Coping With Biased Police Reports About Car Accidents
Justice entails that ordinary people, including those accused of wrongdoing, have the right to speak up in their defense if authorities have treated them unfairly. People convicted of crimes have the right to appeal their convictions if the trial was unfair, as no one should be convicted except after receiving a fair trial or making an informed decision to waive that right. In civil cases and criminal ones, parties to the case can ask judges to recuse themselves if the judge has displayed bias against one of the parties. Since the stakes are considerably lower when it comes to police reports after car accidents, it follows that trading in an unfair report for a fair one is easier than trading in an unfair verdict or an unfair judge. Injustice persists because people in power do not go out of their way to inform the rest of us or our rights or to encourage us to exercise them. If the officer who wrote a police report after your car accident made it sound like you bear more fault for the accident than you do, this can harm your chances of getting fair compensation in an insurance claim or lawsuit. For help challenging an unfair police report about a car accident in which you got injured, contact a Fort Lauderdale auto accident attorney.
You Can Challenge a Police Report If It Unfairly Attributes Fault for an Accident to You
The police report is supposed to be the simplest part of filing a car accident claim. If there is no police report, the claims adjusters can interpret the images of the vehicle damage and the description of the accident that you gave in a recorded statement however they choose. By contrast, a police report is the words of an unbiased observer with professional experience in responding to car accidents. You might expect that a police report can only help your case.
Before you send the police report to the insurance company in support of your claim, though, you should read it thoroughly. If you got injured seriously enough to require treatment, then the content of the police report was probably the farthest thing from your mind when you first saw it. Once the time has come to file an insurance claim, read every sentence of the police report as if you are an insurance claims adjuster trying to pay as little as possible on your claim. A lawyer can help you read over the police report and look for inaccuracies and biased statements. If the police report is seriously flawed, you should contact the police department and ask for an amended report. Submit evidence, such as photos from the scene of the accident, to show what is wrong with the original report.
Set Up a Consultation Today
A personal injury lawyer can help you get justice after a car accident where the police officer who wrote the police report about the accident unfairly made it sound like it was your fault. Contact Boone & Davis in Fort Lauderdale, Florida or call 954-566-9919 to explore your potential recovery options today.
Source:
msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/after-a-minor-accident-that-wasn-t-my-fault-the-responding-officer-wrote-the-report-in-a-way-that-shifted-partial-blame-onto-me/ar-AA1X2jVs?ocid=msedgntp&pc=ACTS&cvid=699fc2638c7a4d599fd1180ac006d8e9&ei=27
