If you are unfortunate enough to be in a collision in the Waterloo region, the aftermath will likely be handled differently going forward.
Waterloo Regional Police announced several changes to how collisions are reported on Tuesday which will come into effect immediately.
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Police have partnered with a company called Accident Support Services in a move which will see the company take over reporting centres in the region.
“We are hoping that it is a good service for the community because it will allow them to deal with the collision quickly and efficiently,” Waterloo Regional Police Insp. Sharon Havill said.
The plural in reporting centres is necessary as beginning March 19, people involved in a collision will be able to report the crash to a new reporting centre at north division as well as the current reporting centre which is located in south division.
“It won’t take tows but we can still do a collision with a towed vehicle but the towed vehicle will come here and the driver can still report to the north division,” she explained.
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Police are hoping this will be more convenient for people in Waterloo and the townships.
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Other changes will also see reporting centres take cars that need to be towed after being involved in a crash. People who suffer minor injuries that do not require medical care will also be directed to a collision centre as well.
“The biggest thing for the community to know is we will redirect them if it is a small minor injury to the collision reporting centre. We do tow vehicles now which will allow for greater community response,” Havill said.
If you are involved in a collision, you should still call police but they will determine if they need to dispatch an officer or whether you should go to a collision centre. If the crash requires an officer to investigate or direct traffic, they will still be dispatched.
Dispatchers will now have the ability to send a tow truck to a collision as well.
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Police are hoping that the changes will help to speed up the time that the public is stuck waiting after being involved in a crash.
“Sometimes we took a long time to report to collision, unfortunately,” Havill said.
“I know some members of our community have had to wait hours for us to respond to collisions.”
They are also hoping that officers who would have been working in the collision centres will now be able to engage in other types of police work.
“It’s also good because we are now able to redeploy those officers that were assigned to the collision reporting centre out to other proactive initiatives in the community or helping out doing crime prevention so there’s a lot of other things we can use those officers for as well,” she explained.
Waterloo police responded to 13,646 calls for reported collisions last year so this will also free up some manpower to help in other areas.
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