Accident recovery in Chiswick.

The Chiswick flyover has no hard shoulder and nowhere safe to stand. A vehicle stopped on it is a serious hazard, and it is one of the few places in West London where the honest advice is to get away from the car entirely and call 999 before you think about recovery.

The Hogarth roundabout and the Chiswick roundabout beneath the flyover are both heavy merging environments where low-speed shunts are frequent. Those are usually straightforward recoveries once the vehicle is off the junction itself.

West of the roundabout the A4 becomes fast dual carriageway towards Brentford and the M4. Incidents here tend to be higher-speed and produce the kind of damage where a vehicle will not roll or steer — which usually means a Hiab lift rather than a conventional winch and load.

Tell us whether the wheels turn and whether it steers. It is the single most useful thing you can tell us about a damaged car.

Chiswick High Road is busy, bus-heavy and lined with controlled parking, and the residential streets running off it are narrow with permit bays on both sides.

Access is workable but rarely generous. A van or a Hiab from the High Road end is often quicker than trying to get a long truck into the street itself.