What should you do if you get your accident report and you see something wrong? Believe it or not this happens from time to time. Public safety officials are just like all of us, they make mistakes. If your accident report has mistakes on it, you need to get them fixed ASAP, or they could cost you in the long run. It contains a lot of information related to your car crash.
Some of the things on a accident report that could be inaccurate
- Name and address of all parties involved
- Phone number
- Year Make & Model of your vehicle
- Time
- Date
- Location
- Damage to vehicles
- Injuries
- Contributing Factors
- Narrative (little drawing showing how the accident occurred)
- Passengers in involved vehicles
Police officers, just like us make mistakes. Some of those mistakes may cost you such as not listing all the passengers in your car and one might be injured. This is by far the biggest issue that i have seen. The officer forgot to ask about passengers or just forgot to list them. Unfortunately if you catch this too late, he’s not going to remember.
What can you do to fix errors on your accident report
One of the first things i would do is call the officer before the accident report even becomes available and make sure he remembers the passengers, if any, in your car. Passengers are sometimes left out for whatever the reason. You may be able to fix some errors
Get a copy of your accident report
Obtain a copy as soon as it becomes available. This allows you to read over it and see if there are any mistakes. If you do see some errors, contact the officer right away.
Call the police officer ASAP
Call the officer right away, if you see any errors or issues on your accident report. Before the officer leaves the scene of an accident he will give you his business card with a case number on it. It should have his name and possibly badge number. Call him right away if you see something not right. However, officers are very busy, respect there time if you can get them on the phone.
I would list in here to call the person who checked off on the police report. However, he was not at the scene of the accident and more than likely he will not change it.
Supplement to report
They may not change your police report, but they may add to it in the form of a supplement. This is just an extra page that explains why there is a supplement and any changes made to it. Supplements may be added after you pick up your accident report, so you may need to check with the reporting agency about a supplement, if one was written.
Bottom Line
When you have issues with your information on the crash report, you need to try and fix it ASAP. Police officers forget, and may not change or add anything. It is possible to get it changed, but you really cannot wait, you have to do it immediately. And even then, they may not change it.
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