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ToggleIf you are out on the highway, and the police pull you over, it’s probably not a beat cop you’d run into on a city street. It’s more likely a highway patrol officer. These individuals patrol the highways and look for speeders and other law violators.
These types of cops stay pretty busy. Florida saw 3,553 car wreck fatalities in 2022, many taking place on the highway. Most other densely populated states see similar numbers.
If you cause an accident on the highway, then you must wait for the police to arrive. That true on local roads as well.
You can’t leave the scene till you’ve talked to the authorities and answered their questions. On the highway, the police officer you speak to will fill out an accident report.
It’s that accident report that we will talk about in this article. You should know why these reports exist, what they normally say, and also what they usually don’t say.
Why Do the Police Fill Out These Accident Reports?
First, let’s discuss why these reports exist. If you cause an accident on the highway, or if another driver plows into your vehicle instead, the police will arrive as soon as they can.
Usually, each stretch of highway has a police car that monitors it. Some sparsely populated states have fewer of these vehicles and officers, but they’re still out there.
When the police arrive, they need to fill out a report. That’s part of their job. They need to record information about the wreck because that report might come in handy later. If a lawsuit comes out of that accident, as happens fairly often, the report can become evidence at trial, if the whole process progresses that far.
What They Usually Say
These reports will have the date of the incident. They will have the exact time of day that the accident took place, down to the minute, if possible.
They will have the names of both drivers involved. They will often mention the names of the other passengers as well.
They will have the license plate numbers of both parties involved. They will have the insurance information of both drivers involved, including the name of the company and the number of each policy.
These reports will also state in simple terms what happened. They might state that a car hit another one while changing lanes, for instance. The report might state that a car turned over. The report will often state each car’s location when the police pulled up.
The report will also probably mention any injuries. If someone called 911, the report may say that. It might mention some information about the medical team that showed up, if an ambulance arrived on the scene at some point.
The report might mention the weather, if that seems important. If it’s raining or snowing heavily, the report will probably at least mention that in passing.
What They Normally Don’t Say
However, you should also know that a police highway accident report will not list some crucial details that might come under scrutiny later. For instance, a police report will probably not speculate about why the crash occurred. Determining why an accident occurred doesn’t really fall under a police officer’s purview.
That sometimes matters if one driver sues another at some point after the crash. It could definitely determine whether someone might win a lawsuit if a police officer was to say in their official report that they feel one driver caused the accident or that the other one did.
Because of the lawsuit possibility, the language used in the report will probably not ever indicate the officer’s personal feelings about who should bear the burden of responsibility. That does not necessarily mean, though, that the report might not come in handy if a lawsuit does occur at some point down the line.
How You Might Use One
Let’s briefly discuss lawsuits that come from highway car accidents. If you’re suing the other driver following such an accident, then you will naturally try to collect all the evidence that you can that establishes the other driver caused the wreck and that you didn’t.
That evidence might involve things like eyewitness testimony. Maybe there’s photographic or video evidence that can help prove your version of events.
Just because the police highway patrol accident report doesn’t say who the officer blamed at the scene, that doesn’t mean that you and your lawyer might not still get some use out of this document. Think of a scenario where the other driver says you caused the accident, and it’s basically your word against theirs.
The police accident report might reveal that the wreck happened on a bright and sunny day. However, maybe the other driver claims while on the witness stand that they slid on a wet roadway and hit your car because of heavy rain.
The police report can prove that it wasn’t raining when the accident occurred. You may also have a situation where the other driver says they hit your vehicle because the sun got in their eyes. The police report might prove that the accident occurred on a cloudy day.
These details matter a great deal in court cases. Sometimes, you might sue someone and desperately need a positive outcome if you’re missing work and have medical bills piling up.
In these situations, you can see how much what these reports say and don’t say matters. That’s part of why police officers must fill them out without fail every time they arrive at an accident scene.
While some police officers grumble at having to fill out these reports and consider it pointless busy work, no individual involved in the accident will view it that way. Since highway crashes often involve higher rates of speed and more serious injuries, a report’s details might mean the difference between you collecting millions of dollars as part of a legal settlement or getting nothing at all.