Should I File a Police Report?

Hello, I’m Roger Ghai, and I practice in the area of automobile, motor vehicle, and trucking accidents in the Kennesaw, Acworth and Atlanta areas, as well as Marietta. I wanted to speak today about whether you should file a police report every time you’ve been involved into a motor vehicle accident, and my answer is, yes. You want to do this for a number of reasons because if it turns out later on that the other driver doesn’t have any motor vehicle insurance, you want to have police documentation that you are involved in the accident. A lot of times the police officer will note on the police report the damage to your vehicle, and they will rate it as to whether it was light damage, moderate damage, or heavy damage. They will also usually note the point of impact on your vehicle. And so all of that information can protect you against your insurance company’s claim that maybe you filed a false police report or that you made up the accident.
But the likelihood of that happening when you have an actual police report is greatly lessened. The other reason that you really want to file a police report is that you want to have the other driver’s information. Sometimes I’ve seen people just scribble things down on a piece of paper and go on their way. They didn’t really think that they were hurt at the scene of the accident, but most of the time, a person does not feel symptoms immediately at the scene of the accident because the energy is really high and many times on a case where there’s not a fracture or there’s not blood or guts spilled, so to speak at the scene of the accident that people don’t think that they’re hurt. But, the symptoms began appearing about 24 to 48 hours later.
And if you’ve not gotten the proper information and the other person doesn’t want to file a claim because they believe their insurance rate will go up, then you have a problem. And so you always want to just make your life easy, protect yourself, get your police report written, even if it takes a little while for the police officer to get out there. And that way that will also help you, even if you don’t have a physical injury to get your vehicle repaired if necessary, even by your insurance company. If you have any questions about any aspect of being involved in a motor vehicle wreck, please feel free to call me at 770-792-1000.