what if the accident report is incorrect?

[mkathyf]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Ohio
I submitted a post regarding my son's failure to control accident. (no replies

I was reading the accident report, today, and realized that the officer did not correctly report what happened.

What happened: Car "A" traveling East. Car "B" traveling West.
at the point of a curve in the road, Car "B" turned Left, in front of Car "A" approaching, to enter a business.
In order to avoid a head-on collision, car "A" swerved left to avoid Car "B" (who at that point had come to a stop in eastbound lane.
When car "A" tried to swerve right to get back into his lane, he hit a telephone pole (because of the curve in the road)

What was on the accident report:
Car "A" swerved to avoid Car "B" in front of him, who was turning right.

That is incorrect: he makes he sound as though car "B" was in front of Car "A", going in the same direction, and was simply turning right into the business.

Is there a chance for it to be dismissed? Or, at best, is there a chance to at least bring up that there was contributary negligence by car "B"?

 

[Maestro64]

Not sure if the officer's reports makes that much of a difference, who did the insurance companies find at fault for this accident, did your insurance company file a claim with the other person or are they charging you for the damages.

If they filed a claim with the other person insurance company, and they paid then they are at fault and you should be able to get the ticket dismissed. However, if your paying, then it does not matter what the other person did, insurance companies are very good at diverting blame and getting someone else to pay.

Problem is police issue tickets every time there is an accident these days when they are called to the scene even when it was simple accident and no laws were broken, they use some catch all, law like driving too fast for conditions or reckless driving or left lane of travel. They are simply collecting money because police had to be call to the scene.

Hopefully you told your son never to cross over the yellow line even when someone crosses into his lane, you always should go right never left. If there was another car behind the car that crossed in front of him he could have had a head on with that car and it would have been his fault.

In this day and age, you get no bonus points for trying to avoid an accident with another car that someone else caused, if you can not avoid damaging your car staying to the right its better to slam the other car.

In your son case he hit a pool and the other guy could have just drove off or said it was not his fault or did nothing wrong and your son would be 100% responsible.

 

[mkathyf]

We are all counting our blessings that no one was coming in the other direction.... yes, it could have been worse.
Unfortunately, the other driver, for whatever reason, once he saw my son's car, he just stopped..... in the middle of his turn! For that reason, my son was not able to swerve to the right without hitting the other driver, so in a split decision, reacted by serving to the left.

Regarding the other driver..... he continued to pull into the business' parking lot.... got out of his car.... looked at my son, who just slammed into a pole...then continued to walk into the business. No concern for the two boys (that's another issue!)
The other driver did not get struck, nor did he strike anything.
Therefore, my son was sited for failure to control his vehicle. As far as the police officer is concerned, there was no one else.
The police officer did not even speak with the other drive....who was an elderly man. He only spoke to my son, as far as we know.

But, his facts are incorrect! What he wrote on the accident report, as to what happened, is NOT what happened. He makes is sound as though my son was behind driver "B", then driver "B" went to turn right and my son had to swerve to miss rear-ending him. It is incorrect.

 

[Maestro64]

Base on what you said, your son is going to be hard pressed to get the ticket dismissed even with getting the report corrected. Failure to control is a catch all ticket, subject at best and the fact that he had an accident substantiates the failure to control.

They will simple say, he had an accident which is a fact, therefore the reason he had an accident is because he failed to control the car, therefore guilty.

It like the old puritan laws, your a witch since you try to save yourself when we tried to drown you. Remember if you drown then your not a witch.

In your sons case the only way to prove the failure to control was not valid is to get rid of the accident or get someone else to admit it was their fault.

I know saying slamming into the other person sounded like a dumb idea, but it is some times a better solution. It would leave no doubt who was really at fault. Most cars are well built and can withstand an accident like this, hitting a pole is usually bad, and it sounds like your son came away safe so that is good.

You can try and get it corrected, it always worth making sure the facts are correct. I am just not sure it will lead to a dismissal, even with your son's friend backup up his story. Courts have been sending a strong message to kids, which is they do not give them benefit of reasonable doubt.