Can the police report be wrong and can it be changed?

Reports contain errors regularly. Wrong dates, wrong insurance information, wrong vehicle positions, misidentified drivers, incorrect witness details, and mistaken accounts of what people said.

Factual errors can often be corrected. Contact the investigating agency, identify the specific error, and provide documentation. Agencies will typically issue an amended or supplemental report where a factual mistake is demonstrated.

Conclusions generally can't. An officer's opinion about who caused the crash isn't going to change because you disagree with it.

What to do instead with a wrong conclusion: build the evidence that contradicts it. Photographs, damage patterns, witnesses the officer didn't interview, and where the case warrants it, an accident reconstruction.

Act quickly. Corrections are easier while the officer's memory is fresh, and some of the evidence supporting a correction — surveillance footage, vehicle damage before repair — disappears.

If you were transported before giving a statement, that fact is worth documenting, because it explains why your account isn't in the report.