I recently wrote a post for injury lawyers on the dangers of assuming the correctness of Florida accident reports. That post suggested that all injury lawyers consider the circumstances of the accident independent of who received the ticket. As mentioned, all too often innocent and seriously injured accident victims receive a ticket without having the opportunity to speak with the officer at the scene.

The reaction to that post and a recent incident involving one of our clients led me to expand on the injustice caused by erroneous citations and inaccurate Florida accident crash reports. While I do not handle criminal law cases, I can imagine the burden that a criminal defense lawyer feels when he or she knows that there has been a “rush to judgment” and their client would never have been charged had law enforcement properly performed their duties.

Similarly, when law enforcement erroneously cites an innocent accident victim it can have dramatic consequences. While the question of “who gets the ticket” is never presented at the personal injury trial, the ticket does often result in an unnecessary burden on the innocent accident victim. Take the case of our new client, for example, a long-time school bus driver with an impeccable driving record and adored by her children riders. According to multiple witnesses, her bus was struck by a driver running a red light. While injured she focused on keeping the many children on-board calm and reassuring them. She did absolutely nothing wrong. Yet, one month after this accident she receives a citation in the mail from an officer who never spoke to her, who did not see any vehicle before being moved off the roadway and who describes nothing to support his “speculation” that our client ran the red light.

Now, our client has to contest the citation and struggles to maintain her reputation as a safe and responsible school bus driver. How terrible to suffer injury and fear for the children entrusted to you and then be wrongfully charged with causing the accident. If law enforcement does not witness an accident, does not speak to all the drivers involved and can not demonstrate who is at fault from the physical evidence should anyone be cited? Hopefully, the answer will be as obvious to you as it is to me.