Getting a police report can help you flesh out some of the information you do not know about your car accident. While you might be able to collect a lot of the same information the police officer puts into the report when you are at the scene of the crash, if you miss anything or if either driver needs to go to the hospital right away, there might be missing info that you can get from the police report.
You can typically retrieve a copy of the police report from the police department that fills out the report. For accidents on highways, this might be the New Jersey State Police, but for other accidents in Evesham, this will usually be the Evesham Township Police Department. You can get reports online, by mail, or in person, though your options might be different if the report comes from a different department.
For help with your car accident case, reach out to our New Jersey car accident lawyers at Legal Care New Jersey by calling (732) 838-9769.
Getting a Crash Report from the Police in Evesham, NJ
The Evesham Township PD makes its reports available online through links on its website. This is the fastest and simplest way to get a copy, but if you are not particularly computer savvy, you can request reports in other ways.
Keep in mind that the site that the Evesham Township PD uses is policereports.lexisnexis.com, also called “BuyCrash.” This appears to be the only official source of online police reports from Evesham, and you should not try to use other sites as they might be charging you for reports that are incomplete or redacted.
The police department also lists their contact information for other requests or issues, and it is likely they can also provide reports in person or by mail, but the process for making this request is not listed on their website. Reports are typically available in NJ through the individual police department’s Records Bureau.
Getting Reports from Other Police Departments and NJ State Police in Evesham, NJ
As mentioned, accidents on highways are usually handled by the NJ State Police, and accidents in neighboring townships or cities are handled by the police departments there.
The state police make their reports available online for accidents on highways. Additionally, most reports are ultimately collected by the State Police and might be available on their site as well. That website also lists alternative departments that handle reports for accidents on other highways like the AC Expressway. You might consider contacting them if your accident happened while you were out of town.
Accidents handled by other police departments usually have reports filed at those police departments. Like Evesham, many other PDs in NJ use BuyCrash for their reports but also make the reports available by mail or in person at their department’s Records Bureau.
If you cannot figure out what police department filed the report, our Clifton, NJ car accident lawyers can help you track it down based on location, who the responding officer was, and other information about the accident.
What is In a Police Report from a Car Accident in Evesham, NJ?
Crash reports are filed primarily for the purpose of helping speed along insurance claims by creating some kind of official record of the crash. They are also used for road safety and help legislators and even car manufacturers understand how accidents happen, where they happen, how serious they are, and how many people are injured in these accidents.
Note that none of these reasons primarily focus on determining who is at fault in the crash. Because of these varied purposes for the report, the info in the report is not always helpful to your case. Even so, the following information in the report can be quite helpful when building your claim:
Who Was Involved
Crash reports list everyone involved in the accident from drivers to passengers to the responding officers. This is important if you were incapacitated at the scene of the accident, as you can later go back to the report to find out who hit you.
The report should also contain info about where they live/how to contact the parties, what cars they were driving, and more.
Location
The location of the accident should be listed, but there should also be a diagram of the accident drawn by the officer. This helps us not only get a good idea of what street the accident took place at so we can look at what signs and signals were involved, but it also shows which direction each car was coming from/going to and helps us visualize the accident.
Weather, Lighting, Road Conditions, Etc.
Information about how wet the roads were, how well-lit the area was, whether the road had big potholes, and other information about the conditions of the area can explain how the accident happened and who was at fault. The info in the report can also be used to contradict defendants’ stories. For example, if a driver says they swerved to avoid a pothole but the report notes the road was free of potholes, that will be important to your case. If a driver claims they couldn’t stop because the road was slick, but the officer notes the road was dry, that will also be important.
Narrative of the Events
The officer usually writes up a narrative section in the report detailing what happened. The problem with this part of the report is that it often describes what happened and might even include an opinion about who caused the crash, but the report is usually written by an officer who did not witness the accident.
In rare cases, the crash happens in front of the officer, and their description of events will be reliable and genuinely strong evidence. When their report is instead based on what other people at the scene of the accident told them, it is hearsay and potentially unreliable. These parts of the report often cannot be introduced as evidence in court, and we instead need to call the witnesses who actually saw the accident happen to tell the court what they saw.
We also cannot use the officer’s opinion about fault unless we can certify them as an accident expert and introduce the crash report as an expert report analyzing the accident. This is rare, and reports are better used outside of court to help us build and collect info or used in court to help witnesses refresh their recollections about what happened than as actual evidence.
Call Our Car Accident Attorneys in Evesham, NJ Today
For help with your crash, call our Trenton, NJ car accident lawyers from Legal Care New Jersey at (732) 838-9769.
