GUILDERLAND — Jill Harbeck told the town board earlier this month that she has been made to “feel very unsafe living in Guilderland.”

Harbeck has spent more than eight months trying to clear her record after she was involved in what is commonly called a fender-bender last Sept. 12. There were no injuries.

Her goal is to have the box on the accident report indicating fault left blank rather than blaming her for an accident she says she didn’t cause.

The Guilderland police chief backs the officer’s accident report, which has been revised several times, so Harbeck appealed to the town board on May 7.

She told the board that in September another car hit her car and drove off. She took a picture of the license plate on the car that hit her, she said, and went to the police to file an accident report.

When the report came out, Harbeck said, it misrepresented what she’d said and “there was nothing in the report about the other driver leaving the scene of the accident, which is a violation of the law.”

Harbeck went back and spoke to the officer and quoted him as saying, “It doesn’t matter.”

When she asked why there was nothing in the report about the other driver leaving the scene, “He said, ‘Well, she was a young driver. She was very nice and she was polite and she wasn’t aware she had been in an accident.’”

Harbeck asked how the young driver could detail the accident if she hadn’t been aware of it.

A revised report still had nothing about the driver leaving the scene so Harbeck went back and spoke to the police chief. In the third report, she said, “I was blamed for the accident and the other driver was cleared of all wrongdoing.”

She then filed a formal complaint using the form on the town’s website and, when she heard nothing back, wrote a letter to the town board.

When she still heard nothing, Harbeck came to a town board meeting to ask who had oversight of the police. The supervisor, Peter Barber, responded that the chief of police did.

“I asked who had oversight of the chief, and Mr. Barber said he did,” Harbeck recounted for the board.

When she finally received a letter from the town attorney, it said the police department had reviewed the matter and concurred with the findings of the officer.

Harbeck likened that to reporting to the IRS a company cheating on its taxes and then getting a letter from the IRS saying, “We contacted the company. They reviewed their filings. They confirmed back that their filings are correct. There’s nothing more for the IRS to do.”

“So my question tonight is: Where is the oversight?” Harbeck asked the town board on May 7.

Barber said that he would have oversight “if there’s any misconduct by the chief.”

Barber said that he and the town board have no ability to direct a police officer to change an accident report that’s been filed. He noted that the chief of police agreed with the report as written.

“Again,” said Barber. “The officer was on the scene.”

“He was not on the scene,” interjected Harbeck. “He never saw the scene … There were no witnesses and there were no videos. It was my word against hers and she lied to the police.”

“The town board has no jurisdiction over changing an accident report,” said Barber. “I don’t know if DMV has jurisdiction. I don’t know if a court has jurisdiction but the town board has no jurisdiction to tell a police officer to change their report.”

It turns out neither a court nor the state’s Department of Motor vehicles would have jurisdiction in this case.

Walt McClure, the director of public information for the DMV, told The Enterprise that, while the DMV would be the repository for an accident report, it would not be able to hear an appeal on a report.

Any changes to an accident report would have to be handled through the police department that filed that report, McClure said.

Also, since Harbeck wasn’t ticketed in the accident, she would have no means of appealing through a court.

McClure said in the year-and-a-half he has been with the DMV, this was the first time he’d had someone ask about appealing an accident report.

Guilderland Police chief Daniel McNally told the Enterprise that while “it’s not uncommon for people to dispute an accident report” it is “very rare” that he would conduct a “professional standards investigation” as he did in this case.

McNally said the officer “did a full investigation with statements from the operators.”

Asked what else was involved in the investigation, besides getting the views of the two drivers, McNally said, “He made a few corrections Jill wanted.”

McNally also said that insurance companies divide fault between two drivers and that Harbeck’s company hadn’t contested the accident report.

“Your insurance company is your help,” he said.

Documents

The Enterprise reviewed the three versions of the accident report as well as the complaint Harbeck filed and the letter the town attorney sent to Harbeck; all of these documents were obtained from Harbeck.

The third twice-amended report says that the 23-year-old, driving a 2002 Subaru sedan, said she was behind Harbeck, 69, driving a 2008 Chevy sedan, traveling east on Route 20, waiting to turn left onto Rapp Road.

The 23-year-old says she drove into the turning lane, coming up to the light at the intersection with Rapp Road when Harbeck turned into her lane, striking her car, causing damage to the front and rear passenger-side doors.

The Enterprise is not using the name of the young driver because the newspaper hasn’t been able to reach her for comment.

Harbeck, in the same report, is reported as saying she was driving east on Route 20 in the left lane and came up behind cars at the red light. Harbeck is reported as saying she turned on her left-turn signal, checked both the rear-view and driver’s side mirror and looked out the driver’s side window and there were no cars in the center turn lane.

As Harbeck moved into the center lane, her account continues, the Subaru struck her car, traveling east in the center lane. Harbeck says the driver continued up the center lane to the red light and Harbeck pulled up behind her.

When the light turned green, the report says of Harbeck’s account, Harbeck followed the Subaru onto Rapp Road, where the Subaru drove away, leaving the scene of the accident while Harbeck pulled over in the Crossgates Mall parking lot.

Harbeck sustained damages to the front driver-side fender.

The third and final report concludes with this statement not in the original report: “Upon further investigation and further statements [the Subaru’s driver] stated that she was unaware that she had been in an accident. Writer did not witness this incident, and the facts obtained in this report are based solely on the statements given by [the two drivers] and the investigation of the Guilderland Police Department. There is no video footage available for this incident.”

Harbeck’s complaint report, which was notarized on Jan. 24, says that, when she went to the police station to file the initial accident report, the officer “Kept trying to steer me and change my words.”

She also states, “it stands to reason that he did the same with the other driver.”

That Sept. 12 first report, Harbeck says in her complaint,  “completely misrepresented what I had told him and had showed him on the diagram,” she wrote, stating the traffic light was red while he showed it as green and he showed both cars at the light as if Harbeck made an illegal turn while she says she was back from the light behind other cars.

When Harbeck asked why the report had nothing about the other driver leaving the scene of the accident, he said, according to Harbeck, “she was a young driver and she was very nice and she was polite and … she wasn’t aware that she had been in an accident.”

Harbeck comments in her complaint she believes the other driver “wasn’t aware because there was no reaction on her part after her car struck mine — she didn’t brake, swerve, put on flashers or stop.”

Harbeck also asserts that the officer taking the “the other driver’s age into consideration to my detriment is age discrimination.”

Harbeck goes on to bring up the problem of someone who doesn’t know she was in an accident being able to accurately describe how it happened.

Harbeck writes in her complaint that she went back to the police station on Nov. 14 to speak to the officer’s superior and spoke with the police chief, McNally. Both the chief and the officer, Harbeck asserts, “failed to explain … that there was a code on the report indicating I failed to yield the right of way. Why was this not explained to me?”

“There is no hard evidence,” Harbek’s complaint goes on, “that proves I failed to yield right of way and caused the accident …. The damage to the cars proves only that two cars collided. It does not prove how the accident happened.

“If the [Subaru driver] swerved out from behind me as I was entering the center lane and tried to drive past me even as I was changing lanes (which has happened to me on the road before), and caught the front corner of my car with the side of hers, the damage would look the same. In that case, the [Subaru driver] would have been at fault for failing to yield right of way.”

Harbeck’s complaint concludes, “I am asking that, once this matter has undergone an objective review, the report be amended to reflect that a determination could not be made as to which driver caused the accident.”

Final thoughts

Harbeck was disappointed after presenting her situation to the town board.

She told The Enterprise afterwards, “I was blamed for an accident I didn’t cause …. Now there’s a black mark on my insurance record.”

Her insurance company paid for the damages to the Subaru, she said.

She noted that no-fault applies only to personal-injury accidents in New York state, not to collision damage.

“She got her car fixed on my policy,” Harbeck said. “My insurance company said we’ll accept the responsibility. They went by the code number in the report, by what the police said. They didn’t advocate for me. I’m very disheartened.”

She plans to change insurance companies, Harbeck said.

Her goal is to have the accident report say the cause could not be determined “to clear my name and play fair.”

Harbeck feels her honor is at stake and sees herself as a person of integrity, noting that she was the one who pulled over, took notes, got a picture of the other driver’s plate, and went to the police.

She says she now does not trust the police and would be scared to call them.

“I feel I was discriminated against because of my age,” said Harbeck. The way the officer referred to the Subaru driver, Harbeck said, “made me feel like he was taken with her — oh, gee whiz, she’s a sweet young thing.”

Harbeck believes the Subaru driver broke the law three times: leaving the scene of an accident, lying to an officer, and filing a false report.

“I don’t know what more I can do …,” she said. “I want my name cleared. It destroys me.”