Traffic Accident Report Question

[Supermoon]

So the wife was in a fender bender awhile back, and the state of Oregon requires her to fill out a form that describes the accident, who was at fault, etc. No police were called to the scene, and we got out of there without her getting a ticket. My worry is that the DMV will use the information on this form to retroactively ticket her.

It seems to me that requiring this disclosure would be a force incrimination so it is either optional, or wouldn't be admissible in court as evidence. Anyone have experience with this? Do they even report to law enforcement? Tech Talk Jong?

[4matic]

Form requires no admission of guilt. Just an incident and damage statement (e.g traveling east on a street and collided with a car)
http://www.odot.state.or.us/forms/dmv/32.pdf

[Supermoon]

Yeah, but in a rear-end accident just the damage and direction of travel would probably be enough to give a ticket, right? Plus if they call our insurance company they'd know we were at fault.

Maybe I'm just being paranoid here

[snoqpass]

I don't think the DMV can issue tickets retroactively

[Danno]

PM Rontele

[MakersTeleMark]

PM Rontele

This. Or DF in the traffic forum. Splat may have insight, but I'd get the wife to put a SFB and call it good.

[MakersTeleMark]

This. Or DF in the traffic forum. Splat may have insight, but I'd get the wife to put a SFB and call it good.

I'm not going to embed, because it's too much of a hassle trying to find a youtube post to quote and steal the bb code.

Tell her to do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G_EDtd1yuM

[Viva]

The Oregon DMV issues traffic tickets?

[Danno]

I want pudding.

[Supermoon]

The Oregon DMV issues traffic tickets?

i don't think so, but they could forward it on to whatever LE agency had jurisdiction. Like I said, maybe I'm giving them more credit than they deserve here.

I want pudding.

Chocolate? Yorkshire?

[bigAK]

tell them your wife was too drunk to remember the details - problem solved!

[grskier]

Don't side with the man, man

[old goat]

I don't know about Oregon but in CA you have to report accidents to the DMV along with proof of insurance. While you don't get a ticket for an at fault accident you get a point on your record, which goes away after 3 years--too many points and they suspend your license. If you fail to report an accident and they find out about it you can have your license suspended. The worst that can happen, unless you rack up a bunch more points, is that your insurance company raises your rates--in your case the insurer already knows. Look it up on the OR DMV web site but I suspect it's pretty similar to CA. Make the report. ( And don't listen to the guy who says OR doesn't write tickets--I got a ticket in Gold Beach for going too fast in a school zone---on a Saturday. Maybe it was the CA plates.)

[jgb@etree]

I'm not going to embed, because it's too much of a hassle trying to find a youtube post to quote and steal the bb code.

Tell her to do this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6G_EDtd1yuM

Just stick the video id between [youtube] commands:

[youtube]6G_EDtd1yuM[/youtube]

[creaky fossil]

i don't think so, but they could forward it on to whatever LE agency had jurisdiction. Like I said, maybe I'm giving them more credit than they deserve here.

in states where they have red light cameras and issue tickets based on the camera's footage of a car -- that's pretty much what they're doing as a practical matter, so you're not kooky to think it

something to consider: if you've already submitted a description of the crash to an insurer in a claim, that's now part of whatever might be a future record of your side of the story

[Supermoon]

I think we're going to put just the bare minimum possible in the report and hope for the best. If they tried to give us a ticket I think we'd have a good case that the report is inadmissible as evidence and there's no police report or on-scene officer that could testify.

OG - It works here just like in CA. We're new to the state, so we didn't know we had to report it until our insurance agent asked us about it four weeks later. Hopefully they won't get pissed about it as long as we get it in now.

[PNWbrit]

Is Dan Samas admitted to the Oregon bar?

[Bobcat Sig]

Don't put it past the state of Oregon to find a way to retroactively fuck you over or otherwise needlessly complicate your life.

[Platinum Pete]

Don't put it past the state of Oregon to find a way to retroactively fuck you over or otherwise needlessly complicate your life.

Back in my Oregon days I was in a fender bender. No cops called. Exchanged insurance info.
Got a thank you letter from the people I bumped because my insurance company was so nice to deal with.
A couple months later I get a letter saying my license is suspended for not reporting an incident with damage greater than $500. Took a couple trips to the DMV and some paper work to fix things up.

[MagnificentUnicorn]

What's the big deal? Your wife already have a bad driving record? She rear ended someone, so she wasn't paying attention or she was following too close.