If you were injured in an auto accident, one of the key pieces of evidence that you can use to build your auto accident lawsuit is the police report that was generated at the scene of the accident. Here are a few things that you need to know about the role of the police report in your lawsuit pursuit.
#1 You'll Need To Request A Copy Of The Report
The police do not just provide you with a copy of the police report that your accident generated. If you want to see what they wrote down, you are going to need to request a copy of the police report from your accident.
In order to request a police report, you'll need to let the responding police department know the date and location of your accident, as well as your name. Sometimes the police will give you a number associated with the report at the scene of the accident; however, this is not a universal protocol.
Once you request the accident report, you generally have to wait for the request to process. This could take a few minutes or a few weeks, so don't expect to be able to get a police report immediately after you request it.
#2 More Than One Report Regarding Your Accident May Have Been Created
Additionally, if more than one police department responded to your accident, for example, the county sheriff and the local city police both showed up, you may need to request copies of your police report from both of these two different police departments. Generally, an officer is required to create a report for any accident or incident that they responded to, which is why more than one report may have been created regarding your accident.
If you are getting your police report because you want to proceed with a personal injury lawsuit, you are going to want to obtain copies of all reports that are related to your accident. That way, you have all possible information available to you and the defense and are not surprised by any discrepancies' between the two reports.
#3 Be Sure To Check Your Police Report
Police reports are not perfect, which is another reason why you want to obtain your police report. You need to go over the report carefully to make sure that there are not any errors on the police report. If you find errors on the police report, such as the wrong name listed, or an incorrect description of the crime scene, you should put in a request to have the report amended or changed to fix this issue.
Contact a lawyer, like D Chadwick Calvert Law Office , for more help.
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