline

The at-fault driver must submit the completed statement to their insurer within 10 days of the accident. That's not "sometime this week" — it's a firm deadline, and there's no benefit to delaying it.

Typical mistakes at the scene

I see the same patterns in students and in drivers who've been on the road for years:

Panic instead of a sequence. The first reaction is often confusion, not "stop → hazards → check for people."
Driving off too quickly. Someone moves the car "to clear the road" before the positions are documented — and afterwards it's hard to prove who hit what.
Not photographing the vehicle positions before moving them. This is the main technical mistake — photos get taken only after one car has already been repositioned.
Arguing instead of documenting. A raised-voice conversation resolves nothing; photos of number plates, damage, and the overall scene resolve most of it.

According to LTAB, about 73.9% of 2025 accidents in Latvia were documented via the agreed statement, without police — so in the great majority of cases, the calm, step-by-step approach is the norm, not the exception.

What to take away behind the wheel

In lessons I don't teach students to fear accidents — I teach a calm sequence of actions that holds up under stress the same way a rehearsed manoeuvre holds up on exam day. Stop, hazards, check for people, photograph before anything moves — and only then talk about fault.

If reacting calmly under stress is a topic you'd like more on, see also common beginner driver mistakes and winter driving in Riga — icy conditions are exactly when small parking-lot bumps happen most.