0:39Can you help me if I caused the car accident?
Matthew Graham
Fault and insurance
The short answer
Being blamed by the other side is a common situation, and a police report that faults you can still be challenged. Matthew Graham, managing litigation attorney for the firm, addresses this worry in our 2026 video, noting that a good firm can look deeper into whether the officer got it right.
“with the proper amount of documentation, collection of evidence and investigation, we can sometimes keep a bad police report out of evidence altogether”
Clients often worry that the other side is blaming them, whether the police report says they contributed to the crash or no report exists at all.
A report that puts you at fault is a difficult obstacle, so a good firm will investigate again and decide if the officer reached the correct conclusion.
Officers at the scene weigh the damage and a few excited stories, then make a credibility assessment between two people telling different versions.
Reports written in haste sometimes reach the wrong conclusion, which is why documentation and investigation of the facts matter to your claim.
The attorney describes the scene from the officer's side. Wrecks pile up across DFW, so patrol officers are spread thin, and some calls never get a visit. When one does arrive, the fault call comes after a few seconds of looking at the damage and listening to two excited drivers. He says plainly that this is a poor way to find the truth.
He adds that officers lean on rules of thumb most people never hear about. His example is an intersection crash where one car turns left and the other goes straight, where the left turn loses. Lawyers learn those same rules over years of handling such cases, so a hurried report can be checked against plain, obvious facts.
Read next on our site
Texas treats shared blame in a particular way, and our comparative negligence page explains how a percentage of fault can change what you recover.
If the other side says you caused the crash, talk it through with us before you agree to anything. Our consultation costs nothing, and we speak Spanish too.
This video and answer explain Texas law in general terms; they are not advice about your own case, and watching does not make us your lawyers.