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

Short answer

In South Carolina, an injury or death crash has an immediate police-notice requirement, while a crash that was not investigated by law enforcement may require the driver or owner to send a separate FR-309 Traffic Collision Report and insurance verification to the South Carolina Department of Motor Vehicles (SCDMV). The FR-309 requirement applies when the crash involved injury, death, or apparent total property damage of $1,000 or more. It is due within 15 days. S.C. Code § 56-5-1260 and § 56-5-1270 set out these separate duties.

If an officer investigated a qualifying crash, the officer—not the driver—must send the written report to SCDMV within 24 hours after completing the investigation. To obtain an official collision report, use SCDMV’s collision-report request process, not a general SCDMV FOIA request.

Immediate checklist

For a crash involving injury or death, notify law enforcement immediately. Within a municipality, the statute directs the driver to the local police department. Outside a municipality, it directs notice to the county sheriff or nearest South Carolina Highway Patrol office. S.C. Code § 56-5-1260
Find out whether law enforcement investigated. That determines whether an officer’s report should be sent to SCDMV or whether the driver/owner may need the FR-309 self-report.
If no officer investigated, compare the event to the FR-309 threshold. For injury, death, or apparent total property damage of $1,000 or more, the driver or owner should complete the official FR-309 form, including insurance verification, and submit it to SCDMV within 15 days.
Keep the identifiers needed to request a record. The request form asks for the collision date and county, driver names and license numbers, and any FR-10 or case number. Keep photographs, contact information, and other records separately; this evidence checklist can help organize them.
Use SCDMV’s request process after an officer report is received and processed. A report is not available there until that happens.

Who reports what

Situation or record	Who acts	What goes where	Timing stated by the official source
Crash results in injury or death	Driver	Immediate notice to local police in a municipality; otherwise county sheriff or nearest Highway Patrol office	Immediately, by the quickest oral or written means
A law-enforcement officer investigates a crash with injury, death, or apparent total property damage of at least $1,000	Investigating officer	Written accident report to SCDMV	Within 24 hours after completing the investigation
No law-enforcement officer investigated a crash with injury, death, or apparent total property damage of at least $1,000	Operator or owner	Completed, insurance-verified FR-309 to SCDMV Financial Responsibility	Within 15 days of the crash
A copy of an available collision report is needed	Requestor	Online through SCDMV, or SCDMV Form FR-50 at a branch or by mail	No fixed processing or waiting period is stated; availability begins after SCDMV receives and processes the official copy

The FR-309 is not a police report. It is the driver/owner’s motor-vehicle-agency report for a qualifying crash that law enforcement did not investigate. In contrast, the investigating officer’s report is created after an officer investigates. The FR-50 is neither of those reports: it is the request form used to obtain a copy of a collision report.

The state reporting threshold is specific. This page does not treat every property-damage crash as having an immediate police-notice or self-report duty. The $1,000 figure applies to the written reporting provisions described above, and the immediate-notice rule quoted here applies to injury or death crashes. S.C. Code §§ 56-5-1260 and 56-5-1270

How to find or request the official collision report

SCDMV offers three routes for an available official collision report:

Online: Start at SCDMV’s collision-report page. The site says you first enter personal information to authenticate the request, then information identifying the collision.
In person: Complete SCDMV Form FR-50 and take it to an SCDMV branch. The form and SCDMV page state a $10 per-report request/research fee; branch payment methods are listed on the agency page.
By mail: Send two completed and signed FR-50 copies and a check or money order for $10 to the address printed on the form: SCDMV, Titles Mail-in Unit FR-50, PO Box 1498, Blythewood, SC 29016-0050. Do not mail cash.

The current FR-50 asks for the date and county of the collision, driver names and license numbers, and—if known—an FR-10 number or case number. It also asks for requestor identification and may request a claim or file number. Providing the details you have can help SCDMV identify the correct record. FR-50

SCDMV says it can supply an official copy only if the official copy is available, after it has been received and processed. State law directs an investigating officer to forward qualifying officer reports to SCDMV, but it does not make SCDMV a source for every possible crash-related record. Do not assume that a collision report will include 911 audio, photographs, video, or supplemental investigative material. SCDMV’s FOIA overview says the agency does not store accident audio, video, or photographs.

If the report is unavailable or another agency holds the record

If an FR-50 request returns “currently not on file,” the FR-50 instructs the requestor to resubmit the original copy later to be rechecked. The SCDMV collision-report page likewise says the official copy is unavailable until SCDMV has received and processed it. These instructions support rechecking with SCDMV; they do not state a fixed number of days to wait.

For a South Carolina Highway Patrol crash, SCDPS directs requests for the basic TR-310 collision report to SCDMV through FR-50. SCDPS’s separate FOIA page identifies possible additional Highway Patrol materials, such as a fatality packet, photographs, or video, but says photographs and video may not have been prepared or available. For a MAIT investigation, SCDPS says to allow a minimum of eight weeks from the crash date for the investigation to be completed. That time concerns the MAIT investigation; it is not a general SCDMV collision-report waiting period.

If a city police department, sheriff, campus agency, tribal agency, or another investigating agency has separate records beyond the SCDMV collision report, use that agency’s official records or public-records procedure for its own materials. The statewide sources reviewed here do not say that SCDPS holds other agencies’ supplemental records. For Highway Patrol materials, use the SCDPS FOIA procedure; for the basic collision report, use SCDMV’s FR-50 process.

South Carolina law also restricts accident-report access for commercial solicitation. People other than law-enforcement personnel and people named in the report must make a separate written request for each report to the law-enforcement agency, stating their name, address, and intended use so the agency can determine the request is not for commercial solicitation. S.C. Code § 56-5-1275

Documents and identifiers to gather

Before using the online request or FR-50, gather the collision date, county, driver names, driver-license numbers and states, and any report identifiers you were given, including an FR-10 or case number. Keep the requestor’s identification and any claim/file number available as well. If an FR-309 is required, the official form also calls for driver and vehicle details, location, witness/victim information, a crash narrative, and completion of its insurance-verification portion by an authorized insurance representative. FR-309

Keep separate processes separate

The FR-309 requires verification of liability insurance coverage, but it is a state motor-vehicle report—not a general insurance-claim notice. The official South Carolina reporting materials reviewed for this page do not provide a general insurer-notice deadline, a public-entity claim-notice deadline, or a lawsuit filing deadline. Those topics are not treated here as crash-reporting requirements. Likewise, requesting a copy of a report does not replace an officer’s or driver/owner’s reporting duty.

Official resources

SCDMV: Collision Reports — official request instructions and online, branch, and mail options.
SCDMV Form FR-50: Request for Copy of Collision Report — request fields, fee, and mailing address.
SCDMV Form FR-309: Traffic Collision Report — self-report and insurance-verification form for a qualifying crash not investigated by law enforcement.
South Carolina Highway Patrol — Highway Patrol guidance on TR-310 reports and FR-309 where no law enforcement investigation occurred.
SCDPS FOIA — Highway Patrol-related records beyond the basic collision report.