Missouri crash report: where to get your police copy

Who has your Missouri crash report

Missouri has no single store for crash reports. Each police agency releases the reports its own officers write, so the first question is who came to the crash: a state trooper, a city officer or a county officer. The Highway Patrol says as much on its official reports page, where requests for crashes worked by local police "are referred to the local agency."

Behind all of them sits one statewide rule. Under section 43.250, every officer who investigates a crash with an injury, a death or damage of five hundred dollars or more to one person sends a report to the Highway Patrol's superintendent within ten days. It does not make the Patrol the place to buy a city officer's report.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol

For a crash a trooper investigated, the Highway Patrol sells the report for $6.00. Since August 1, 2024, requests have been handled electronically: you open the Patrol's Public Records Center, choose Traffic Crash Report Request, and pay by credit or debit card, or by check or money order with a copy of the invoice. Cash is not accepted.

Wait 10 days from the date of the crash investigation before asking. The Patrol's crash reports page warns that it "is currently experiencing a backlog of crash reports", so the report may take longer to arrive. Requests can also go to any of its nine troop headquarters, or by mail to the Patrol Records Division, P.O. Box 568, Jefferson City, Missouri 65102.

Our Missouri State Highway Patrol page has every step, all nine troops with their phone numbers, which items cost extra, and what the four-page report contains.

St. Louis Metropolitan Police

In the City of St. Louis, crash reports come from the police department's Records Service Center, on the 1st floor of 1915 Olive Street, St. Louis, MO 63103. It is open Monday to Friday, 8 A.M. to 4 P.M., and the police reports line is 314-444-5551. The department's rule is short: "Involved parties may obtain copies of crash reports."

Three ways to ask

1. At the counterBring state-issued photo identification or a valid passport. Asking for someone else's report needs their notarized release.
2. Online, with express pick-upSubmit through the SLMPD Public Records portal and you are told when the report is ready to collect. A notary is not needed when you pick up your own records in person.
3. By mailSend form REC-91, the Request for Crash Report/Criminal Incident Report, to the Records Service Center. Mail and online requests must be notarized.

The form asks for the date of the incident, the complaint number, the names of the people involved, the type of incident and the location. It also asks how the person was involved: driver, passenger, pedestrian or property owner.

Attorneys and insurers

"Attorneys and Insurance companies are not eligible to access reports at the Service Center and must submit a Sunshine Request." The department's instructions ask for law firm or insurance company letterhead, the client or claimant's name, the purpose, the details of the incident and an original signature, and they strongly recommend the online portal. A request that misses those points gets "open records only."

Cost and payment

The Records Division says fees follow the Sunshine Law: copying at 10 cents a page plus the time to locate the report, at $15 per hour, prorated. "The cost of fulfilling a simple request for a police report is normally less than $5.00." The department's FAQ page still says "The fee for an accident report is $6.50", so be ready for either figure.

The records page also gives two answers on payment. One part lists "cash, money order or business check" and says no debit or credit cards are accepted. Its contact box lists credit and debit cards, cash and money orders, with extra service fees on electronic payments. Both refuse personal checks.

When it is ready

"Police Reports cannot be made available until they are completed and approved. For Crash Reports, this usually happens within 5 days." You can check whether yours is in by looking at the department's Daily Accident Report, described below.

St. Louis County Police

St. Louis County is a separate police department from the city's. Its Central Police Records Unit handles "sunshine requests for police records" at police headquarters, 7900 Forsyth Blvd, Clayton, MO 63105, in Room B-013, from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday, excluding holidays. The phone number is 314-615-5317.

The department's public information office says Sunshine requests must be sent online through recordsrequest.stlouiscountymo.gov or by mail to the Police Custodian of Records, Bureau of Central Police Records, at the same Forsyth Blvd address.

The department also posts a notarized application for a police traffic accident report. It asks for the complaint number, the location and date, and your reason, and you tick how you relate to the report: the victim, the perpetrator or suspect, a lawyer, a representative of an insurance company investigating or defending a civil suit, the vehicle owner, a family member, or news media. You can also authorize someone else to pick up the report. The county does not publish a fee on the pages we read.

Springfield Police

Springfield sells its accident reports online: "Accident reports can be obtained electronically through LexisNexis BuyCrash." The city asks you to allow 7 to 10 business days from the crash before the report is there, and it gives one tip that saves a lot of failed searches:

When searching for your case report, ensure there are five digits following the year. For example, 25-1 should be entered as 25-00001.

For a crash before March 1, 2012, the report comes from the police department itself. Go to the front desk at police headquarters, 321 East Chestnut Expressway, Springfield, MO 65802, with the report number and the $3 fee, or mail the report number and $3 to the same address. The phone number is 417-864-1810. How BuyCrash searches work, and what to do when a report is missing, is on our BuyCrash page.

Kansas City police

The Kansas City Missouri Police Department sells its crash reports online: "Traffic crash reports are available for purchase online through BuyCrash." You need the report number, a name and the date of the incident, and "the cost is $9 per report." For technical help with the system, the department gives 866-495-4206, extension 4.

Other records, such as police reports and videos, go through a LexisNexis Request a Report form, in person or by mail. In person, call 816-234-5100 to check that the report is ready, then go to any patrol division station with photo identification. By mail, write to the Kansas City Missouri Police Department, Attn: Criminal Records Section, 1125 Locust, Kansas City, MO 64106, with a self-addressed, stamped envelope and a check payable to the Board of Police Commissioners.

The department is plain about the queue. It says reports are available to the public 20 business days from the date of the incident, that the turnaround for requests by mail "has increased to 24 weeks", and that online requests through Request a Report take 12 to 16 weeks. The Criminal Records Section answers at 816-234-5100 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. on weekdays, archived reports from before 1999 are only available at headquarters, and attorneys and insurers have their own request form, Form 120.

Other cities and counties

Everywhere else, the city police department or the county sheriff that sent the officer has the report. Write to its records office, give the date, the place and the names, and say that you are asking under Missouri's Sunshine Law. If you were involved, say so, because that changes what you can see, as the next sections explain.

Free crash lists online

The Highway Patrol and St. Louis police publish short crash summaries for free. Neither is the official report, but a listing tells you the agency has the crash on file.

St. Louis police ask you to "allow three business days after the accident has occurred before trying to access the accident information online," and send you to the Records Division for older accidents or an official report. The Highway Patrol's list leaves out crashes without injuries and those city or county officers worked.

Who may get a Missouri crash report

Missouri's Sunshine Law, section 610.100, makes incident reports open records, and it counts logs of reported accidents among them. So anyone may ask. What changes is how much you see.

The public. A 2005 court decision noted on the statute page held that license plate numbers, addresses, telephone numbers and the month and date of birth of the people in a vehicle crash report are not open records, and that an agency may black them out.

People involved. A person involved in a crash, or whose property was involved, can on written request "obtain a complete unaltered and unedited incident report." So can a parent or guardian of a minor, a family member within the first degree of kinship if the person has died or is incompetent, and the person's attorney or insurer. The agency has thirty days to provide it or go to court.

St. Louis police spell out who counts. "An involved person is someone named in a police report as a victim, witness, suspect, passenger, driver or property owner; it also includes their attorneys and insurance companies." A close relative can step in if the person has died or is incompetent, and the department adds that reports "cannot be given in-person to non-involved persons."

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

What a Missouri crash report costs

For how Missouri compares with the rest of the country, see what a police report costs.

How long it takes

• Highway Patrol: wait 10 days before asking. The Patrol warns of a backlog and says processing times vary.
• St. Louis police: "The earliest you can expect a report to be available is 5 days after the incident occurred," and some reports take longer.
• Springfield police: allow 7 to 10 business days before the report is on BuyCrash.
• Kansas City police: reports are available to the public 20 business days from the date of the incident, and requests by mail now take about 24 weeks.

If no officer came

St. Louis police list the cases in which, they say, state law requires a police report: a death or injury, government property, a Metro bus, a vehicle that left the scene, or property damage "in excess of $500 to any one person." Missouri's section 303.040 adds a written report to the Director of Revenue within thirty days after certain crashes involving an uninsured motorist, or by a driver or owner with no liability insurance. Our guide to a minor accident with no police report covers the rest.

If the report is wrong

For a Highway Patrol report, "any party involved in the crash, or their attorney, can contact the Highway Patrol troop headquarters of the officer investigating the crash to question any part of the report." For a city or county report, call the records office of the agency that wrote it and ask how it handles corrections.

Missouri pages on this site

• AgencyMissouri State Highway PatrolRequest a trooper's crash report online for $6.00, when to ask, which troop has it, and the Patrol's free list of recent injury crashes.

Questions about Missouri crash reports