Traffic Collision Reports: Understanding the Jargon and Taking them Apart

Some career fields tend to be a bit heavy on jargon-computer science, engineering, insurance, and banking come to mind. Police work is no exception; it clearly ranks among the jargon-rich professions, behind only, perhaps, the military and the federal government. Police traffic collision reports attempt to tell the readers, and in most cases there are many of them, who was driving where and who crashed into whom. This sounds simple on the surface, but with acres of jargon filling the pages, it can be a challenge to discover this information without a qualified "police-speak" interpreter.
 

Keep in mind that, in most instances, the only agency that uses the same traffic collision report for all its officers is the State High way Patrol, At least you have some clarity here because officers from all over the state use the same form. To complicate things even more, some police and sheriffs agencies use the State High way Patrol form for their reports, while others use their own (usually a conglomeration of the Highway Patrol version mixed in with regional information).

In nearly all traffic collision reports, the officers will refer to the participants in one of three ways:
 

1. P-1, P-2, etc. for Party One or Participant One, etc.
2. D-1, D-2, etc. for Driver One, Driver Two, etc.
3. V-i, V-2, etc. for Vehicle One, Vehicle Two, etc.

If this isn't complicated enough, keep in mind that in some reports, P-1 (or D-I or V-l) is always listed at fault, and in others, P-2 (or D-2 or V-2) is always listed as the at-fault driver. How do you know from agency to agency and report to report? You must read the narrative to see who did what to whom and how the officer refers to the party at fault.

Other common abbreviations include:
 

• ICP-Initial Contact Point; refers to the actual physical street measurement (usually in feet or tenths of a mile) where one car collided with another.
• POI-Point of Impact; another way to refer to the ICP.
• POR-Point of Rest; indicates how far a vehicle or a body (in fatal accidents) traveled after the initial ICP/POI. A long distance may indicate a vehicle's high rate of speed.
• PCF-The Primary Collision Factor; tells you why the accident happened (in the opinion of the investigating officer), e.g.. Following Too Close, Speed Unsafe For Conditions, Unsafe Movement to the Left or Right, Violation of Right of Way, Illegal U-Turn, etc.
• C.O.P.-Complaint of Pain; tells you who was injured and how severely.
• W-1, E-1, S-1, N-1, etc.; shorthand for the first Westbound, Eastbound, Southbound, or Northbound lane (as you count left to right from the center divider). The lane to the right of the "one" lane would be the "two" lane, etc. Freeways would count from the one or "fast" lane all the way left to right to the "four" or "slow" lane.
• wb, eb, sb, nb; another way to abbreviate westbound, east- bound, etc.
• wcl, eel, sol, ncl; west curbline, east curbline, south curbline, and north curbline.

Traffic investigators use feet and specific curblines to pinpoint the exact location of the accident. An accident in an intersection may have occurred "25 feet north of the south curbline of Maple Street and 18 feet east of the west curbline of Ash Street." This allows other reviewing parties like traffic investigators, insurance adjusters, city claims personnel, etc., to pinpoint the location of the crash.

Most traffic collisions will also have a diagram, and these vary in quality from excellent to dismal depending on the drawing skills of the reporting officer. The size, complexity, and accuracy of the diagram may be determined by the severity of the injuries in the case. In most midsize to large cities, serious injury and fatal traffic accidents are handled by specially trained uniformed traffic accident investigators. These officers will have gone through a special 40-hour "Skid School" to learn about skid patterns, braking distances, collision damage, and how to investigate and document serious collisions.

If your client was involved in any part of a serious or fatal accident, the report will be much more detailed than a simple rear-end crash or a similar minor injury accident. The diagram will be of full- page size and will include specific measurements and the location of all evidence, including vehicles, obstructions, pedestrians, witnesses, etc.

Since these serious accident reports are usually completed by well-trained accident investigators with many years of police traffic service, they are more difficult to dispute than other less complex reports. However, many law firms handling serious injury (and big-money) cases will hire private traffic accident reconstructionists to review the report and compare it with their own interpretation of the crash scene. If the police report and the private consultant's report differ greatly, the matter will probably end up in court.

Many of these expert traffic reconstructionists are also ex-police officers with a significant background in traffic accident reporting. We'll discuss the best way to use these types of experts in the next chapter.

As you look at a typical traffic collision report, keep a few other important factors and questions in mind:
 

• Most traffic diagrams are written so that the North position points up on the page.
• Does the report contain an accurate diagram? Do the lane measurements appear correct or do they look like rough guesses? Most officers pace off the lane widths and other numbers like the POI and POR. These figures can vary widely in their accuracy and may have a significant impact upon the outcome of the case.
• Are there any street conditions that bear noting? This may include the presence (or lack) of city barricades to cover a huge hole or ongoing construction; flag personnel who should have controlled a dangerous intersection; any unusual road problems like spilled gasoline, oil, water, sand, or gravel that may have caused drivers to react in other than normal ways.
• Were the electronic traffic control signals working correctly at the time of the collision? Were city or state construction crews present, and did they see or cause the crash? Is there a chance to prove city or state liability?
• Are there any discrepancies about who owns or insures the car? Is there any question of negligent entrustment with the defendant's car?
• Are the ambulance and hospital personnel properly listed? Does the report indicate the police, fire, ambulance, and other medical personnel who may have responded? You may need to subpoena these people later.
• Have you or your client remembered to notify the State Department of Motor Vehicles about the accident? Failure to do so could bring the client a nasty license suspension notice.

If you work for a law firm that does any personal injury work at all, police traffic collision reports should be your bread and butter. Thorough reports can help you win most car accident cases. If the reports are good and in your client's favor, use them to your advantage. If the reports are poor, filled with errors, or not in your client's favor, exploit the errors to your benefit or work to get them changed.