Why do we have to wait for a blizzard to streamline auto accident reporting? | Opinion

On this snowy, icy and wind-chilled day, the city of Wichita has implemented the Emergency Accident Reporting Plan, which allows people to report their own minor fender-benders to the Police Department.

And I can’t help but think, why isn’t this standard procedure, instead of something we only do when the weather turns especially nasty?

We’ve been told over and over that one of the biggest problems we have in this city is that the Police Department is understaffed by more than 100 officers.

So why are we wasting the time of the officers we do have by making them run around to take reports on insignificant fender-benders?

Furthermore, why are we blocking major thoroughfares on a daily basis by leaving our cars in the traffic lanes while we wait for said officers to arrive, nod their head and say “Yep, there was an accident here.”

I’ve actually been wondering about this for about the last 25 years.

When I first moved here from Southern California, I was involved in a minor traffic accident. As accidents go, it was a real nothingburger.

I was turning onto the westbound Kellogg ramp at Main Street and a woman came up behind me too fast, bumping the bumper on my 1974 Ford Gran Torino.

I pulled over into the emergency lane at the side of the ramp, got my registration and proof of insurance out of the glove compartment, and stepped out of the car.

The woman who hit me got out of her car and screamed at me “YOU MOVED YOUR CAR!!! YOU MOVED YOUR CAR!!! I CALLED THE POLICE!!!”

I guess she must have had a cell phone. I know I didn’t at the time.

I said, “Lady, you hit me, not the other way around. Call all the police you want.”

I went back and sat on my car while she stared daggers at my back. A few minutes later, a police officer arrived and turned on his light bar and we both walked over towards his car.

The officer barely got his door open when she pointed at me and said “He moved his car.”

I said “Of course I did. Why on God’s green earth would I leave it sitting in the middle of a freeway ramp where people are trying to get on the freeway?”

So the officer separated us and walked me back to my car. I pointed out the dimple on my bumper where the woman hit me. He gave me a number so I could pick up a report later to send to my insurance company.

He said technically, the woman who hit me was right about moving the car and that I should have left it in the lane where it stopped. He also conceded that moving the car was the first thing he’d have told me to do when he arrived at the scene.

It was a surreal experience all around.

Which brings us back to the Emergency Accident Reporting System.

Here’s how it works: If it’s a snow day, and you’re in an accident, and the cars are drivable, and nobody’s hurt, and nobody’s drunk, you don’t have to call the police.

You just exchange driver’s license and insurance information with the other motorist, and later fill out an accident report form online or at any police station, QuikTrip or Kwik Shop.

Here’s my question: If that’s good enough for snowy days, why wouldn’t it be good enough for sunny ones?

It’s quick, it’s convenient, it’s easy, it doesn’t waste police time and it doesn’t clog up the streets.

It’s also how motorists in cities across America handle their minor fender-benders every single day of the year. So why do we have to wait for a blizzard?

Here’s my proposal: That we rewrite the rules and make what is now the emergency process the regular process going forward.

That, or we could just declare every day an emergency.

I’d be good with it either way.