How to get a Garner crash report

The Garner Police Department posts its crash reports in an online Crash Report Database, and NCDMV is where a report a trooper wrote is requested. Which route you use depends on whether a Garner officer or a trooper worked the crash.

How does the Garner Police online database work?

The department's page is titled Search for Crash Reports and opens with a welcome to the Garner Police Department's Crash Report Database. It returns an electronic copy of a report.

The search takes four fields. The page asks you to search using at least one of them.

• Report number
• Date of crash
• Driver's name
• Street name

If the officer gave you a report number, start with that. Without it, any one of the other three fields can start a search.

For a question the database does not answer, the department lists a Records Manager at 919-772-8810, extension 6075. Police Administration is at 912 7th Ave. in Garner and is open Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

What if a trooper or deputy worked the crash?

A crash just outside the Garner town line belongs to the State Highway Patrol or the Wake County Sheriff's Office under G.S. 20-166.1. A trooper can also work a crash on I-40 or US 70 inside the town, since G.S. 143B-1716 directs the Patrol to regularly patrol the highways of the State. The Highway Patrol states that crash reports investigated by every law enforcement agency in North Carolina are forwarded to NCDMV, so NCDMV is where a trooper's report is requested.

The officer writes the report on the state crash form. NCDMV publishes that form for law enforcement as the DMV-349 Crash Report Form.

The request itself goes on Form TR-67A, titled Request for Motor Vehicle Information. The revision NCDMV posts is dated July 1, 2024. It asks for the driver's name, the date of the crash, the county of the crash and a driver license number.

NCDMV takes in-person requests at Raleigh Central Services, 4121 New Bern Ave., and at an office in Huntersville. For the Raleigh location NCDMV says to use the door marked Vehicle Registration and not Driver License. It also says a customer requesting five records or fewer in person can receive them immediately.

NCDMV releases a redacted report to an individual, with names and addresses hidden. Individuals cannot order online through NCDMV. NCDMV sets the fee for a copy. The Highway Patrol's crash report page lists 919-861-3098 as the number to call about a request, and it gives the NCDOT-DMV Traffic Records Section at 3106 Mail Service Center in Raleigh as the mailing address.

When is the report written, and who can see it?

G.S. 20-166.1 sets the clock on the officer's side. The investigating officer writes the report within 24 hours of the crash. A local agency that receives the report forwards it to NCDMV within 10 days.

If a person injured in the crash dies from it within 12 months, the investigating officer files a supplemental report that includes the death.

The statute makes reports by law enforcement officers public records, open to inspection by the general public at all reasonable times.

What if no officer came to the scene?

The statute puts the first step on the driver. G.S. 20-166.1 requires the driver of a vehicle in a reportable crash to notify the appropriate law enforcement agency immediately, by the quickest means of communication.

Notice is what starts the officer's work. The same section directs the appropriate agency to investigate a reportable crash, and inside Garner that agency is the Garner Police Department.

A report a driver writes alone is a different document. The statute says a report made by someone other than a law enforcement officer is for NCDMV's use and cannot be used as evidence at a trial arising from the crash.

Why does the report matter to the claim?

The report is the officer's written account of the crash, made within a day of it under the statute.

I get upset with the way that insurance adjusters treat unrepresented injured people. Reading the report before you talk to the other driver's insurer keeps you from answering questions about a document you have not seen.

The guide to the first days after a crash covers what to check once the report arrives. The Garner crash attorney page covers how I work with Garner clients from Graham, and the Garner crash statistics show the town's 2024 count.