If your vehicle has been involved in a major road accident that has left it damaged beyond repair, here are some important steps you should take.

Contact an auto wrecking facility

A lot of people whose cars have been severely damaged simply leave their vehicles inside their garages. If you find yourself in this situation and would rather not use the space inside your garage, you may want to consider getting in touch with a local auto wrecking service. Most auto wrecking companies offer a car removal service, meaning that you won't have to waste your time and energy towing your old vehicle to the facility yourself.

In addition to freeing up some space in your garage, this approach will also be better for the environment, as the functional components of your car can be sold on by the facility and reused by other vehicle owners, instead of being thrown into a landfill.

This is a point which is particularly important to note if you consider yourself to be an environmentally-conscious individual, as landfills play a huge part in global warming and are filling up at an alarming rate.

Take out all of your personal possessions

If you have used your car regularly for a long period of time, there will probably be a considerable amount of your possessions (such as CDs, books, spare clothing, sunglasses, paperwork, and your emergency breakdown kit) stuffed into the boot, the glove box, and underneath the seats of your car. Before the tow-truck driver that is carrying out the car removal process for you comes to collect your vehicle, you should spend some time removing these personal belongings.

This is important, as any items that you forget to take out of the vehicle before it is sent off to the auto wrecking facility will probably end up lost or damaged if they are left inside. Because most auto wrecking companies process vehicles soon after they arrive at their facilities, it is unlikely that you would be able to retrieve any goods left in the car after it has been towed away.

In addition to checking the above-mentioned areas, make sure to look inside the small storage compartments on the inside of the car doors and in between the front seats, and pull down the sun visors if, like many drivers, you tend to store things like receipts and sunglasses in this part of your car.