After a car accident, you should contact the police to get help. In some cases, depending on your state, you are legally required to report your car accident to law enforcement. After the police conduct an investigation, they will write an accident report that you can obtain.
Getting the police accident report may be difficult if you are unsure how to do it. Many police departments allow drivers to download reports online. If you take this route, make sure that you use an official website or digital portal that the police department recommends and not another third-party site like MyAccident.org. Our car accident attorneys can also help you get a copy of your report and go over it with you, free of charge.
After a car accident, a police report is likely necessary if you wish to pursue any legal action. Our Indiana car accident lawyers can help you get your report and review it with you free of charge. For a free case review, call Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166.
Nowadays, it is common for police departments to make accidents reports available online for drivers to download at home. Drivers often prefer this method of obtaining a police report because they can get their accident reports on their own time at their convenience. Once you download your report, our car accident lawyers can review the report with you and help you file a lawsuit or insurance claim.
It is important to make sure you use the appropriate website or online portal to download your accident report. Private, third-party websites sometimes claim to provide accident reports for free, but these are often not the official accident reports and many exclude critical information. For example, important information may be redacted and may exclude other crucial information. Additionally, websites like MyAccident.org may require you to give up privacy rights and agree to receiving marketing phone calls and texts related to your accident. The result may be that you are contacted by unwanted solicitors while still not having the official crash report that is required to move your claim for recovery forward.
Our team of attorneys can help you determine which website to use when downloading your accident report. If you contact us for a free case evaluation, we can obtain the report and review it with you, free of charge, and discuss your best course of action. This consultation is completely confidential and we will never share your information with anyone for marketing purposes.
Getting an accident report online is not a possibility for everyone. While most police agencies encourage you to use electronic retrieval of your crash report, there are still a few police departments that prefer you follow more formal channels and they require you submit certain documentation as part of your request for a report. You might have to fill out a request form and submit it by email, regular mail, or in person. If there is a fee charged by that agency (there usually is) you will need to send payment for the exact amount or your request may not be processed. After you submit your request, there is often a wait while it is processed before the report is provided to you.
Your request might be sent to you in the mail, or you might be contacted when it is ready to be picked up at the police station. Getting your report might depend on the police department involved in your case. In our experience, this is usually the most time consuming and least desirable way to get your accident report. It can be time consuming, usually requires paying a fee, and other complications can arise.
If you contact us for a free case evaluation, we can usually obtain a copy of your crash report immediately during our initial phone call from one of the databases that we subscribe to. We can then review the report with you, free of charge, and help explain the legal implications of your accident.
After an accident, many drivers are not sure what to do next. Do you call the police about your accident report? Will they contact you when it is ready? How do you know if your report is complete?
Your accident report might take some time to complete depending on how your crash happened. Serious crashes involving heavy vehicle damage and severe physical injuries often require lengthy police investigation and sometimes a reconstruction is performed. It could be several weeks or longer before your report is ready. Other times, especially in simpler cases with fewer damages, your report might be ready much quicker.
Our Fort Wayne car accident attorneys can help with this process, and can usually determine if your report is ready by checking one of our online databases when you call us. If it is not, we an contact the agency involved and work to obtain the report for you.
Getting your police report after a car crash might seem like a lot of work and hassle, but it is necessary in several circumstances. First, you likely need a police report to file an insurance claim. Second, the police report will be useful if you file a personal injury lawsuit against another driver. Our car accident lawyers can help in both circumstances. Typically a full review of the crash report by a qualified auto accident attorney will be the first step in recovering money for your injuries.
Insurance companies often require you to submit a police report about the crash before issuing any damages payments. Whether you live in a no-fault or fault-based insurance state, a police report is likely a must. The police report helps you establish damages, and it proves to the insurance company that the accident was real and not fraud. Insurance companies are very wary of fraudulent claims, and the lack of a police report is considered a big red flag.
In many jurisdictions, a police accident report cannot be used as evidence in a lawsuit because it violates the rule against hearsay. However, it can be used to track down other evidence that the police uncovered during their investigation. For example, if the police identified any witnesses, their information may be in the police report. Moreover, insurance companies take information contained in the report seriously and a finding of fault against the other driver in the report will make it much easier in attempting to negotiate a resolution to your claim for damages.
Our team of Indianapolis car accident attorneys can usually get your accident report for you, usually immediately when you call through one of our online databases. If it cannot be found there, we can speak with law enforcement officials about what channels to take.
Just as important as obtaining the report for you, we will be able to explain what it means. Many crash reports use abbreviations and codes to explain what happened which is not always easy to understand unless you are experienced with the report. We can help you decipher this information, explain what it means, and help put you on the path to obtaining much-needed compensation.
For a free case review and help obtaining your accident report, call our Hammond car accident lawyers for assistance. Call Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166 as soon as possible.
Don is a founding partner and one of the nation’s top-ranked personal injury litigators. He is a member of the Multi-million Dollar Advocates Forum, which includes less than 1% of the nation’s trial lawyers, and awarded the highest ranking given by Martindale Hubbel and AVVO.
More importantly, Don understands representing personal injury victims is about more than recovering the best settlement: it’s about helping clients get back on their feet and supporting them in every aspect of their recovery.
In nearly all cases, our clients seek compensation from the wrongdoer’s insurance company. Before forming Wruck Paupore, Jason worked for a prominent law firm representing some of the world’s largest insurers. This experience gives Jason a deep understanding of the insurance industry and the strategies it uses to pay injury victims as little as possible.
Jason -- and our entire team -- put this inside knowledge to work to force insurance companies to pay what is actually owed. Often, we use the insurance company’s own tactics against them as we fight for the full compensation our client deserves.
For more than four decades, Keith has been fighting for injury victims. During that time, he’s watched the insurance industry change, with insurers now more interested in protecting their stock price than treating injury victims fairly.
Since the beginning, Keith has put people first. From his childhood in Gary, Indiana during the 1960’s and working his way through law school, Keith has risen to become one of the Midwest’s most respected trial lawyers. He has never forgotten that being a lawyer is about helping people -- and seeing injury victims through struggles in a way that could change their lives forever.
Over the decades, Keith, Don and Jason have fought relentlessly for clients, even when other lawyers have said the case was impossible to win.
© 2024
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy | Resources | Blog | Sitemap
© 2022 Wruck Paupore PC
Terms of Service | Privacy Policy