Ep. 69 - Police Reports in Trucking Accidents

David Craig – Host: I don’t base my decisions at all on the police report. I look at it, I use it to find vehicles, and we start looking for evidence. We have the resources that we can have a whole team. We hire the right reconstructionists that have all the equipment, we have mechanics. The police don’t have all that. And so I will trust my team to figure out the truth over a police report any day of the week.

I’m attorney Dave Craig, managing partner and one of the founders of the law firm of Craig, Kelley, and Faultless. I’ve represented people who’ve been seriously injured or have had a family member killed in a semi or other big truck wreck for over 30 years. Following the wreck, their lives are chaos. Often they don’t even know enough about the process to ask the right questions. It is my goal to empower you by providing you with the information you need to protect yourself and your family. And each and every episode, I will interview top experts and professionals that are involved in truck wreck cases.

In the Ask David episodes of After the Crash, we switch things up. Instead of me asking questions, I answer the questions. Nothing’s off limits. And they ask me about truck safety, about truck accidents, about semi-truck litigation, about commercial motor vehicle wrecks. You name it, I talk about it.

This is After the Crash.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome again to another episode of After the Crash. This is one of those funky versions, which is Ask David. So today our guest is Holly Hinds. I’ve known Holly for quite some time. Holly is a fantastic file manager, paralegal, litigation paralegal who I’ve had the fortune, the good fortune, to have worked with this time around since 2020 and so over five years and here at Craig, Kelley, and Faultless. And prior to that, her and I worked together for another four and a half, five years before that. So I’ve worked with her for around 10 years. But Holly gets to ask the questions today and I get to answer them. Welcome, Holly.

Holly Hinds: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

David Craig – Host: Well, I appreciate you volunteering. Now, we talked Holly into doing it down in Austin, Texas. So Holly was down there at ATAA [Academy of Truck Accident Attorneys], which is the biggest trucking conference of lawyers who represent victims of trucking and commercial motor vehicle cases. And Holly has been to the last several years of those with us, and so we coerced her to joining the podcast.

Holly Hinds: It wasn’t that bad. No, I volunteered. That’s fine. That’s fine.

David Craig – Host: Well, what questions do you have, Holly, for me today?

Holly Hinds: Well, I think one of the questions that comes to mind and clients have questions about and or folks may not understand is police reports, and how important a police report is in your auto, truck accident or what have you.

David Craig – Host: Yeah, I mean, that’s a great question. I think that people really do put a lot of weight to police reports. As you know, sometimes we have trouble even getting them, especially on catastrophic truck cases, wrongful death cases. A lot of times they’re delayed in getting those police reports, but they’re always very important because they’re the first official documentation of a wreck. And so they will, in most states, we practice all over the country and we have lawyer’s license, I think, in eight states or so. But the reality is that police reports are important. They’re important to get.

Sometimes they’ll have witnesses’ names on there, or sometimes they’ll have the version of the other people that are involved in the wreck. They’ll have a little clip, a little snippet of what they think or what they said at the scene to the police. So police reports are important, but they have to be taken with a grain of salt. They’re not always that accurate and they’re not always that complete. And so, for that reason, you want to get them right off the bat, but you have to read them and not rely completely on those.

Holly Hinds: One of the other questions folks don’t know is, how do you get a copy of a police report?

David Craig – Host: Yeah, every state’s a little bit different, but there’s now, back in the old days when I first started practicing, we would send a person to the local police department and they would buy a copy. And what’s funny is that a lot of local police departments like that, because they kind of kept a little slush fund for parties and donuts and things. And so they’d sell you a copy of the police report, make a copy on their copier. But now in most states it’s consolidated. So you get a police report number, and then you have to actually request it from a holding center type facility that collects all the police reports. So all the police reports from all over the state go into one facility and typically you get them. But although occasionally we still go, depending on what state we’re in, you still go to the local police departments on occasion.

Holly Hinds: And can anyone off the street get a police report or a copy of one, even if they’re not involved in the accident, maybe?

David Craig – Host: And so a lot of people get upset about that, that their information about a wreck, especially a horrific wreck or a wrongful death case, it can be acquired, most of the time. It’s not that hard to get, and most people, even the people not involved in a wreck can get them. Again, it varies from state to state, but the reality is that they are easier to get. And then there’s law firms out there who get them and then send letters out to victims trying to get their business, soliciting them through written letters or videos or packets. And sometimes… I had had a client who her son was killed and she got this big giant packet from lawyers with videos and all kinds of stuff in there and that they had gotten from the police report. And actually, I had another case where somebody was in Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis, Indiana, and somebody hand delivered a copy of the police report to the person and he didn’t know this person.

And the guy’s like, “Hey, you’re going to need a copy of your police report. My business is I go get police reports for you. Here you go. And oh, by the way, in case you need a lawyer, I stapled a card on the back of the police report.” Now that’s improper because that’s a personal solicitation. And personal solicitations are discouraged by the ABA [American Bar Association] and most states, if not all states. Written communications though typically are okay. Although some states have requirements, like Indiana, you have to wait 30 days after a wreck before you can send them something in writing. But yeah, that is… And unfortunately people are calling, but anybody can get the police report. And unfortunately, some people use the police report to try to solicit business and don’t follow the state rules, bar rules.

Holly Hinds: Also, and I know, so we’ve been doing this a number of years, you longer than me, of course, but are police reports ever wrong?

David Craig – Host: And you know as well as I do, because you and I have both handled cases where police reports are wrong, and I think people would be surprised by that. I think again, this podcast is designed for everyday people that are out there in the community, not lawyers, although we get lawyers who listen. But the reality is police reports are often wrong. And you think about that, especially on a catastrophic case, this huge big case, someone dies, somebody gets seriously injured, and you think, how in the world would the police be wrong? But the problem is we represent people that are victims in Missouri, Iowa, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, and there are rural areas throughout the Midwest and some of these police departments that investigate these wrecks don’t have the resources to have reconstructionists on staff. They don’t have the equipment, they don’t have a severe crash team.

And so they do the best they can, but oftentimes they don’t have the expertise. And some states don’t have the resources that they put on crash reconstructionists. Even Indiana only has a handful of wrecks and reconstructionists, and they don’t have even the top equipment. So the police don’t always have the right equipment, they don’t always have the right talent. And depending on which police department it is, where the wreck happens, and even in metropolitan cities where you have a more apt to have reconstructionists, it still can be a problem because oftentimes there’s this competing desire to get the road open. So when there’s a really horrible wreck, the highways get closed. So 65 may be shut down. And so you got I-65 shut down, and there’s this pressure, or I-70, we get a lot of wrecks on I-70, I-80. I mean, they close their highways down and I mean it completely disrupts the traffic.

And so, there’s the pressure on the police to open up the roadways and get them back open. And so, obviously, that’s inconsistent with collecting evidence. And so, we have a case where our client was killed by a semi, and you can hear on the police body cam, the police officer saying, yelling and talking, yelling about getting the highway open, not, “Hey, do you have all the evidence? Have we collected everything? Do we done everything?” It’s like, “We’ve got to get this highway open. It’s shut down completely.” And so there’s this competing desire to get the highways open. You’ve got teams that are trying to investigate and photograph, so they don’t always do a great job. Plus, as you know, sometimes our clients are killed or they’re incapacitated and they can’t talk. So the police don’t always get our client’s version. And so they only get the version of the truck driver, who, oftentimes, will deny that they did anything wrong. So they are wrong, oftentimes.

Holly Hinds: Right. And I think that’s important for our clients to understand that even if the police report is against you and you have concerns, maybe the other vehicle may have been speeding or made an improper turn, other factors like that. But I think it’s important that individuals check that out, try to seek additional information because I mean, I can think of a case that we handled that our client did pull out in front of another vehicle. The police report listed them as being at fault, but he and the spouse sustained serious injuries, and they reached out not knowing if they had a case. And it ended up, we were able to determine that, in fact, the other driver was going over 12 miles above the posted speed limit, and we had an accident reconstructionist that was able to determine, if he would’ve been going the speed limit, would this accident have even happened?

And he was able to give us a report that said no, he would’ve been able to clear this intersection. So, in that case, we were able to get policy limits as a result of doing a little bit of extra work and things like that. So, I think it is important that folks do be conscious about that, especially if in a serious situation where there’s catastrophic injuries.

David Craig – Host: And I think that is true. I mean because a lot of times people just think, “Okay, the police report’s against me and so I don’t have a case.” Or what’s really sad is there’s a lot of law firms out there, they’ll look at the police report and they won’t even take the case on or do the investigation you’re talking about because I know that case. Because when we took that case, what I told the people was, that I talked to them initially was like, “I don’t know if we can help you or not, but we will go do a download of the electronic control module of the airbag module and we will find out whether or not the vehicle that hit you was speeding. Because if it was, then it wasn’t your fault.” Because it is really difficult to judge the speed of an oncoming vehicle.

When you just look at it, when it’s not passing something. When you look up in the sky, you can’t tell how fast a jet’s going because there’s no landmarks to see it’s going past. Now, if you’re standing at a racetrack and you see cars going by a post, you can say, “Okay, yeah, boy, I know how fast it’s going.” But when you see a car coming at you, I’ve had that case over and over and over again where people misjudge the speed and you have the right to assume that the vehicle coming at you is doing the speed limit. You don’t have to assume it’s speeding. So you have the right to assume and say, okay, normally I pull out this intersection many times, I always have time when a car’s down at that distance, but all of a sudden that car’s speeding and hits you. I can think of at least three case just off the top of my head where people were killed and the police report was wrong.

I had a client from out east, and I’ll never forget the call, the daughter and the mom called me and said, “Mr. Craig, our father, husband was killed and burnt the death in a horrible, horrible collision on I-70. And they said that he was following too closely and that he rear-ended a semi, a flatbed and that it was his fault and he was delivering a… He was driving and he delivered stuff in a van.” He had a van, a cargo van, and the mom and the daughter were adamant. They go like, “You don’t know our dad, husband. He was the most careful driver in all the way. He would never drive tired. He would pull off. He drove for years professionally, he would not have been following this semi that close. He would not have run into this. We don’t know what happened, but we just know.”

And they were very offended that the police report was blaming their family member, their dad, husband for this wreck when they knew that deep in their heart that it wasn’t. I said the same thing, “I don’t know, I can’t… But let me find out.” And there was no witnesses on the police report. And so, it was challenging because all we had was the truck driver’s version, and the truck driver version was what the police relied upon in finding fault on our deceased client. But when we got the 911 calls, which you do normally, so people don’t realize this, but our paralegals, our file managers, they make sure that our team requests all the 911 calls. So when 911 call comes in, that’s recorded, and that doesn’t often make the police report, and they don’t often talk to the investigating officer; they go into dispatch.
So they’ll call in and say, “Hey, I saw a wreck and there’s fire, there’s flames,” or whatever, “and you need to get out there.” And so a whole bunch of people will call 911. And so we get that, and then we hired private investigators to call those people to see if they know anything. Well, in that case, there was actually another truck driver who had passed the defendant’s vehicle sitting in the roadway at night in an area that was not lit with no lights on his tractor or his trailer. It turns out there had been a road construction, or not road, an accident before. And so traffic had backed up, and it was behind this guy as well, the defendant, he decided, it was over an hour that they were sitting there. So he had shut his engine, or his lights off and his engine off to preserve it.

He’d actually got into the sleeper berth, then the accident cleared off, all the traffic behind him and beside him left, and he was still sitting in the highway with no lights or power on, and pulling a flatbed trailer that was dark to begin with. And our client didn’t have a chance, and ran right into the back of it and died. And we wouldn’t have known that by looking at the police report. Our client was not around to be able to tell us his version, but by investigating it, we did a download, we did an inspection of the vehicles, we were able to show that he was sitting there, we did cameras. His video camera that he had in his truck showed that the traffic was moving, and then we found this one eyewitness off the 911 call.

So you’re absolutely right. If the police report’s against you, and you believe that that’s wrong or inaccurate because you were there or because your family member, it just doesn’t fit who he or she is, then you need to get a good, especially if it’s a truck accident, you need a good truck accident attorney, somebody board-certified in truck accident law, so that they can put a team together and find out the truth.

Now, sometimes we find out the police report’s right, and we can’t help you, but we don’t charge anything to find that out and to do the investigation. So why not at least know what happened? And I think that’s really bad, people think the police report… and lawyers, I mean, I’ve had cases where lawyers, three lawyers, turned down a case. The police report was against them. One of my lawyers in my office actually turned down that case, and then somebody said, “No, call David Craig, talk to him first.” She called me. I said, same thing. “I don’t know if I can help you.” It turns out we were able to get her money for her children. She had died, and we were able to get her kids’ money because police report in that case was wrong, as well. So I see it all the time. I see a lot of police reports that are wrong.

Holly Hinds: And to your point, I mean it may cost a little money to do those things, but we’re a little bit different in that we don’t charge the clients that money. And sometimes it works out, we’re able to help them, sometimes it doesn’t. But at least you can look the family in the eye and tell them, “Hey, we did everything we could and unfortunately we can’t change, it appears to be correct,” or what have you, but I think that’s meaningful for the family that somebody looks into it.

David Craig – Host: And I think that’s something that we should do. But a lot of law firms, like you said, don’t do it. We advance the expenses. We’re not worried about whether we’re going to lose money or not. If we lose it, we write it off. That’s how it is. But we want to make a difference in people’s lives. And I find a lot of people just want to know the truth. They just want to know what happened to their family member. Why did this wreck happen? And every time I’ve ever told them they don’t have a case, and I explained why, they’re still very appreciative of the fact that we did the digging and we can verify what actually happened that day.

Holly Hinds: So if there’s a family member, or what advice would you give people if they feel like the police report is incorrect? What can they do? Can they reach out to the police department? Can they say, “Hey, can you change this report or here’s really what happened”? Can you speak to that a little bit?

David Craig – Host: Yeah. So a lot of times I think people, if you read a police report and it is inaccurate, you should call the police and tell them it’s inaccurate. Now, some police departments are willing to do a supplemental report and some aren’t. It really depends on the police department. But if it’s something that you were involved in the wreck and you actually have personal knowledge and maybe they took you to the hospital and nobody came and talked to you at the hospital, especially on minor wrecks, I mean, they may not go to the trouble of going to the hospital. But you look at it and it’s wrong, then I would call the police and try to find the investigating officer. I would actually put it in writing to them and send an email or a letter to them and hand deliver it to the police station saying, here’s my version.

So you can at least show that you tried to correct it. And then also contact, if it is a serious injury or a wrongful death case, then you want to reach out to an experienced personal injury attorney and have that attorney be aware of what’s going on so they can also reach out to the police. I’ve had mixed results. I’ve had police that are very cooperative and are helpful. I mean, we’ve actually done, for example, cell phones. We had a case in Greensburg where a semi was involved and they killed somebody, and it turns out the truck driver was on their cell phone. Well, the police didn’t know that. The police, they didn’t do an investigation. They won’t check the person’s cell phone unless there’s some reason to. But a lot of times on a case like that, they don’t do an investigation.

They don’t download [the data], they don’t have the equipment necessary to do it. We did. We were hired by the family and we were able to show that at the time of the collision, the person was on their cell phone. And so we tried to take that to the police, but the police even then wasn’t interested in making the changes, nor was the prosecutor, unfortunately, was also not interested in pressing charges. So sometimes they will make changes, sometimes they won’t. But you should always, if you’re in a deposition a year or two years later and they say, “Well, you thought it was wrong, did you talk to the police? Did you tell the police?” And you say, “No, I didn’t bother.” I think the jurors don’t understand that, because most people would say, “Wait a minute, if it’s wrong, I’m going to tell somebody.” And so we call that in law, we call it a tacit admission. I didn’t say anything when I knew something was wrong. So I highly recommend that you reach out to the police, contact the police, tell them that there’s a problem with the police report.

Holly Hinds: Okay. And I also think it’s important, too, that sometimes there may be more than one police agency actually doing an investigation of an accident. So, a lot of times, there may be one department that’s in charge, but if it’s a fatality or something, the state police may be involved or other folks. So you do need to do your due diligence and make sure that you get all the reports from all the folks that may have been there that day.

David Craig – Host: And all the 911 calls.

Holly Hinds: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I just think it’s important that folks know the stuff about police reports, how it can affect your case. And I really don’t think, if the police report is against you, what’s your opinion? I mean, it doesn’t ruin your case, correct? I mean, we still may be able to pursue it.

David Craig – Host: Absolutely. And we’ve done it over and over and over again. And it’s just one piece of evidence. And the other thing is, I mean, I didn’t even mention, is police reports in most states are not admissible. So the police report, even if it’s wrong, nobody puts it into evidence. So if it’s an accident reconstructionist who investigates their opinion probably will come in. But the reality is that a police report in of itself doesn’t come in and a lot of wrecks are investigated by just regular street officers, patrol officers, not reconstructionists. And therefore that police report is not admissible. It’s not evidence. And so it’s just something to help figure out who everybody is, where our vehicle’s located, but it may not even be admissible. So you shouldn’t be that concerned if a police report… I don’t base my decisions at all on the police report.

I look at it. I use it to find vehicles. We have a rapid response team that, as soon as we get hired, goes out and we started looking for evidence, not with the police evidence. We have the resources that we can have a whole team with all the modern equipment, all the top, we hire the right reconstructionists that have all the equipment. We have mechanics who go out or heavy truck mechanics. The police don’t have all that, and we have all that. And so I will trust my team to figure out the truth over a police report any day of the week.

Holly Hinds: Valid point. Yep. You said it. Preserving your evidence from the beginning is key to any case, especially more so, I think in cases where the police report may be against you. So I think it’s just, you got to be diligent and you got to ask questions and be an advocate. If your loved one is not able to ask the questions, you need to do it for them. But we’re certainly here to help and we definitely will fight for you to try to find the truth.

David Craig – Host: That’s the key. It doesn’t have to be us, but you want to hire the right lawyer.

Holly Hinds: Absolutely.

David Craig – Host: You want to hire the right lawyer, you want to hire somebody. If it’s a truck accident, go ahead and pick board certification because they’re already vetted. Ask whether their staff has experience in truck cases. I mean, my staff does. My staff goes to national conferences, they go to our local conference that we run on trucking. And so just make sure you interview and pick the right lawyer, whether she or he has experience and reputation, the knowledge, the expertise, and the money to hire the right people. That’s critical. So thank you for listening.

Holly Hinds: Absolutely.

David Craig – Host: Thank you for being the host. Thanks, Holly.

Holly Hinds: All right, have a great day.

David Craig – Host: This is David Craig, and you’ve been listening to After the Crash. If you’d like more information about me or my law firm, please go to our website ckflaw.com Or if you’d like to talk to me, you can call 1-800-ASK-DAVID. If you would like a guide on what to do after a truck wreck, then pick up my book, “Semitruck Wreck: A Guide for Victims and Their Families”, which is available on Amazon, or you can download it for free on our website, ckflaw.com.