Kentucky Car accident Reporting Requirements: Police, Driver, and

Kentucky uses different paths depending on whether law enforcement investigated the car accident. Call or notify the law enforcement officer with jurisdiction immediately when a car accident on a Kentucky highway causes a fatal or nonfatal injury or leaves a vehicle inoperable. If an officer investigates and says a report will be completed, do not submit a second civilian report. If there was no law-enforcement investigation and property damage exceeds $500, the vehicle operator must file a written report with Kentucky State Police within 10 days; KSP provides the online Civilian Car accident Report for that purpose. 1

Immediate checklist

If the car accident involves injury or an inoperable vehicle, promptly notify the law-enforcement agency with jurisdiction. This is the statutory notification rule for car accidents on Kentucky highways. 1
Ask the responding officer or agency which agency is making the report, and keep the incident or report number if one is provided.
When an officer handled the car accident and will complete a report, do not also file the KSP civilian report. KSP asks people to allow 10 days for the officer’s report to be completed and available in its system. 3
When no officer investigated, first check whether the car accident is within the statutory civilian-report rule: property damage over $500 and a car accident on a Kentucky highway. If it is, use KSP’s online Civilian Car accident Report within 10 days of the car accident. 1
Save the submitted civilian report and its number. The KSP portal offers a download after submission. 3

Who reports what in Kentucky?

Calling or notifying police

The person operating a vehicle involved in a car accident with a fatal or nonfatal personal injury, or damage that renders a vehicle inoperable, must immediately notify a law-enforcement officer with jurisdiction. If the operator cannot or does not notify an officer, the vehicle owner or an occupant at the time of the car accident has that responsibility. 1 This notification requirement is different from the later written-report requirement described below.

The investigating officer’s report

When a law-enforcement officer with jurisdiction investigates a car accident covered by the notification rule, the officer must investigate and file a written report with the officer’s law-enforcement agency. Each agency whose officers investigate a reportable vehicle accident must send a report to Kentucky State Police within 10 days after the investigation, using department-supplied forms. 1

Kentucky’s traffic-car accident regulation directs officers to use the E-CAR ACCIDENT system in the Kentucky Open Portal Solution (KYOPS). This is the police report path, not a form for a driver to complete. 4

The driver’s civilian/self-report

A driver’s separate report applies only when all of the statutory elements are present: the person was operating a vehicle on a Kentucky highway; the car accident caused property damage exceeding $500; and no law-enforcement officer investigated. The operator must file the written report with Kentucky State Police within 10 days. 1

KSP’s official online portal is the form and submission route. It expressly says not to complete the civilian report if a police officer investigated the car accident. It can also be used for a parked vehicle with unknown damage details, as KSP’s FAQ explains, but that FAQ does not change the statute’s reporting conditions. 2

Is there a separate Kentucky motor-vehicle agency report?

The verified civilian-report route in the official sources for this article is Kentucky State Police: KRS 189.635 directs the qualifying operator to file with KSP, and KSP supplies the online form. 1 The officer report and the civilian report are both part of Kentucky State Police’s car accident-reporting system, but they are filed by different people and under different conditions. No separate Kentucky DRIVE/DMV car accident-report filing is included here because the official sources reviewed identify the KSP route for this reporting task.

How to find or request a car accident record

Kentucky State Police maintains the statewide reporting system, but the rule does not promise that one public portal will contain every agency’s record. The regulation says the agency whose officers made the report is the originating agency and remains responsible for providing it to people authorized under the statute. 4 Start by identifying that agency—for example, KSP, a city police department, or a sheriff’s office—and ask for its car accident-report procedure if the report cannot be found through KSP.

KSP’s official Open Records page says accident reports may also be obtained through BuyCrash, a commercial service that KSP itself identifies. That page does not say BuyCrash contains every originating agency’s report, so an unsuccessful search is a reason to contact the originating agency rather than assume no report exists. 5

Car accident reports are confidential rather than ordinary open records. They are available to the people and organizations listed in KRS 189.635, including car accident parties, a minor party’s parent or guardian, an insurer or its written designee for insurance business, attorneys for the parties, certain litigants who provide the required clerk-stamped complaint page, the Department of Workplace Standards for a pertinent occupational-safety investigation, and law enforcement. 1 A requester should not expect unrestricted access merely because a car accident occurred.

For a KSP-held record, submit a signed written request to KSP’s Official Custodian of Records. KSP asks for the requester’s printed name, a specific description such as the name, date, and location, plus an address and phone number; it accepts the request through its online request link, mail, email, fax, or hand delivery. 5 KSP says records generally are not available at the time the request is submitted. Its page describes a five-business-day decision period under the Open Records Act, which is a response decision, not a promise that the requested report will be delivered within five days. 5

The car accident-report fee schedule in 502 KAR 15:010 lists $5 for a paper vehicle car accident report and $10 for a report obtained through the KSP website. KSP’s general Open Records FAQ separately lists 10 cents per released page for public-record copies; if a request includes materials beyond the car accident report, ask the records custodian which charge applies. 4

Documents and identifiers to gather

Before submitting a report or request, collect the car accident date, location, names of involved people, the investigating agency, any incident or report number, and the vehicle information you have. Those details help meet KSP’s instruction to describe the requested record specifically. 5 For a civilian filing, retain the confirmation and report number generated by the portal. 3

Keep your own factual materials—such as photographs, contact details exchanged at the scene, repair paperwork, and correspondence—separate from the official report. The car accident evidence checklist can help organize those items, while the report itself should be requested or filed through the official route above.

If the report is unavailable or held elsewhere

First, confirm whether an officer investigated. If one did, contact the originating law-enforcement agency; Kentucky’s regulation gives that agency responsibility for providing reports to authorized people. 4 If no officer investigated and the property-damage-over-$500 rule applies, use the KSP civilian portal rather than trying to create a police report afterward. 1

For a civilian report already submitted to KSP, the agency says reports are retained for up to two years and may be accessible to an involved party through a valid open-records request, subject to legal restrictions. 3 If you are not an authorized requester, the statute’s confidentiality rules may limit what can be released. 1

Keep car accident reporting separate from other deadlines

The 10-day period in this article is the Kentucky civilian car accident-report period; it is not an insurance-claim deadline, a notice period for a claim against a public entity, or a lawsuit deadline. KRS 189.635 identifies some insurers as authorized recipients of reports, but it does not set a policy-claim notice period in this car accident-report rule. 1 This article therefore does not supply a deadline for insurance, public-entity claims, or court action.

For broader next steps after a car accident, see what to do after a car accident and the site’s guides.

Official resources

What changes for a car accident

Use this version when a private passenger car is involved. The official reporting or record-request procedure below is still controlled by the crash location, investigating agency, and the facts of the event—not by the wording “car accident.”

For insurance, start with the applicable personal auto policy and the insurance rules of the crash state. Save the declarations page, insurance cards, claim number, repair estimates, and insurer communications.

Confirm which agency investigated or holds the report.
Keep the other vehicle and driver information with the report number.
Keep police, motor-vehicle agency, and insurer tasks as separate checklist items.

Browse the Car Accident Guides collection for related pages.