BuyCrash: how to find and buy your police accident report

What BuyCrash is

BuyCrash is a private website, not a police records office. Its home page carries the LexisNexis Risk Solutions name, and LexisNexis offers it to police departments as a way to put their crash reports online. In the company's words to agencies, "With BuyCrash, agencies can post crash reports online", and authorized parties then "have access to crash reports within 24 to 48 hours of crash report completion."

The agency still writes the report and decides what goes online. BuyCrash runs the search and takes the payment. So a BuyCrash search only finds reports from agencies that post there. A crash worked by an agency that does not use BuyCrash will not turn up, however carefully you type the details.

LexisNexis sells BuyCrash alongside its other police products under the Coplogic Solutions name: eCrash for roadside crash reporting, eCitation for tickets, statewide crash repositories, and a Desk Officer Reporting System for reports the public files online. As a driver you only deal with BuyCrash, but the Coplogic name can turn up on other police forms. Our LexisNexis page sorts out those names.

You will see two addresses for it. The state police pages in Indiana, Kentucky, Connecticut and Rhode Island give www.buycrash.com, while GDOT, Houston, Austin and North Las Vegas link to buycrash.lexisnexisrisk.com. They are the same site: when we checked on 12 November 2026, www.buycrash.com forwarded to buycrash.lexisnexisrisk.com.

Police agencies that send you to BuyCrash

The safest way into BuyCrash is through the police agency's own page, because then you know the agency really posts its reports there. These agencies name BuyCrash in their own words, and most keep another way to ask for the report.

Austin's page is worth a closer look. It calls the service "LexisNexis® Police Reports", yet its main button and its LexisNexis BuyCrash link both go to BuyCrash's search, and its Spanish link goes to a second LexisNexis address, policereports.lexisnexis.com, with the same search path. So a page that says LexisNexis Police Reports can lead to BuyCrash.

North Las Vegas and Austin go one step further and link to a search address that already names their state and their department. That is the quickest way to land on the right agency.

How to search BuyCrash, step by step

The Georgia Department of Transportation publishes a BuyCrash Help Guide, a PDF linked from its Crash Reporting page, that walks through a purchase in 15 steps. We read the copy the Internet Archive saved on 29 August 2026, because GDOT's own site did not answer from our network. The steps below follow it. In Georgia the guide picks Georgia and then all Georgia agencies at once; in another state you pick that state and the agency that wrote your report.

1. Start from the agency's pageIts link takes you to the right site. North Las Vegas and Austin even link to a search for their own department.
2. Pick the state and the agencyThe state is the one required field on the home page. Then choose the police agency.
3. Enter a last name and the crash dateThe last name of a driver, passenger, owner or pedestrian, and the date of the crash.
4. Add one more detailThe crash report number, a VIN or a driver's license number. Any one of the three will do.
5. SearchTick the "I'm not a robot" box and click Search. When the Terms of Use appear, review them and click OK.
6. Check the namesMake sure the people listed match your crash before you go on.
7. Give your email addressChoose a customer type, enter your email address, then your details.
8. Agree and say why you want itRead the Terms and Conditions, tick I agree, and select the use that best describes you. GDOT's guide notes that most customers select the first option.
9. Pay and downloadEnter your billing information, continue to checkout, click Purchase and Download Report, then the arrow in the Download Report column to open your copy.

Twice the guide gives the same advice for a search that fails or a box that does not appear: click Customer Support in the upper right of the page.

No report number? Our police report number guide explains where it is printed and how to get it from the agency.

What a report costs on BuyCrash

BuyCrash's home page shows no price list, and LexisNexis tells agencies they "can also generate revenue by charging a fee for crash reports." The agencies' own pages say little more. Indiana State Police describe the charge as "a nominal fee". Connecticut puts a note on its BuyCrash link: "Additional non-refundable convenience fees may apply for online requests. Convenience fees collected by a third-party vendor are not payable to the State of Connecticut." One agency does print its BuyCrash price: Kansas City, Missouri police say "the cost is $9 per report."

No page we read gives one BuyCrash price for every agency. You reach the price in the checkout steps, after the search has found your report. Rhode Island State Police say BuyCrash takes major credit cards or a pre-paid account.

If you would rather pay a price you can see in advance, the agencies' other routes publish theirs. They are slower.

GDOT's own form warns that a mailed request will take "at the least two weeks", and it points you back to BuyCrash to receive the report sooner. For the wider picture, see what a police report costs.

When a report shows up on BuyCrash

A report cannot be sold before the officer finishes it. LexisNexis puts the gap at 24 to 48 hours after crash report completion, and completion is the day the report is done, not the day of the crash. Two state police pages give their own times:

• Rhode Island State Police: in most cases 72 hours after the report was taken. Crashes still under investigation cannot be released until the investigation is completed, and fatal crash reports come only from the State Police Accident Bureau.
• Connecticut State Police: many simple crashes within thirty business days. Crashes not online within 30 days, serious injury crashes and fatal crashes go through the Reports and Records Unit instead.

Other agencies publish their own waits on their own pages. Our guide to how long a police report takes compares them.

When your report is not on BuyCrash

It may be with a different agency

The agency that sent the officer is the one that posts the report. Check its name on the paper you were given at the scene, then search that agency, or find it in our state table.

It may not be posted yet

Give it the time the agency states, such as 72 hours for the Rhode Island State Police or thirty business days for simple crashes in Connecticut.

It may never be posted

Some reports stay off the site on purpose. Rhode Island keeps back crashes under investigation and fatal crashes, and Connecticut sends serious injury and fatal crashes through its records unit. Ask the agency directly.

A detail may not match

GDOT's request form warns that "there can be spelling and entry errors on the report". Try the last name of another person from the crash, or the VIN in place of the report number.

Ask BuyCrash

GDOT's Crash Reporting page gives BuyCrash customer support at 1-866-215-2771 and support.buycrash@lexisnexisrisk.com for anyone having problems finding a report. Kansas City, Missouri police give 866-495-4206, extension 4, for technical help with the system.

Ask the agency

Every agency in the table above keeps another route, from Kentucky's written request to the Records Division in North Las Vegas. A report that is not on BuyCrash can still be on file there.

Opening a report you already bought

BuyCrash's home page has a box called Access a Previously Purchased Report. Enter the email address and the order number "associated with a report purchased in the last 30 days" and it brings back your order.

That window closes after 30 days, so save the PDF to your own device when you first download it and keep the order email.

Who may buy a report

Before you pay, BuyCrash asks you to select the use that best describes you. The question matters because many states limit who may have a crash report, and the limits differ.

Kentucky. The State Police page quotes the law: reports are made available to the parties, the parents or guardians of a minor who is a party, their insurers, their attorneys, a party to a lawsuit who files a clerk stamped complaint, the Department of Workplace Standards in some cases, law enforcement, and news gathering organizations that complete form KSP-29.

Georgia. GDOT's mail form asks you to tick a statement of need under O.C.G.A. 50-18-72(a)(5): a driver, an owner or lessee, an injured person or witness, an insurer, an attorney, a prosecutor or police officer, or a news media representative.

Texas. Houston's page says the H.B. 2633 requirements "must be met for online purchase under penalty of perjury, via questionnaire."

For the rules in other states, see our guide Are police reports public record?

Accounts for insurers, lawyers and other repeat buyers

One report at a time needs no account. Rhode Island State Police explain that buying several reports at once needs a subscriber account, set up through Business Account Login, and BuyCrash's home page offers businesses a monthly account. LexisNexis also sells insurers a separate service for ordering police records, covered on our LexisNexis page.

BuyCrash and the other report sites

BuyCrash is not the only site of its kind. The Nevada Highway Patrol, Reno police, Tucson police and the Washoe County Sheriff's Office post their reports on Crashdocs, whose site carries the CARFAX name, not LexisNexis. Each site holds only the reports its agencies post, so search the one the agency names.

Some states run their own sale instead, among them Florida, Ohio and Texas, where TxDOT's CRIS sells police crash reports from across the state.

Questions about BuyCrash