A Crash at Night: What to Do, and How a VAYA Membership Prepares You

It is past nine. The road is dark. There is a bang behind you and two cars have met.

You stop. You get down. A crowd is already gathering and everybody is talking at once. Somebody is shouting that you must pay now.

You reach for your phone. Your hands are shaking. And you realise you do not know which number to call.

That moment is not the time to learn. That moment is when you find out whether you prepared or not.

The two numbers that matter

112 is Nigeria's emergency number. One number reaches the police, an ambulance, the fire service, road safety, civil defence and emergency management. It is free to call and it works on every network.

122 is the Federal Road Safety Corps line. It is toll free and it is for crashes on the road. They also accept text messages on 33811.

Now say where you are before you say what happened

This is the mistake almost everybody makes. People start with the story. The person on the phone needs the place.

Say the road. Say the bridge. Say the bus stop. Say the filling station.

Then say what happened. Then say how many people are hurt.

"I am on the Lagos Ibadan expressway, after the Sagamu interchange, going towards Lagos. Two cars. One man is trapped inside."

One sentence. Help knows where to go.

What a VAYA member already has

Emergency support information sits inside the club's Protect pillar.

As a member, you learn the numbers before the night comes, so you are not searching while a crowd shouts at you.

You learn what to say, in what order, and what to do with your hazard lights, your triangle and the people standing around.

You learn which injuries must not be moved, and how to press a cloth on a wound that will not stop bleeding.

And you keep your membership content on your phone, so even a driver with no data can open what was already saved.

Six Things to Keep in the Car

A first aid box. A torch. A warning triangle. A bottle of clean water. A power bank. A paper with your next of kin, your blood group and your insurer's number.

Save the numbers in a way you can find in a hurry. Name them "AAA EMERGENCY 112" and "AAA EMERGENCY 122" so they sit at the top of your list.

If you are a passenger

You are the second pair of hands. If the driver is hurt, you make the call. If the driver is arguing, you take the pictures. If the driver is confused, you read out the road name.

A passenger who knows these steps is worth more than a car full of people recording videos.

Prepared drivers lose less

The crash is not the worst part. The worst part is what a driver does in the next ten minutes.

A VAYA membership makes sure those ten minutes are not the first time you are hearing any of this.