A police report is written up for every car accident involving injuries that you report to the police. This can help you get evidence you might not have thought to collect at the scene of the accident, and it can be especially helpful if you had to go straight to the hospital and couldn’t stay at the scene.
You can get a police report in Reading from the Reading Police Department directly. You can buy your report online, which seems to be the department’s preferred method, but you may be able to get a report in person, too. If a different department, such as the Pennsylvania State Police or the Berks County Sheriff’s Office, handled the report, you could contact them instead. However, you usually do not need to get a report on your own; our lawyers can obtain it for you as part of your case.
Call our Reading, PA car accident lawyers at Cardamone Law today at (267) 651-7945 for a free case review.
What Police Department Handled My Accident?
It is important to look at which police department responded to your accident to figure out which department has your report.
The Reading Police Department handles most crashes in the city. However, it is possible that the Berks County Sheriff’s Office could have responded instead. The Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) usually handles accidents on the highways and may be responsible for some of the primary policing duties (like crash reports) for some of the smaller suburbs outside of Reading.
Other townships and communities around Reading also have their own police department.
How to Get a Car Accident Report from the Reading PD
The Reading PD website indicates that they use Carfax Crashdocs for their reports. This usually gives you a digital copy you can print, send, or make additional copies of.
You can obtain a report online from that website by providing some basic info:
- The report or reference number
- Your last name
- The date of the accident.
If you don’t have the reference number, you may be able to get it from the officer who wrote the report or the police department.
This is a third-party service that hosts police reports online for police departments all over the country. It is important that if you are looking for a police report online, you use the service the police department indicates you should use.
Other crash report services out there might have redacted “public” versions of the report that do not contain things like names – information you certainly need for your case.
Can You Get a Report in Person or By Mail?
You can contact the Reading PD directly if you need to obtain a copy in person or by mail. However, language on the department’s website seems to direct people specifically to the online service, indicating that it saves them the cost of processing reports if you use the online service.
If you do not have internet access at home, you can use your mobile device or go to a library to use the Crashdocs site. However, our Reading car accident lawyers can also just get a copy for you; you do not need to worry about going in person or figuring out how to mail in a request.
How Do I Get a Police Report from a Different Department?
To be clear: the Reading Police Department is likely to be the department that handled your crash if it happened in Reading. If your crash happened outside of the city, then another police department might have handled your accident.
It is rare for the Sheriff’s Office to handle accidents, but if they did, then they should have the report available. You can contact the Berks County Sheriff’s Office for details about obtaining this report.
The PSP may handle crashes on highways like Route 422 and Route 12 in Reading, which means you would contact them for your report. The State Police host reports online, or you can get them by mail by sending this form, signed, to this address:
PA State Police
Crash Reports Unit
1800 Elmerton Avenue
Harrisburg, PA 17110
Online or by mail, PSP reports cost $22. If submitting by mail, you need to include a money order or certified check with your form, payable to the “Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”
How Long Until My Crash Report is Available?
State Police reports are usually available after 15 days, and local police usually have a similar delay before their reports are available. If you are in a hurry to get your report, you can try contacting the police department or the officer to ask.
Do I Need to Get a Police Report Myself?
In most cases, you do not need to go out of your way to get a police report on your own. Our lawyers can handle evidence collection in your case, and we can seek out copies of police reports, medical records, security camera footage, and other records and evidence that might be out there.
There is usually no reason you would need to get this report on your own before speaking with us. Even if insurance is requesting the report, they can usually get it on their own. Plus, you should call our car accident lawyers first; do not talk to insurance companies without speaking to a lawyer first.
How Can I Use a Police Report for a Crash in Reading?
Usually, police reports are not admissible as direct evidence in a lawsuit. This means you cannot have the police officer sit on the stand and read their report into the record.
Instead, it is usually used when building your case. This report has the names and contact info of everyone involved, and we can use it to find defendants and witnesses. Especially if you had to go to the hospital and could not stay at the accident scene to collect their information, the police report might be the best way to find information about what happened.
We can also use the report in limited ways in court. For example, we can let a witness or the officer read it to themselves to refresh their memory of what happened. If it contains statements that the officer wrote down, we may also be able to challenge witnesses with those statements if they do not match their testimony in court.
Even when we can use reports, it is usually better to hear what happened from the witness directly.
Call Our Car Accident Attorneys in Reading Today
Call Cardamone Law’s Reading car accident lawyers at (267) 651-7945 for a free case evaluation.
