accident verification

You can purchase a Carfax report for the vehicle. It will tell you if it struck another vehicle, where the impact was, and how bad it was (minor, moderate, or severe).

I have never seen any accident details on a CarFax but maybe they will. If you are buying from the owner ask them for the accident repair paperwork.

Most Carfax reports will say something like "vehicle sideswiped by another vehicle. Minor damage to front left reported", etc. It obviously will not have a police report style description, but at least you will know if it was bad enough for the airbags to be deployed or if the vehicle needed a tow, etc.