Do You Need A Police Report For Your Car Accident?
Posted on: 27 February 2019
Not every car accident is a fiery crash that ends with serious injuries or fatalities. Most accidents that occur in the United States are, in fact, relatively minor incidents. These could simply be getting hit from behind at a stop light, or something else that only causes cosmetic damage. Many drivers will walk away from such an incident without bothering to get a police report.
However, this can be a huge mistake on your part. There are very good reasons why a personal injury attorney will always advise you to get a police report.
Police Reports Strengthen Any Case
The moment you drive away from the scene of an accident without getting a police report, all you have is hearsay. Unless there's something like a security camera in the vicinity, there is not much that can corroborate your version of events. If you plan to hire an auto accident attorney to get any form of compensation as a result of the accident, you're less likely to succeed if you don't have a police report.
Police reports provide a third-party account of the events. They establish facts such as the time of the accident, the location, the positioning of the cars, etc. All of this is important when establishing who was at fault for the accident.
You Can't Really Know the Extent of Injury or Damage
It's impossible to accurately state that you've walked away unscathed after an accident. Many injuries will not show any signs immediately -- some may take a few hours, while others could even take days. The same thing applies to damage to your vehicle.
Sometimes the damage done to cars is difficult to immediately spot. Additionally, what you may have assumed was an inexpensive fix could end up costing you a few hundred dollars. Without a police report, it will be difficult to prove that someone else was involved in an accident with you, especially if their car shows no signs of damage.
Reporting to the Insurance Company
It's a contractual clause when you're dealing with insurance companies to report any and all accidents to them. The seriousness of the accident notwithstanding, insurance companies will require you to let them know if you've been in an accident. Failure to do this could affect future claims if it's discovered that you didn't report an accident. To report an incident to the insurance company, you'll need to forward the police report as well.
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