In my experiences as a personal injury attorney more often than not, there is agreement as to who is the cause of a car accident. In the most common type of car accident, a rear end collision accident usually the person who hits the other from behind agrees that he or she is at fault.
However, there are many accidents where the parties are in disagreement as to how it happened. In some of these accidents, the police describe the accident but do not make a determination as to who caused the accident. The reason for this may be because there are no witnesses and no way to determine who is at fault. In other accidents, for one reason or another, the police actually cites one car as the cause of the accident. In those cases, I commonly get calls asking the question above: if I was found at fault by the policeman, is there any way to fight this to recover monies for my injuries from the other insurance company.
Florida Statute section 316.066 is called the accident report privilege statute. This statute makes it that any statements made by someone to the police investigating a crash is inadmissible in a civil case and further the report cannot be used as evidence in a civil proceeding also. Thus, even though the police find one party at fault in a police report, in terms of presenting a case to a jury, this finding would not be able to be used in a civil court case.
As a result of this statute, the police report is far from final in terms of determining who is at fault in an accident. Using common sense, policeman investigate accidents regularly and likely are correct in finding accidents, as they have had the opportunity to talk to the parties involved in the accident and any witnesses. But in the case where the policeman does not understand the accident or misunderstands a witness or just makes a mistake in finding fault against one party, there would be recourse for the person who thinks they were wrongfully found at fault in an accident from the standpoint of pursuing an injury case with an accident lawyer.
