Virginia Crash Reporting Requirements: Police, Driver, and Motor Vehicle Reports

Short answer

Virginia separates driver notice, an investigating officer’s report, and a voluntary DMV report. A driver must immediately notify law enforcement when a crash causes injury or death. An officer who investigates a crash involving injury, death, or apparent total property damage of $3,000 or more must send a written report to the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) within 24 hours after completing the investigation. That officer threshold is not a general driver filing rule. Virginia Code § 46.2-371 · § 46.2-373

If no original police report was made, a driver, vehicle owner, or representative may use DMV’s FR200, Voluntary Report of a Crash. Virginia State Police says it cannot create a report documenting damage after a vehicle has been removed when no original VSP report was made; it directs people to FR200 when it meets the reporting criteria. Virginia State Police guidance

Immediate checklist

Notify law enforcement immediately if anyone was injured or killed. § 46.2-371
For injury, death, or damage to attended property, stop and provide identifying information. Virginia’s statute identifies the driver’s name, address, driver’s-license number, and registration number. § 46.2-894
Keep the crash date, time, location, responding agency, driver names, and any report number. DMV uses these identifiers for report requests.
If there was no original officer report, review FR200 before filing. It is a voluntary DMV crash report, not a later police investigation. FR200 form
Keep copies of your forms and submissions. FR200 specifically instructs filers to keep a copy.

For a crash involving only unattended property, the rule is narrower: if the owner cannot be found, leave sufficient identifying and contact information and report the crash in writing within 24 hours to State Police or local law enforcement. § 46.2-896

Who reports what in Virginia?

Report or notice	Who acts	When it applies	Where it goes
Immediate police notice	Driver or someone acting for the driver	Injury or death	Law-enforcement officer, immediately. § 46.2-371
At-scene information	Driver	Injury, death, or damage to an attended vehicle or other attended property	State Police, local law enforcement, the injured person when capable, or the other driver/custodian as the statute provides. § 46.2-894
Police crash report	Investigating officer	Investigation finds injury, death, or apparent total property damage of $3,000 or more	DMV within 24 hours after the investigation is completed. § 46.2-373
Voluntary DMV report (FR200)	Driver, vehicle owner, or representative	Person elects to report; form includes uninsured-other-vehicle or unknown-owner reasons	DMV Insurance Verification Division using FR200, CRD-93, and the stated $8 payment. DMV instructions
Unattended-property written report	Driver	No injury or death and owner/custodian cannot be found	State Police or local law enforcement within 24 hours. § 46.2-896
Medical-examiner death report	Medical examiner, not the driver	Death resulted from a motor-vehicle crash	DMV Commissioner. § 46.2-375
Garage/repair-shop report	Person in charge of the garage or shop, not the driver	Vehicle shows evidence of a serious crash or bloodstains	Nearest police station or State Police within 24 hours. § 46.2-376

The police crash record is made by the officer who investigated. FR200 is a voluntary report to DMV by a driver, owner, or representative. The $3,000 amount applies to the officer’s duty, not to every driver.

How to find or request a police crash report

DMV says it maintains the official record of all reportable crashes in Virginia and stores crash data in the Traffic Records Electronic Data System (TREDS) for at least 36 months. TREDS centralizes crash information, but it is not a public self-service source for complete individual reports. DMV report-request instructions · DMV crash-data information

DMV releases a complete crash report to involved people and specified representatives: drivers, passengers, injured people, vehicle or property owners, personal representatives, attorneys for involved or injured people, authorized insurance-company representatives, and parents or guardians of a minor injured or killed. Virginia law sets the access categories and at-least-36-month retention rule. § 46.2-380

Submit either a written request or DMV’s CRD-93 Information Request with payment. The stated fee is $8 per crash report; DMV says it returns the fee if it cannot find a report. Requests may be made by mail, fax, or in person at a customer service center. The CRD-93 asks for the requester’s authorized role and as much crash information as possible. DMV request page · CRD-93 form

Documents and identifiers to gather

Gather the crash date, time, location, responding agency, report number, driver and vehicle identifiers, names, and your connection to the crash. Use accurate information: both FR200 and CRD-93 include a certification.

If the report is unavailable or held elsewhere

A missing DMV report may mean no reportable record was received, the request did not identify it, or it is not a police crash report sent to DMV. Ask DMV to check the identifiers, then ask the responding agency about separate records.

For a record held by local police, a sheriff, campus police, tribal police, or another agency, contact that agency’s records or FOIA office rather than assuming DMV holds every record it created. Virginia FOIA requires the record custodian to respond to a reasonably specific request; when it knows another public body has the record, its no-record response must give that body’s contact information. The ordinary response framework is five working days, subject to written extensions and statutory exceptions. § 2.2-3704

A FOIA request is different from DMV’s crash-report request. Virginia State Police specifically directs accident/crash-report FOIA requests to DMV. DMV also describes restrictions on personal, driver, and vehicle information, and CRD-93 limits full-report release to statutory eligibility categories. Virginia State Police FOIA page · DMV FOIA page

Insurance, public-entity, and court-related steps are separate

Insurance notice is not a police report or an FR200 filing. The official Virginia crash-report sources here do not set one statewide insurer-notice deadline, so this guide does not substitute a DMV deadline for a policy requirement. They also do not establish a separate public-entity notice process or lawsuit deadline. Keep those questions separate from crash-report procedures.

For practical next steps, see the car-accident evidence checklist, what to do after a car accident, the guides, and resources.