About Get Accident Report
Get Accident Report is a free lookup that shows where each state and police agency releases its crash reports, what a copy costs and how long it takes.
Why this site exists
After a crash, one piece of paper holds everything else up. Your insurer asks for it. The other driver's insurer asks for it. So does the body shop, and so does anyone you ask for advice. It is the police report, and getting a copy is harder than it sounds.
The report is written by one officer from one agency, but that agency is often not the one that hands it out. In Texas every department's reports are sold by the state transportation department. In Arizona each agency keeps its own. In Ohio the state runs a free search while the Highway Patrol sells its official copies somewhere else. The document itself goes by three names, crash report, accident report and collision report, and the fee, the waiting time and the rules about who may ask change from one office to the next.
This site exists to answer one question properly: where do I get my accident report, what will it cost, and how long will it take?
What you will find here
| Part of the site | What it gives you | How much there is |
|---|---|---|
| The state finder | The official place to start in your state, the fee, the usual wait and who may ask | 51 entries, of which 32 are checked so far |
| State pages | How that state works, its agencies side by side, its law in the law's own words | 4 states |
| Police agency pages | One department in full: its portal, its counter, its fee, its number format, its quirks | 6 agencies |
| Guides | Answers to the questions that come next, such as cost, waiting time and who may see a report | 5 guides |
The site grows a few pages at a time. Each state and each agency is researched on its own before its page is written, which is slower than filling in a template and is the reason the pages differ from one another.
How the information is gathered
Every fee, waiting time, address, phone number and link on this site was read on an official page: the police agency's own website, a state department's website, or the state's published statutes. We save a dated copy of that page and keep the exact words the fact came from. When an agency does not publish something, we write Not published. When we have not been able to read an official page yet, the entry says Still being checked and shows nothing but the link to the state's own site.
We do not take facts from law firm websites, forums or other directories, and we do not estimate. How we check sets out the method step by step.
Who is behind it
Get Accident Report was founded and is edited by Abd Shanti. It is operated by Outline Technologies LLC, 30 N Gould St, Ste R, Sheridan, WY 82801, United States. The same company publishes FairSettlement.org.
The site is independent of every police agency, state office and report portal it describes. No agency or portal pays to be listed, asked to be listed, or sees a page before it is published.
How the site is paid for
Using the site costs nothing. There are no accounts, no paywall and no advertising networks on it. It is paid for by its publisher.
The publisher's other site, FairSettlement.org, gives people who were hurt in a crash a free estimate of what an injury claim may be worth. Pages here carry a clearly marked link to it. That link is the only thing this site suggests beyond getting your report, and nothing about a lookup depends on following it.
What this site is not
- It is not a government website, and it is not connected to any police department, sheriff's office, state patrol or motor vehicle department.
- It does not hold police reports. It cannot look one up, send one or sell one.
- It is not a law firm, and nothing on it is legal advice.
- It does not rate agencies, publish reviews or show how many people used a page. We have no such figures, so none appear.
How we write
The pages are written the way a careful clerk would explain things across a counter. Short sentences. The exact name of the office and the form. The number with its unit. If a sentence could appear on any website about anything, it is cut. When a state law limits who may have a report or what it may be used for, we quote the law and leave it there.
Tell us when something changes
Agencies change fees, move to new portals and rename their pages without telling anyone. If you see something here that no longer matches the official page, write to info@getaccidentreport.org. We read the official page again and correct ours. Contact has the details.