Most people know from watching cop shows or listening to true crime podcasts that police officers prepare reports when they are investigating crimes. But law enforcement officers also prepare police reports when they respond to car accidents involving injuries or significant property damage.
Police reports typically include details about when, where, and how a car accident happened and statements from all of the people who were involved in or witnessed the accident. Some reports even contain the officer’s opinion about who was at fault for the accident, which can make or break a car accident insurance claim or personal injury lawsuit.
Here are some key takeaways about car accident police reports:
- The police report is a summary of the officer’s investigation of the accident.
- You can request a copy of the police report from the law enforcement agency responsible for the investigation or from the insurance adjuster handling your claim.
- Insurance companies, lawyers, judges, and juries rely on information in police reports to make decisions about fault for the accident (liability) and accident-related losses (“damages”).
- If you think the police report contains errors, you can ask the officer to amend or supplement the report.
- If the police don’t respond to an accident, you should document information about the accident yourself and potentially file your own report with the police and the department of motor vehicles.
What Is a Car Accident Police Report?
When a law enforcement officer responds to the scene of a car accident, the officer will typically write up a car accident police report. Depending on the location of the accident, the officer might be from a local or state agency, such as:
- the local police department
- the county sheriff’s office
- the state police department, or
- the state highway patrol.
Police reports include important information about the cause of the accident, vehicle damage, and injuries. Lawyers and insurance adjusters rely on police reports because they consider law enforcement officers to be impartial fact finders.
What’s in the Police Accident Report?
A car accident police report typically includes some or all of the following information:
- the date, time, and location of the crash
- identifying information about the parties involved in the crash, including names, addresses, phone numbers, and insurance information
- witness names and contact information
- a description of accident-related property damage and injuries
- statements from the parties and witnesses
- a diagram showing the location of the vehicles, skid marks, and debris
- a description of weather, lighting, and road conditions
- photographs of the scene, vehicles, and injuries
- a record of traffic citations issued (for example, speeding or distracted driving), and
- the officer’s opinion about how and why the accident happened.
How Do I Get a Copy of the Police Report?
A police report can help support your description of the accident when you file a car accident claim. You can request a copy of the police report from the law enforcement agency that prepared the report.
The officer who responds to the scene and takes your statement will likely give you an incident number. Use the incident number to request a copy of the report. If you don’t know the incident number, you can probably use your name and the date, time, and location of the accident to get the report. Most departments charge an administrative fee for the report (typically around $20) or charge you a per-page copying fee.
If you aren’t in a hurry to get your hands on the police report, you might be able to get a free copy from the insurance adjuster handling your claim.
How Do Insurance Adjusters Use Police Reports on Car Accidents?
Insurance adjusters do their own investigation when you file a claim. But one of the first things they’ll typically want to see is the police report. The police report is the quickest way for them to get information about the report from a reliable source.
Adjusters don’t have to agree with an investigating officer’s conclusion about who was at fault for the accident, but they will consider it and use the information in the report to make their own determination.
What If I Disagree With the Police Report After My Car Accident?
Sometimes police reports are inaccurate. If you think the report contains factual errors or mistakes involving objective information you can request a correction. Examples of factual errors include:
- a misspelled name
- a transposed birthdate
- an incorrect driver’s license number or insurance policy number, and
- an inaccurate description of the make or model of a vehicle involved in the accident.
Factual errors are fairly easy to correct. You’ll need to provide proof of the correct information to the responding law enforcement agency and the agency will either correct the original report or prepare a supplemental report explaining and correcting the factual error.
If you disagree with an officer’s opinion, have a problem with a witness statement, or feel like the report is missing important information, you’ll have a much harder time having the report changed or supplemented.
You can ask to have your version of the contested or missing information added to the report, but it’ll be up to the officer who wrote the report to decide whether to include it. And you might want to talk to a lawyer about whether it’s in your best interest to call attention to disputed information and make multiple statements to the police.
Learn more about what to do if you disagree with the police report after a car accident.
What If the Police Don’t Come to the Scene of the Crash?
The police don’t respond to every fender bender. If you’re involved in a minor accident or the accident occurred on private property, the police might not come.
You should call the police and let them decide whether they’ll come out. If the police don’t come to the scene, you can take down the same information that an officer would include in a police report. (Use this checklist of what to do after a car accident.)
You can also go to a nearby police station and report the accident. In some states, you can file a police report for certain accidents online. If the accident involved injuries or a certain amount of property damage, you might have to file a report with the department of motor vehicles in your state.
Talk to a Car Accident Attorney
If you’re thinking about making an insurance claim or filing a lawsuit, talk to a lawyer. A lawyer can help you get a copy of the police report and look it over with you.
A lawyer can help you get the best possible outcome in your case, whether the information in the police report is helpful to you or not. Learn more about when to hire a lawyer after a car accident. You can also connect with a lawyer directly from this page for free.