Drivers frustrated CMPD doesn’t provide crash reports anymore

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Shanta Harris said she was driving along Albemarle Road in east Charlotte a few weeks ago when a van ran a red light and hit her car. The crash knocked her into oncoming traffic, where another car ran into her.

“I’ve seen my life flash before my eyes,” she told Action 9′s Jason Stoogenke. “I still see the accident at times. I just thank God that I’m here.”

Harris wants the police report so she can get the other driver’s insurance information to pay her bills, including medical costs, rental car expenses and a new car.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police used to provide accident reports until recently. A driver filed a potential class action lawsuit claiming the department was breaking the law by giving crash reports to businesses such as law firms and body shops that solicit victims after a wreck. As a result, CMPD decided to stop giving out the reports entirely, even to victims.

Channel 9 spoke with drivers who still want CMPD to provide crash reports, but they don’t want the department to give reports to people who use them to drum up business. The drivers Stoogenke talked to would like for CMPD to have people sign something saying they won’t use the report for marketing purposes.

Currently, you have to ask the North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles for an accident report. The agency doesn’t make reports available online, so you have to do it all by mail.

Previously, when CMPD provided the reports, one could get the information in a day or two. Now, drivers say it takes weeks.

“In the very beginning, when they first made the changes, it was taking two to three weeks. Now we’re over a month to get reports. I’m currently waiting on police reports for accidents that happened before New Year’s,” Cameron DeBrun said.

DeBrun is a lawyer who represents a lot of drivers who are waiting for their crash reports. “If you were injured and you need to get a doctor’s appointment [and] you don’t have a car, how are you going to get there? If you have kids, you need to buy food, you got to buy diapers, you got to take them places, you can’t do that,” DeBrun said.

Harris told Stoogenke she’s been waiting almost three weeks for her accident report. She’s had to bum rides and borrow cars to get by in the meantime. “I’ve never had such a hassle getting information that I need,” she said.

Stoogenke said if you need an accident report and don’t have it yet, you can always go through your own insurance, and then if the other driver was at fault, your insurance will go after his or her insurance once you get the report.

But there are two problems with that:

First, you’ll have to pay your deductible and hope to get reimbursed.

Second, if you don’t have comprehensive coverage, your insurance isn’t going to cover a whole lot.

“It’s really just upset people’s lives in a dramatic fashion,” DeBrun said. “They’re stuck.”

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