Question about firearms in the vehicle and wrecks

[Copper01]

I've been wondering lately what happens or precautions can be taken with firearms when you are involved in a wreck? I know a person has better things to worry about after a wreck but that does not absolve you of your firearm responsibilities(security).

If its a minor collision, I figured not much of anything needs to happen, other than you making sure the firearms are secured and appropriately removed/taken with you. Do you need to inform responding LEO, especially if your rounding up firearms to transfer to another vehicle? What if it is a little more severe, say a totaled vehicle but you are ok and are responsive. Do you inform the responding LEOs that firearms are present and they need to be secured? What happens if your are unresponsive, do LEOs have a protocol to look for firearms? What happens to your CC firearm in an unresponsive situtation?

Just curious if anyone knows how this works.

Brad

 

[peanut]

When I had the drivers side of my 3 month old truck ripped off by an 18 wheeler, I told OHP I was carrying and he aske where it was and that was it. I didn't have any other weapons in the vehicle at the time, so I didn't have to worry about that.
If you had other guns and were injured I would ask LE if he could hold them till you get out of hospital.
DO NOT LEAVE ANY WEAPONS IN VEHICLE THAT GETS TOWED. Whatever is inside will disappear. Has happened to me several times.

 

[willystruck]

Wife had a motorcycle accident a year and a half ago. We were on the way to a friends home to visit and do a little target practice. I called another friend to come and pick up what was left of her bike and briefly told the OHP officer on the scene that I was removing her CCW weapon from her saddlebag. I then removed several pistols and a few hundred rounds of ammo and transfered them to friends truck. All the officer said was "OK". I never thought to offer to show her CCL or mine.

 

[.45Fats]

in our wreck we informed the first responding officer and that was about it...when they were trying to decide if we would get an ambulance ride the same officer offered to hold the weapons for us to be retrieved later.

 

[okiebryan]

When I had the drivers side of my 3 month old truck ripped off by an 18 wheeler, I told OHP I was carrying and he aske where it was and that was it. I didn't have any other weapons in the vehicle at the time, so I didn't have to worry about that.
If you had other guns and were injured I would ask LE if he could hold them till you get out of hospital.
DO NOT LEAVE ANY WEAPONS IN VEHICLE THAT GETS TOWED. Whatever is inside will disappear. Has happened to me several times.

I'm sorry that you have had a bad experience, but your characterization that your property has disappeared "several times", I highly doubt. I run a wrecker service myself, and I have never had so much as a pack of smokes come up missing. My impound is locked and alarmed, and has cameras. Please remember when you post things like this, that Oklahoma gun people work in many varied lines of work, and slamming an entire industry because you had a bad experience is patently unfair.

Truth be told, I've seen more than a few occasions where people totaled their vehicle, then released it to the insurance company without coming to the impound to clean out their stuff. The salvage pool is not legally responsible to anyone but the insurer, and the car gets cleaned out. Then they point fingers at the tow company. Guess the point here is to clean out your car BEFORE you release it to insurance.

I've had many cars come in with guns. They get unloaded and stored in the safe until the registered owner of the car contacts me. After 60 days with no contact, they become mine by law, but that's never happened so far.

 

[peanut]

I have been to the wrecker storage within a day of 3 of my vehicles and 2 of my sons, getting towed from wrecks.
Within 24 hrs ALL POCKET CHANGE in the ash trays, flashlights, tools in toolboxes, have been cleaned out of the vehicles.
They say the same thing you did. "Oh, it was locked up in our secure yard, no one could have touched it."
I guess it is "secure" so they can have their way with others property.

 

[CHenry]

I was in a single car accident once (lost control on the ice and hit a tree then rolled the truck) Gun was in the truck tucked between seat and center console. My girlfriend was complaining of back pain so my focus was on getting her out of the truck and to a hospital to be checked out. Rather than call an ambulance my friend arrived within minutes to pick us up and get us to the hospital. No one was bleeding and this was a pretty low seed collision so we weren't to concerned about major injury. My other friend arrived in minutes and arranged for his tow truck guy (he owned a body shop) to pick up the truck (tow truck guy was also a Warr Acres cop). 2 OKCPD officers arrived to investigate after I had left. I instructed my buddy to tell the officers about my gun. Girlfriend checked out okay and we went home about 4:00 am, next morning I went to the wrecker yard and there was nothing missing in my truck - except my gun. A Browning Hi Power that dad had bought me when I graduated college.
I assumed at this point that OKCPD had my gun so I went to the station and interestingly, no one could even tell me who the officers were that arrived on the scene. I received no report. They were very defensive when I kept asking them how they had no record of the accident. They told me it was a single car accident so no report was done. I persisted that they had to know who responded to the accident. They basically started treating me like I had done something wrong at this point so I left with my tail tucked.
3 cops on the scene - one was a part time wrecker driver and no one saw my gun or knew the names of who was at the scene. My buddy told me the OKPD officers were going all through the truck but he didn't notice them removing anything.
Not bashing LEOs here but this is what happened.
Is it possible the gun was removed by a 4th party at the wrecker yard? I have to say yes but I don't know.

 

[okiebryan]

Peanut, your 2nd comment is an account of what happened to you. While I hate that your experience was like that, I can't fault you for anything you said.

Your first post, however, was a really broad brush and seemed very unfair to me.

 

[FullAuto]

I wrecked a couple of cars that had to be towed away where I was able to walk away from the crash and was wearing the gun. Once I totaled my Jeep on the way to work. It was at SE 59th & Douglas right next to the Tinker AFB hangers at 5:00 A.M. so it took OCPD some time to respond. I was already in the back of the ambulance as I had taken out the windshield with my head on this one. When the responding officer came to check on me, I told him my full duty belt was in the back seat with my pistol in the holster. He secured it before the Jeep was towed off. He ended up giving it to my buddy that showed up before he left.

As for the wrecker yard thing, someone must have had some shady wrecker yard experiences. I now work as an insurance adjuster and look at cars in wrecker yards and salvage pools all the time. I find cash and valuables in the cars all the time. If it's in the salvage pool, they're always already bagged up inside. They simply place everything in a clear trashbag and set it inside the car for the person to come pick up. Then they won't even touch it. When you come to get it, they pick the car up on a forklift, bring it to the front and you get the stuff out yourself. I've seen too much stuff left in too many cars for them taking things with any consistency. And I've sure never seen anything worth losing my job over.

 

[henschman]

You are only legally required to inform the cops that you are armed if you are carrying pursuant to a concealed carry license. If not, there is no need to mention it... and I find that it usually makes things go a lot easier if you don't. If you can't drive your car away, you should definitely secure the guns. I would do it as quickly and as subtly as possible (so as not to freak out passerby); probably in a friend or family member's car.

If the car is getting towed to a wrecker's yard, I wouldn't leave anything of value in it. However, I have left guns and other items in a wrecked car when I just had it towed straight to my folks' house, using AAA. They drove it straight there and unloaded it in front of my folks, so there wasn't a whole lot of opportunity for stuff to go missing.