Always Call The Police And Wait For Them To Arrive After An Accident
After an accident involving only property damage or seemingly no or only minor injuries, it can be tempting to simply exchange information with the other driver and leave the scene without calling or waiting for the police. That’s a bad idea for your possible future negligence claim against the other driver. We explain why.
If you’re the victim of another driver’s negligence and you believe that the accident may warrant a negligence claim against the other driver or the other driver’s insurance company, it’s imperative that you make a non-emergency call to the appropriate local law enforcement agency from the accident scene and request an officer. Don’t let the other driver convince you otherwise. A responding law enforcement officer can provide the beginning foundation for a motor vehicle negligence claim in several important ways:
The officer will ensure that you receive accurate information from the other driver, such as the driver’s name, address, vehicle information, and insurance information. All of that will be provided to you at the scene through a Driver Information Exchange Report that you can take with you. Otherwise, if you merely rely on the other driver to provide you such information, there’s no guarantee that any of it will be truthful or accurate.
The officer’s report will note the vehicles involved in the accident, the owners and drivers of those vehicles, and the date, time, and location of the accident. Without that information, the other driver or the opposing insurance company may dispute that the accident occurred or that the other driver was involved. They can’t do that once the police have investigated.
The officer’s reports will note the presence of any passengers in your vehicle. That’s important in the event that your passenger decides to make a personal injury claim against the other driver or opposing insurer. We’ve seen cases in which an opposing insurance company strongly fought or outright denied a passenger’s claim because of a lack of evidence that the passenger was actually in the vehicle. The investigating officer’s report solves that problem by identifying any passengers in your vehicle.
The Investigating Officer’s Report, often referred to simply as the “accident report,” will state whether the other driver received a traffic ticket because of the accident. That can be important because a guilty plea to a traffic offense after an accident almost always prevents the other driver and the driver’s insurer from contesting liability for the accident.
The responding officer will interview the other driver. The driver’s statements will be in the accident report. Those statements can be used against the other driver if that driver or the opposing insurance company tries to avoid responsibility for the accident in court.
The responding officer will interview any witnesses at the scene. Their statements will be summarized in the accident report. That can be useful information if the other side fights liability for the crash.
The responding officer can later be an effective witness on liability if the claim goes to trial. The officer can testify about the police investigation, the conclusions of that investigation, any traffic tickets given to the other driver, any statements made by the other driver at the accident scene, and so on and so forth.
These are some of the lessons that we’ve learned from our cases when our clients ask us to push a vehicle negligence claim without a corresponding police investigation. That can cause issues. We’ve represented people who received false information from the other driver, including the driver’s name, making it nearly impossible to prosecute a claim for the client. We’ve had opposing drivers who claim that the accident didn’t happen or that it happened in a different manner than our client describes, assertions that are easy to make in the absence of a police report. We’ve had the claims of passengers disputed, as noted above. We’ve had defending drivers try to change their story once a lawsuit was filed and have been grateful to have a police officer as a witness who can testify to something incriminating that the defendant said at the accident scene. And when they do offer testimony that supports our cases, police officers, with their uniforms and badges, lend instant credibility to our side of the story that’s extremely difficult for the defense to overcome.
In short, if you’re in an accident and believe that the other driver was at fault and should compensate you for property damage or personal injuries — Call the police. Wait for the police. Talk to the police. No exceptions.