Accidents happen all the time and some are bigger than others. When it comes to car accidents every accident, no matter, should be reported. Police reports help protect everyone involved and you never know what a person might do or say after even a minor accident. Filing accident reports provide your insurance company with a basis of how to handle your claim and an accurate crash report as well. You should not leave the scene until the police take a full report of the accident. Accurate reports ensure your protection from any legal problems that may occur as a result of the accident. Texas law requires that drivers report a car accident if the resulting property damage to the car exceeds $1,000, if there is a death, or an injury. Failure to report one can lead to a fine of up to $5,000 and/or imprisonment. Typically, officers will be dispatched if there are reports of fatalities or injuries, a driver was intoxicated, traffic is being blocked, or if the participants are being disruptive. There are some situations where the police don’t come to the accident. You should always make a call to the police while on the scene and let them decide if they should come. In cases where they don’t come, it is up to you to make sure you document the accident yourself.
It is important to know exactly what a police report on an accident consists of and what it leads to. In the United States there are more than 40,000 car accidents per year. Police officers and investigators constantly have to fill out reports for each accident. Police reports on accidents consist of date, time, evidence, witness statements, violations, diagrams of the accident and much more. When arriving at the scene of an accident, officers have multiple goals to accomplish like determining who was at fault and if any illegal activity was taking place during the time of the accident. It is also important for police officers and investigators to take into consideration how fast the vehicles were moving and document it. They measure the length of skid marks and how much damage the vehicle took upon impact. Many types of measurements and evidence are taken by investigators in order to conduct a reasonable investigation. They use the time-distance calculations as one of their many measurements. If they know how fast a vehicle was moving before impact, along with the knowledge of the average reaction time of a human then they conclude how far a vehicle traveled when the driver was reacting to the situation. They also use formulas to come up with the total braking distance and time. Once all the evidence has been collected, investigators and officers determine the force of the collision and the speed the cars were traveling before and during the collision. Once the investigation is done and the data is collected, police officers organize the data into charts. Turning this information into pie charts and graphs allows them to use the visualization to provide a holistic view of crimes at an event level and trend level. This allows them to solve crimes and observe and conclude accident reports in a more efficient way.
In conclusion, car accidents can sometimes be impossible to avoid. The only thing you can make sure you avoid is the damage that comes from not properly reporting a car accident. No matter how big or small the accident is you should always report it to ensure you are protected from any damage or legal issues. If you have any questions about a personal injury case, contact a personal injury lawyer in Arlington, TX, like the office of Brandy Austin Law Firm, PLLC.