How to Get a Police Report After a Chandler Car Crash

Obtaining a Police Report

After being involved in a Chandler car crash your focus will be on getting medical care and putting your life back together. But getting your life back after sustaining injuries in a serious collision isn't as easy as simply going to the doctor, resting up in bed, and then heading back out into the world. If you sustained serious injuries, you're likely going to need a lot of medical assistance and a lot of time away from work, and that means you may need help. A Chandler auto accident lawyer can obtain your police report or you can obtain a copy on your own.

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Why You Must Get a Chandler Police Report After a Traffic Accident

If you were injured in a traffic accident in Chandler, your police report is one of the most important documents you can have when seeking recompense from the at-fault driver who caused your injuries. This document includes some of the most vital information about your collision, including the personal information of the driver who caused the accident and details about the nature and cause of the crash. The police officer likely will also take note of which driver caused the accident. All of this information is critical in helping insurance companies determine who was at-fault in an accident and exactly how responsible that person is for their role in the accident. The truth is that just because the other driver was primarily at fault for the collision does not mean that they will be held 100 percent accountable for their actions.

Most important is the contact information, including name, telephone number, address, and vehicle information for the driver who caused your crash. The report should list the name of the adverse driver, his/her insurance company and policy number.

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How to Get a Copy of Your Chandler Car Accident Police Report

After your collision, you will need to get a copy of your police report as quickly as possible. If your accident just occurred, there is a chance that the report may not yet be available for you to access through public channels. But this does not mean that you cannot work with the local police department holding your report in order to get important information for your case. Police departments deal with police reports in large numbers every day and police officers and police department staff understand the critical nature of accident reports.

Unfortunately you cannot just walk into the police department in Chandler and ask for a copy of your police report. Because police reports contain sensitive and personal information, there are protocols in place protecting the people involved in the accident. To get a copy of your police report you will have to follow these protocols. In Chandler, there are two specific ways to get a copy of your police report.

Fill out a request and take it to the police department.

In Chandler, you can make your request for a copy of your police report regarding your traffic accident at the Chandler Police Department Main Station during their normal business hours. The local address for the Chandler Police Department Main Station is 250 E. Chicago Street. You can complete this form at the Main Station, call the police department and request that they mail a copy to you, or you can download it on the Chandler Police Department web site. If you have questions about this process or need help filling out the report request form, your questions can be directed to the Chandler Police Department's Records Unit, which answers the phone 24 hours a day at (480) 782-4001. Of course, if you hire an attorney, an attorney can help you with this.

If you make your request via the request form, typical processing time to receive a copy of your report is 7 to 10 business days.

It is important to remember that police departments are busy places. You may have to wait a long time to get the form that you need to fill out and then an additional amount of time once you have filled out the form. It may be useful to fill out the form ahead of time and call the Records Unit to ensure that you find the correct location and stand in the correct line to reduce your wait time. Staff at the Records Unit may also be able to tell you which days or times are less likely to be very busy.

View your police report online.

If you would like to obtain your accident report online, you can do so through the Chandler Police Department web site. Chandler Police Department contracts with BuyCrash.com to make police reports available online to victims of collisions and other incidents. In order to use this system to download a copy of your report, you will have to know the reporting agency, which is the Chandler Police Department, the date of your accident, and the report number for your police report. The police officer on the scene of your accident likely will have provided you with your police report number but you can also obtain this by calling the Chandler Police Department if you need help. The requirements for pulling data on your Chandler traffic accident may vary from requirements you may have seen on this web site for other agencies in Arizona. It is important that you follow the instructions for Chandler Police Department or you may not be able to retrieve your report. Buycrash.com is not a free web site.

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Important Information about Obtaining Your Chandler Police Report and Related Documents

As a victim of a car crash in Chandler, you are entitled to one free copy of your police report. If your child was involved in a collision, you also may obtain one free copy of the police report regarding their accident. Additional copies are charged at the standard rate of $5 for the first 35 pages and a per page charge of $0.15 for every page after that.

There may also be other types of information that you wish to request in order to help with your legal case against the at-fault driver. 911 recordings may be requested from the Chandler Police Department for a charge of $10 per CD and photographs that the police may have taken at the scene of the accident can be requested for $5 for a CD of all applicable photos. If you request digital photos, you will pay $5 per thumbnail sheet and $5 per print from the thumbnail if you require prints.

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What to Do Once You Have Your Police Report for Your Chandler Car Crash

Once your obtain your accident report, look through the entire report. If there is information missing in your report it could be detrimental to your case - occasionally pages may be left out, or the assigned officer may forget to put important information from his report into the final documents. This is a detrimental oversight but one that is common given the large number of cases and information that officers and police departments must deal with on a regular basis. If you find that there is information missing it is okay to reach out to the officer who filed your police report and try to ask for the missing information especially if it is witness contact information.

If you need to retrieve your vehicle, or someone in your family needs to retrieve your vehicle, after your accident, you may need a copy of your police report for this purpose. Often, especially if you are seriously injured in the collision, your vehicle will be taken from the scene by a tow truck, and it cannot be released without proof of the accident and proof of ownership.

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Why Your Chandler Police Report is Important After Your Accident

It's difficult to imagine how one set of documents can be so important to your settlement but the police report helps you to know the driver's name, address, type of car driven, insurance name and policy number. If you need help with obtaining your police report or understanding the ins and outs of what is on a police report, give The Husband & Wife Law Team a call. Our accident attorneys in Chandler offer free consultations and are here to help. Give us a call at (480) 496-7310.

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