5 Accident Report Details You'll Need for Your Personal Injury Case
Posted on: 19 January 2023
When an auto accident occurs, having law enforcement on the scene helps you navigate the immediate aftermath and your potential future personal injury case. How? While each jurisdiction's accident reports are a little different, here are a few of the most common features that help you build a case later.
1. Names and Contact Information
Some of the most important pieces of information in the report are the names and contact details of various involved parties. This includes yourself and other drivers, but it also includes passengers, injured pedestrians, property owners, and eyewitnesses.
Your legal team will find this data helpful to have in one place for easy reference. Many of these individuals will have important information to help or challenge your case.
2. Insurance Information
The first place most drivers, pedestrians, and passengers injured in a car accident look for help is the insurance carrier. If the other driver was at fault, you'll need to know who to call and how to identify their insured driver.
3. Where Everyone Went
Relatively soon after an accident, the pieces and parties will all start to disperse. Victims will be taken for medical care, witnesses will leave, and the vehicles will be driven or towed away. The police report will show where people went and where their vehicles were taken. This helps you locate evidence and ensure that nothing relevant is destroyed.
4. Injuries and Damage
Accident reports include information about what the officer observed at the scene when they arrived. Along with written descriptions of what the scene looks like, they will also often sketch vital elements like the position of cars and the seating arrangements of passengers.
The details are important to protect you from anyone who claims injury or property damage that wasn't — but should have been — obvious at the scene. It also provides a basis for your own claims.
5. Possible Contributing Factors
You may not have the presence of mind or the foresight on the side of the road to notice things that may explain the root cause of the accident. For instance, what was the weather like? Were there any road signs or traffic lights? Are there obvious signs of distracted driving? How about lighting issues?
The observation of these kinds of special circumstances isn't a guarantee that they led to the accident, but they can either mitigate your own liability or prove another's.
Where to Start
Clearly, the accident report is a vital tool provided by officers at the scene of your accident. If you need to get a copy of yours or want help interpreting it, start by meeting with an experienced personal injury lawyer in your state today.
Reach out to a firm such as Clark Law Group, PLLC to learn more.
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