It’s about to get a little easier to access vehicle accident reports. The Arlington County Police Department is in the process of putting those records online.
Starting tomorrow, citizens and insurance companies may purchase the online reports for any accident occurring on or after Saturday, September 1.
The digitization will be done through a partnership with the Carfax Police Crash Assistance Program. Reports will be stored in a secure electronic database on the ACPD website, and will post within five to seven days of each accident.
In addition to making reports more easily accessible to the public, the new electronic system is expected to cut overhead costs for ACPD by eliminating administrative staff time needed to process each request. On average, police departments spend about $35,000 each year to manually reproduce accident reports. ACPD anticipates the new system will virtually eliminate this cost.
Residents who don’t wish to use the electronic system will still have the option to obtain accident reports by mail or in person at the police department during normal business hours.