Miami-dade Police Department Crash Reports

Under Florida law, drivers involved in an accident must report a wreck. Notifying law enforcement immediately increases the chances of an accurate investigation, pinpointing eyewitnesses, and requisitioning surveillance footage. Your Miami-Dade accident report is the cornerstone of any auto insurance claim.

Hit-and-run incidents are taken extremely seriously in the Sunshine State, with financial penalties and jail time commonly levied against offenders.

If a driver denies hitting your car, this can stall the insurance claims process. It makes a comprehensive Miami-Dade traffic accident report even more essential. A major red flag is that the other driver suggests avoiding getting the police involved.

Obtaining Miami-Dade County accident reports begins by calling the police. The $500 property damage mandatory reporting limit set by law means almost all accidents require making a report to fulfill your legal obligations.

The investigating officer will inspect the scene and fill out a car accident police report. You can also support the investigation by taking photographs of the scene, if you are able, and self-reporting any medical injuries. This information can also support the investigating officer in filling out their report.

If the driver and their insurance company continue to deny liability, your insurer and attorney will handle the legwork of pursuing your claim, which could necessitate the case going to trial.

During the first 60 days after an auto accident, only certain parties may perform a successful Miami-Dade accident report search. These parties include:

• Drivers and passengers involved in the crash
• Legal professionals representing any party involved in the crash
• Car insurance companies that provide insurance
• Law enforcement officials
• The Florida Department of Transportation
• Radio and television networks licensed by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
• Prosecutor’s office
• Service programs for auto accident victims
• Professionals enlisted by insurance companies to gather and provide information relating to claims

Florida’s rules on who can access a Miami-Dade accident report allow victims to seek medical treatment and legal advice. These rules are designed to protect victims from being harassed by those seeking to take advantage of them.

To get a copy of a police report, you may need to wait up to ten business days for that report to become available. However, once requested via the Florida Crash Portal, you can receive your report within hours.

If you are having difficulty finding a Miami accident report for crashes that took place more than ten days ago, you are advised to contact the investigating agency directly. How soon official reports on Miami-Dade traffic accidents become available depends on officer availability.

Officers are human, and occasionally you may notice that your Miami police report online contains missing or incorrect information. The correct approach to dealing with errors depends on the type of error.

Factual errors are the easiest to correct. For example, if the attending officer wrote down the wrong car model or driver’s date of birth, you can bring relevant documentation to your nearest police department or highway patrol outpost and request a correction. The officer in question will produce a supplemental report explaining the error.

Vital information omitted or transcribed incorrectly can also be resolved by politely contacting the officer in question via the police department and requesting a correction. The officer is not required to agree to your request.

Note that if you are dealing with disputed information, the only course of action is to engage an auto-injury attorney. Your Miami-Dade crash report is vital evidence, and disproving what an officer has seen and interpreted will require relevant evidence. Your attorney can guide you through the process of dealing with inaccuracies on your Miami-Dade police accident report.

Floridians are required to carry two types of auto insurance by law: Personal Injury Protection (PIP) and Property Damage Liability (PDL).

After an auto accident, you may make insurance claims through both policies. If an accident occurs on private property, you must still contact law enforcement to attend the scene and complete a report.

You should also contact the owner of the property, or their representatives, to make them aware that an incident has occurred on their property. Your legal obligations do not change simply because you experienced an accident away from the public highway.

Like auto accidents on public property, you can still buy a Florida crash report to support your insurance claim.