If you're in a fender bender in Sarnia next year, you might have to report it yourself.
The Sarnia Police Service received board approval Thursday morning, to introduce a Collision Reporting Centre, on a one year pilot at its Christina Street headquarters in 2019.
Chief Norm Hansen say Sarnia is currently the only police service of similar size in Ontario without a facility to report minor collisions.
"One of the repeat issues that comes up is that people want us to slow people down, to enforce traffic law, traffic is a big thing," said Hansen. "We can't do that when our officers are tied up in the parking lot of a mall exchanging information. So, it's going to free our traffic officers up who are experts in radar enforcement and things like that to be able to assist in problem areas."
Chief Hansen says officers will still attend collisions involving personal injuries or alcohol.
"Our dispatchers will have to make a determination for what an officer goes to," he said.
Chief Hansen said the new service may divert officers from attending up to 1,000 collisions a year and will help fast-track insurance claims.
"It immediately puts the information, such as drivers licenses/insurance, into the system so people get their claims processed quicker," he said.
In 2017, Sarnia police reported over 1500 collisions, involving nearly 2900 vehicles. Of those crashes, 184 involved personal injury or fatalities.
Chief Hansen expects to have the new reporting centre up and running by May or June.