How To Obtain an Accident Report in Atlanta, GA
Atlanta, GA, has tens of thousands of car accidents each year. An accident report is generated for almost all of them.
An accident report can provide valuable information for your injury claim. Your Atlanta car accident attorney can use a crash report to gather valuable evidence to support your side of the story, including witness testimony and official accident scene photos.
How Hasner Law, PC Can Help After an Accident in Atlanta
Hasner Law. PC was founded in 2011 to provide compassionate representation to accident victims going through the toughest time of their lives. Our Atlanta car accident lawyers have over 80 years of combined experience.
If you hire us to help after a car accident in Atlanta, Georgia, we’ll be able to:
- Guiding you through the claims process, informing you of your best course of action at each stage
- Gathering evidence in support of your claim with the help of experts if needed
- Negotiating a settlement on your behalf and filing a lawsuit if the other party refuses to settle
Car accident cases require hard work to build and support factual and legal claims. Contact Hasner Law, PC, at 678-888-4878 to learn how a skilled car accident attorney can help you seek fair injury compensation and discuss the types of car accidents and the most common injuries.
How Many Accident Reports Are Generated Each Year in Georgia?
Under Georgia law, drivers must report accidents to the police when they cause:
- Death
- Injury
- At least $500 in property damage
The $500 property damage threshold means you must report almost all crashes to the police. Dent repair starts at $200. Unless your accident produces nothing more than a scratch, the repair costs will easily exceed $500.
If you search on the Georgia Department of Transportation (GDOT) Crash Dashboard, you will find that Atlanta had over 37,000 traffic accidents in 2021. Of these, 98 caused at least one fatal injury, and over 10,300 caused at least one non-fatal injury. In total, 102 people died, and 16,161 people suffered an injury in Atlanta crashes.
Since people must report all fatal and nonfatal injury crashes to the police, Atlanta police agencies prepared at least 10,420 crash reports in 2021. And with the low property damage threshold, many of the remaining 26,600 crashes also required a crash report.
What Information Is Included in a Georgia Crash Report?
When the police respond to an accident call, they investigate the crash and summarize their findings in a crash report. Georgia provides a Motor Vehicle Crash Report form for all Georgia law enforcement agencies. This form includes the following:
- Names and addresses of drivers, passengers, pedestrians, and cyclists
- Vehicle descriptions and insurance policies
- Narrative description of the crash and a diagram
- List of injuries
- List of citations
- List of witnesses
This information helps you, your attorney, and the insurers sort out how the crash happened and who bears responsibility for it.
Who Can Receive a Crash Report?
Georgia limits who can receive a copy of a crash report to:
- Someone who was injured in the accident
- Someone who owned property damaged in the accident
- Witnesses of the accident
- Insurers for people or property involved in the accident
- An attorney representing a party involved in the accident or its insurer
When you request a crash report, you must verify that you fall into one of these categories.
How To Obtain Your Crash Report
GDOT collects all crash reports from across the state. You can always submit a paper request to GDOT for your crash report. However, it can take time to process and respond to paper requests.
Depending on the jurisdiction that investigated your car accident, you may have additional options for obtaining a crash report. In Atlanta, the three main police agencies that could respond to your crash include:
- Atlanta Police Department
- Fulton County Sheriff’s Department
- Georgia State Patrol
All three agencies accept paper or in-person requests for accident reports.
Crash reports from the Atlanta Police Department and Fulton County Sheriff’s Department are uploaded to BuyCrash.com. You can file a request on that website to receive an electronic copy of your crash report.
The Georgia State Patrol does not use BuyCrash.com. Instead, its records are uploaded to the Georgia Department of Public Safety system. You can request an electronic copy of your crash report from the Georgia State Patrol on that website.
Using Your Crash Report
Crash reports are not admissible in court. However, your lawyer will still obtain a copy of your report for your insurance claim. Insurers do not follow Georgia’s Rules of Evidence when they process accident claims. The claims adjuster will consider the crash report when deciding whether to pay your injury claim.
If you need to go to trial, your lawyer will use the crash report to identify and collect admissible evidence, such as witness statements, accident scene photos, and traffic citation records. This information will help you prove the other driver’s liability.
Schedule a Free Consultation With Our Atlanta Auto Accident Lawyer
A crash report helps your car accident attorney prepare your case. For a free consultation to discuss your accident and how an experienced Atlanta car accident attorney can help you recover injury compensation, contact Hasner Law PC.
