How to get an Apex crash report

The Apex Police Department Records Office releases copies of Apex crash reports. The department's online report feature is currently unavailable, so a request goes in by email, by mail, by fax or in person.

What does the Apex Records Office need?

The department lists four details for a report request.

• The report number
• The date of the incident
• The names of the parties involved
• The officer's name

A person without the report number can call (919) 249-3460. The department says a records clerk will help locate the report.

The department asks requesters to allow 10 days for a report to become available, and the page does not say whether that period runs from the crash or from the request. Its Records Office page does not list a fee for copies.

How do you send the request in Apex?

• Email. records@apexnc.org, with the four details above
• In person. The Apex Police Department at 205 Saunders Street, Apex, NC 27502, where office hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Mail. A letter to the department carrying the same details
• Fax. (919) 387-3056

The department's separate Records Request Form is for other material, such as call logs and 911 calls. Its page does not list crash reports among those records, so a crash report request goes through the steps above.

Where does a trooper's or deputy's report come from?

Outside the Apex town limits, G.S. 20-166.1 makes the State Highway Patrol or the county sheriff the agency. That covers stretches of US 1 and US 64 beyond the town line, along with roads just outside the town's Chatham County edge.

The 2024 extension of Toll NC 540 begins at the NC 55 Bypass in Apex, according to NCDOT. The Turnpike Authority's Toll Safety Patrol assigns dedicated Highway Patrol officers to that road.

A trooper's report comes from NCDMV and not from the Apex Records Office. The Patrol says reports from every law enforcement agency in the state end up at NCDMV, and it lists 919-861-3098 for copies of crash reports.

NCDMV's Form TR-67A carries the request. It asks for the name of the driver and the driver license number as well as the date and county of the crash, and an individual receives a redacted copy. The requester's own name, phone number, address and identification go on the form as well. NCDMV lists the DMV-349 Crash Report Form among its documents for law enforcement.

In person, NCDMV takes the form at Raleigh Central Services, 4121 New Bern Ave., where it says to use the door marked Vehicle Registration rather than Driver License. It also takes in-person requests at its Huntersville License Plate Agency, 12101 Mt. Holly-Huntersville Road, and fills requests of five records or fewer on the spot. Individuals cannot order online. A mailed form goes to 3106 Mail Service Center in Raleigh with a check or money order payable to NCDMV, and NCDMV asks for 10 business days from receipt to process it.

The state's published figures for that fee conflict with each other, so this page does not state an amount.

How long does the officer have, and is the report public?

The officer has 24 hours from the crash to write the report under G.S. 20-166.1. A local department forwards its report to NCDMV within 10 days of receiving it.

The statute makes officer reports public records. A report written by a driver is not a public record, and the statute bars its use as evidence at a trial.

A death within 12 months of the crash, of someone the crash injured, calls for a supplemental report from the investigating officer when the original report did not include the death.

The statute also puts a duty on the driver. A driver in a reportable crash has to notify the appropriate agency immediately by the quickest means available, and inside Apex that agency is the Apex Police Department.

Adjusters in this state read a crash report looking for anything that suggests the injured person shared the fault. The page on contributory negligence explains why that question carries so much weight here.

How I work with Apex clients is on the Apex crash attorney page. The town's 2024 count is on the Apex crash statistics page.