Car wrecks: can I fight the police report?

Today I wanna answer a question about car wrecks. And the question is, can I fight the police report? The answer, yes you can, but, it usually helps to have prompt investigation and to take witness statements from whoever you can identify. Here's why, it's extremely common in car wreck cases to have a police report. A lot of times, when you've been involved in a car wreck one person calls the police, the police show up, they talk to everyone, and then they determine what happened and who's at fault. A lot of times they get this right. But occasionally, they do get it wrong.

Now, this often happens when one party doesn't talk to the police. For example, I had a case where our client, was struck with such force, that she had to be extricated from the car, and taken to the hospital in an ambulance. And so when the police arrived, they only heard one side of the story, from the driver who hit her. And let me tell you that story was not correct. Now, we were able to turn that around, because we were able to find video of the car wreck happening from a nearby store, and we talked to witnesses who saw the wreck happen and contradicted what this other driver said. So, in those kinds of situations, yeah you can fight the police report. But it really helps to have evidence to back up what you're saying. Evidence like video, or evidence like what other witnesses are saying. It also helps to have evidence of the crash immediately after it happened. And so, that can be evidence of road conditions, evidence of damage to your car and the other person's car. Sometimes the damage is such that the accident could only have happened one way. And that's the other driver being responsible.

So, what should you do, to make sure that the police get it right? Well, one, you should always talk to them when they show up to the scene of a car wreck, and you should calmly tell them your side of the story. You shouldn't be combative, you shouldn't call the other side a liar or anything like that. Even if they are lying to the police. You should tell them your side of the story and you should show them any evidence that you have. For example, if you have a dash cam. And the dash cam is going to show that the other guy's at fault? You should tell the police that and offer to give them the video. A lot of times they can download it directly in their trooper car and then give you the memory card back.

Also, if there are any witnesses standing around, you should provide that witness information to the police. Sometimes when you're in wreck, there are witnesses who will pull over and say, "Hey, I saw what happened." Or they may be standing around and say, "Hey I saw what happened." But it could take the police half an hour or an hour to show up. What you want to do is take down their names and telephone numbers and give them to the police. Or, if the witnesses are willing, you can record them, just video record them with your phone. Video record them saying what happened. And then that's evidence that you can show to the police. And that's evidence that you can keep and give to your lawyer, in case the other driver tries to say that he or she is not at fault.

Last thing you could do, is investigate where there might be cameras. Now, this has to be prompt. Because a lot of camera footage is overwritten after 30 days. But, there's oftentimes, especially in commercial areas, there's oftentimes a camera pointed at the road somewhere, and every once in a while it has a clear enough view of the road, that we can get it and see what's going on. Now, you don't have to do all this yourself, in fact, this is one of the most valuable things that we can offer our clients, when they hire us immediately after a wreck, is jumping on an investigation immediately. But, even if you don't hire a lawyer, you can do these things, to make sure that the police, have the police report correct. Blaming the other driver and not you when that's the truth.