Sometimes when you are involved in a “minor” accident, you might not feel it is necessary to exchange information. You should do it anyway. There are two good reasons for this.
The first reason is that even if you are uninjured, you may still have a property damage claim. The property damage claim may be much larger than you expect. I have written a blog on Car Accidents and the Importance of Auto Repair and Registered Shops and it discusses the fact that property damage is often much worse than it appears. Automobiles are designed to hide their damage. However, if you cannot identify the car that hit you, then your insurance company will not waive your deductible. If you do not have collision coverage, then there is no one to collect from at all. This can be an expensive problem if it turns out that the damage to your vehicle is worse than you realized.
The second reason is that you may feel much worse the next day or in the days following the collision. There are a number of reasons why this is true. For example, at the scene you may be a bit excited or full of adrenaline. Also, a lot of injuries take time to show themselves. After a relatively minor accident, the muscles in your neck or back are not only not tight, but can actually be quite loose as they were just stretched out. However, when they knot up later, you will feel a lot of stiffness and soreness that ultimately shows itself as pain and perhaps a host of other problems as well. You may have considerable difficulty recovering for the accident, if you have no information on the other car. Insurance companies these days are not very trusting. The mere fact that you said you were in an accident does not mean that they will compensate you for one.
If you have a smart phone or a camera on your person, at least take a picture of the other car with its license plate and the license of the driver of the car that hit you. You should also ask for the name of the other person’s insurance company, especially if they are from New Hampshire or another state that does not require proof of insurance to register a car. I discuss the issue of exchanging information in my article “What Should You Do If You Have Been Injured In An Auto Accident”.