Police are useless .. do not rely on them for anything ... . Plus they have no duty to protect anyone. Their tardiness? Who knows. But I know cops who wait 20 min before responding to calls just to avoid confrontation.
I have lived in places without any police at all, we had no issues .. guns make good neighbors.
Did you get any medical treatment other than x-rays, MRI etc? Hope your feeling better.
I have never called the police ; if I cannot handle a situation then the situation is also beyond the control of civilian law enforcement.
This is very true. I've been investigating accidents for over 20 years and I have probably seen less than 15 accurate and well-documented police reports among the thousands I've reviewed. Even when they think they are doing a super job, they aren't. They just don't have the proper training or experience to handle even simple crash investigations or reconstructions. They have no duty to investigate anything, and they have no duty to investigate anything correctly. And they are ALWAYS looking for somebody to charge with a crime. I've attended some of the schools that train cops how to investigate accidents, and frequently it's like the blind leading the blind.
The advice I give to everybody I know is that they should NEVER provide a verbal statement to police at the scene. Just give them your information and tell them you will provide a WRITTEN declaration after you collect yourself and have a chance to think about what just happened. They won't like it, but it protects you from illiterate cops who can't read their own notes and from "super-cops" looking to make an arrest. That way, you have complete control over what is attributed to you in the police report and you are less likely to unintentionally say something stupid that will get you arrested.
The next thing I tell people who have been in a crash: Get an honest injury attorney (yes, they do exist - ask for references and check with them). Make sure he is not in over his head by asking lots of questions. You have the right to know who your attorney's experts are (you are paying for them) and you should make sure they know what they are talking about by looking at examples of their previous work. Don't call the T.V. attorneys. You always have the right to change attorneys if they aren't aggressively prosecuting your case - DO IT. Don't trust anybody (like insurance adjusters or police officers) who are not working for YOU because they will tell you things like you have no case or that it must have been your fault. Ask an impartial expert or an advocate for you.
And even if you believe an accident was your own fault, you might be wrong if there were contributing factors like roadway defects or missing traffic control devices. Unless you've been trained to recognize what constitutes a dangerous roadway condition, don't assume you are at fault, and NEVER trust the unqualified opinions of police officers. The only thing they know about traffic accidents is the vehicle code, which is why they obliterate evidence, administer FSTs to people with head injuries, and generally stomp on victims rights to compensation for their injuries.
And if any police officers are offended by this, good. You should be. You officers, deputies, and patrolmen really need to clean up your act in this regard and realize there is a whole world related to crash investigation that goes far beyond making arrests and writing down license plate numbers. And you have the power to ruin peoples' lives so please start being more responsible with that.