OTTAWA- The Ottawa Police Service want to take 13,000 of the city’s 18,000 annual collisions off the roads by opening three new Collision Reporting Centres across the city in June.

Acting Inspector Sandra McLaren says once the centres are open you will still have to call the police when you get into an accident.

“Part of the process when we introduce the collision centres will be that there will be instruction to the public to call the police,” said McLaren. “You’ll reach the communications centre and they will ask you a series of questions which will help them to determine whether the police need to respond to the scene or whether your collision can be diverted to a collision reporting centre.”

The Collision Centres will be located at;

• 474 Elgin St.
• 211 Huntmar Drive, Kanata
• 3343 St. Joseph Blvd., Orleans

In January, the service wants to switch from paper to electronic reporting services to speed up the process of reporting collisions. Right now it takes approximately 72 minutes to process a collision as oppose to 40 minutes with the new system. The electronic system would also be implemented at the three collision reporting centres to speed up the process at the desk as well.

McLaren says the new electronic system will also allow police to share the reports with their partners, the city, MTO and the insurance industry.

“The fact that we can share the information electronically means that we can get that collision report information to the insurance company much faster than under the current paper based process,” said McLaren. “The insurance industry will have the benefit of having that much faster in order to assist with processing claims.”

It will also reduce fraud as police will be able to attach pictures of the car’s damage to the reports.

The initiative has to be approved by the Police Services Board at a meeting on Monday.