The first days after a wreck on Stone Oak Parkway, US 281, or Loop 1604 are noisy. A rental car, a property-damage call, and a first offer can all arrive before the soreness has even settled. The steps that protect a later claim are quieter. Get medical care. Ask for the crash report. Write the two-year filing window on a calendar.
If it is safe, take pictures of the cars, the pavement markings, the signal, and any visible hurt. Names, plate numbers, and insurance-card information should go in the same note as the agency that worked the scene. Transportation Code 550.026 and the surrounding sections in Chapter 550 set out duties at the scene of a collision. Read the current official text for those duties. Do not rely on a remembered dollar trigger from an older pamphlet, because that figure has been amended over time and the official statute is the place to confirm what still applies.
Get medical care promptly, even when the first evening feels only sore. A later insurer argument about the seriousness of the injury often starts with a gap in treatment. If a child was riding along or was in a crosswalk, get that child examined even when the child says nothing hurts. Leave the child’s name out of a public post about the collision.
Insurance in the first week
Ask for the declarations page for every auto policy in the household. Check for personal-injury-protection benefits and uninsured or underinsured coverage, or for a written rejection of those coverages. Ordinary auto floors are 30/60/25 under 601.072. Do not sign any broad release during that first week merely to move any rental car or a property-damage check. A release is hard to undo if the injury later looks more serious than the first emergency-room visit suggested.
Write down what you actually remember about speed, lookout, and signal timing while the memory is clear, and do not fill gaps in a carrier statement when you are not ready to be exact. The greater-than-50-percent cutoff in 33.001 can end a liability claim. Early statements can show up in that fight later.
The clocks that are already running
An ordinary injury lawsuit generally has to be started in court within two years, as 16.003 provides. A death claim also has two years, starting on the day of death. Opening a carrier file does not by itself commence any of those actions. Should a child have been injured, 16.001 can pause that ordinary clock, but the crash-report copy and the medical visits should still happen at once. If a city or state vehicle may belong in the story, the six-month notice in 101.101 can run on a much shorter calendar, and a city charter may be shorter still.
Put that medical visits, the report request, and those petition dates on a single list in the first week, even if you are not ready to hire counsel yet. A later civil case from Bexar County is often filed with the District Clerk at the Paul Elizondo Tower, 101 W Nueva, Suite 217. Confirm hours and fees on the official clerk page. Get the crash report from the department named on the officer’s card, and use the official TxDOT purchase path when that path applies. If you hire counsel, confirm the license and put the fee agreement in a writing both sides sign. Filling out a site form does not hire counsel or stop a clock.
The drive, the scene, and the paperwork that follows
Stone Oak is a long drive from the downtown courts, and it is a short drive from several urgent-care clinics and hospital campuses on the north side. Use that geography in a practical way. Get medical care close to home if that is the fastest safe option, and do not skip a visit because you think you can “wait and see” until after work on Monday. Keep the discharge papers. They are often the first proof of the wreck date and of the first complaints of pain.
If the wreck blocked a 1604 ramp or a 281 frontage lane, the vehicles may be moved quickly. Photographs taken before that tow, even a few from a phone, can matter later when an insurer argues about points of impact. If it is not safe to stand in the lane, do not. Safety comes first. A witness name written on the back of a card is still useful if photographs have to wait.
In the same week, start a single date list. Put the wreck date, the first medical visit, the report request, and the two-year mark on it. If a public vehicle was involved, add the six-month notice date and check the official city form for any shorter period. If a child was hurt, add the child’s date of birth. That list is more useful than a pile of emails. Take it to counsel if you hire someone, along with the declarations pages and the photographs. The courts guide and the coverage guide on this site can sit beside that list, but they do not replace a timely filing or a timely notice.
Do not let a busy first week on the north side hide the quiet deadlines. A missed medical appointment, a report request that was never sent, or a release signed at a body shop can all matter more later than they feel on the third day. If you are not ready to hire counsel, you can still make the date list, store the photographs, and request the report. Those steps do not start a lawsuit, and they do not pause that two-year window, but they make a later filing or a later notice much easier to prove. If you do hire someone, take the list, not a shoebox of unsorted papers, to the first meeting.