Aberdeen, South Dakota: Crash Reporting Requirements: Police, Driver, and Motor Vehicle Reports

Aberdeen, South Dakota local guide: This city page applies the state and national guidance and official resources below to people looking for accident information in Aberdeen, South Dakota. The agency responsible for a police report or records request can depend on where the incident occurred and which agency investigated it. Confirm the agency shown on the report or incident information before requesting a record.

If a South Dakota motor-vehicle crash causes any bodily injury or death, or apparent property damage of $1,000 or more to one person’s property or $2,000 per crash, the driver must immediately notify the nearest available law-enforcement officer with jurisdiction, using the quickest means of communication. That notice is different from the written crash report: when law enforcement investigates a qualifying crash, the investigating officer or assigned person sends the investigator’s report to the South Dakota Department of Public Safety (DPS) after the investigation. SDCL 32-34-7 and SDCL 32-34-10 set out those separate roles.

What to do first

If the crash meets the state notice standard above, contact the nearest available law-enforcement officer with jurisdiction immediately. Do not treat a later records request as the required notice.
Keep the crash date, location, the other driver’s name, vehicle and insurance details, and the investigating agency’s name. Photographs and other contemporaneous information can help preserve the facts; see the car accident evidence checklist.
If an officer investigates, ask which agency is preparing the report and request the report number if one is available.
Use the DPS Office of Accident Records’ official SafeSD crash-report page to look for an accepted state report, or use its mail-in request form.
If SafeSD cannot locate the record, contact the agency that investigated the crash. The state portal itself directs people who lack needed details to that investigating law-enforcement agency.

Who reports what in South Dakota?

The driver’s immediate notice to police

A driver must give immediate notice to the nearest available officer with jurisdiction when the crash involves injury or death, or meets either property-damage threshold in SDCL 32-34-7. This is a notice to law enforcement, not a request for a copy of a report.

There are additional fact-specific duties. For a collision with unattended property, the driver must stop, provide or leave the required identification information, and notify the nearest authorized police office without unnecessary delay. SDCL 32-34-4 provides the exact rule. If a driver is physically unable to give the immediate notice and a capable occupant is present, the occupant must make or cause the notice to be made. SDCL 32-34-9 applies to that situation.

The investigating officer’s report to DPS

For a crash described in SDCL 32-34-7, the law-enforcement officer or other person assigned by the agency to investigate must forward an investigator’s report to DPS within three days after the investigation is completed. The statute also requires electronic filing for agencies that met its prior-year submission threshold. See SDCL 32-34-10.

DPS has authority to provide the uniform accident-report form used to make accident reports. The publicly posted 2024 Motor Vehicle Traffic Accident Reporting Instruction Manual describes the process as one used by law-enforcement officers and administrative staff. In other words, the official investigator report is not ordinarily a form a driver completes through the SafeSD purchase site.

Driver self-reports and motor-vehicle agency reports

The statutes cited here do not describe a routine post-crash driver self-report to a DMV or other motor-vehicle office. They instead separate a driver’s immediate notice from the investigator’s report to DPS. However, DPS’s secretary may require a driver involved in a crash, or a peace officer, to file a supplemental report on a DPS-provided form when the original report is insufficient. That limited authority is in SDCL 32-34-11.

The relevant state records office is the DPS Office of Accident Records, which says it maintains a database of motor-vehicle traffic crash information for public roadways. Its reporting manual explains that state-reportability depends in part on a motor vehicle in transport in or related to a trafficway, injury of any degree, or the stated damage standards. This is why a crash record request is not proof that every collision has a state repository report.

Insurance, public-entity notices, and court deadlines

This article addresses the state crash-notice and crash-record process. The official South Dakota sources above do not establish a routine state insurer filing in this process, and they do not provide a public-entity notice or lawsuit deadline. An insurer’s notice requirements can be policy-specific. Those subjects should not be confused with the immediate police notice or the officer’s DPS crash report, and this page does not calculate any deadline.

How to find or request the crash record

The official starting point for an existing State of South Dakota crash report is SafeSD, maintained by the DPS Office of Accident Records. The office says records are maintained in its database for 15 years and offers both online and mail requests.

For an online search, SafeSD says you need at least two of these three identifiers: the crash date, the driver’s last name, and the county where it occurred. If the report is available, debit- or credit-card users receive it immediately. The site lists a $4 fee to locate and provide the report plus a $6 online convenience fee.

SafeSD also lists situations in which an online report may not be found: the crash occurred on private property; it has been fewer than 10 days since the incident; Marsy’s Law has been invoked; or the reported damage is below $1,000 to one person’s property and below $2,000 total. The DPS Accident Records page adds that a report becomes available for purchase after the investigating agency submits it and it is accepted into the state database; it says the office will remove a report if a victim later invokes Marsy’s Law.

For mail requests, use the official Accident Report Request form. The form asks for such details as driver name, driver-license number, crash date, location, city or county, and investigating officer. It states a $4 search fee per requested report, payable to DPS – Accident Records, is retained even if no report is on file, and recommends waiting 20 days after the crash date before submitting the request. Use one form per report.

South Dakota law states that reports under SDCL 32-34-7 through 32-34-12 and their information are not privileged or confidential. It sets a $4 DPS search fee, with any report found supplied at no additional charge. SDCL 32-34-13 is the controlling statute; the online convenience fee is a separate SafeSD charge.

Information to gather before you request a record

Have the following ready before using the portal, form, or investigating agency:

Crash date and approximate time.
County, city, street, highway, or other location.
Driver’s last name; include full names if known.
Investigating agency, officer name, and report or case number, if provided.
Vehicle plate number, vehicle description, and driver-license number if available.
A way to pay the stated request fee.

These details make it easier to satisfy SafeSD’s two-identifier search rule or to ask the investigating agency for the correct record. The mail form also specifically asks for several of them.

If the report is unavailable or another agency has it

An unavailable SafeSD result does not necessarily mean no agency record exists. Private-property crashes and non-state-reportable crashes may not appear in the state system, and the DPS reporting manual says non-reportable crashes are not sent to the state repository. Recent reports may also not yet be available, and Marsy’s Law can affect availability.

Contact the law-enforcement agency that investigated and ask whether it has a crash report or other record, what identifier it needs, and how to request it. This is the official SafeSD fallback when you do not have the required crash details. It is also the appropriate starting point where a local police department, sheriff’s office, campus, tribal, federal, or other investigating agency controls the record rather than the DPS database. County or municipal law-enforcement personnel may charge $4 for each accident-report copy under SDCL 32-34-13.1; ask that agency about its current method and any additional procedures.

If an informal request to a South Dakota public entity is denied in whole or part, state law allows a written request to that entity’s public-record officer. The officer must respond promptly and no later than 10 business days by providing the record, denying it, or acknowledging it and estimating further response time. SDCL 1-27-37 describes that process. The South Dakota Attorney General’s public-records page links to the state’s public-records laws and dispute information.