If you are involved in a car accident in the state of Tennessee, you must stop and render aid. Generally speaking, rendering aid means calling 911 to report the accident and request that emergency personnel come to the scene of the wreck. In addition, you may need to file a report with local or state authorities.
When must a report be filed?
Typically, a report will need to be filed if a car accident caused serious bodily injury or death. Furthermore, it may be necessary to take this step if an accident caused significant property damage. Property damage might include the cost to repair a vehicle or the cost to repair a fence, guardrail or other items that a vehicle collided with. If you’re required to file a report, it’s generally in your best interest to do so as quickly as possible, but you will likely have several days to comply.
What happens if you don’t comply?
If you don’t file an accident report in a timely manner, your license may be suspended. It’s also possible that the vehicle’s registration may be suspended, which means that no one would be able to drive it until the suspension ends. There is also a chance that your license will be suspended if a report indicates that you didn’t have insurance at the time of the crash. This may be true whether the accident was your fault or not.
Failing to report a car accident may make it harder to obtain a favorable outcome in a personal injury case. This is because it may be harder to link property damage or bodily injury to any specific incident. Furthermore, failing to report an accident may imply that you were at least partially responsible for causing it.