New York Police Reports: How to Get a Crash Report, Incident Report, or Bodycam Video

New York has three separate crash-report channels, not one, and the most common question a reader brings to this page has a surprising answer: for many minor crashes, no police-prepared report exists to request at all. New York only requires a report to be filed once a crash crosses a specific damage or injury threshold, and below that line, the law expects drivers to exchange information at the scene and nothing more.

This guide covers all three channels, the state DMV, New York City and other local departments under the state's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), and the separate New York State Thruway Authority, plus how bodycam access works now that Executive Law section 234 turns out to be a mandate statute rather than a disclosure statute.

Information last verified on 2026-08-11. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

This guide is part of a broader look at police reports by state. For the filing side rather than requesting a copy, see how to file a police report.

Getting a New York Crash Report

New York runs three separate crash-report channels, and knowing which one applies matters before requesting anything.

The DMV channel, and the reporting threshold that decides whether a report exists at all. A driver-filed report, form MV-104, is only legally required where a crash meets a threshold set out in Vehicle and Traffic Law section 605, and that section draws a line between motor vehicles and human-powered or scooter traffic. Under section 605(a), the driver of a motor vehicle must report where a person is injured or killed, or where damage to the property of any one person, including the reporting driver's own property, exceeds $1,000. Under section 605(b), a person operating an electric scooter or a bicycle must report an accident on a public highway in which any person is killed, other than the operator, or suffers serious physical injury as defined in subdivision ten of section 10.00 of the Penal Law. Two details in subsection (b) are easy to get wrong: it reaches an ordinary bicycle, not only an e-bike, and its injury trigger is the elevated "serious physical injury" standard rather than any injury, and it does not count the operator's own death. Below the applicable threshold, New York expects drivers simply to exchange license, insurance, and registration information at the scene, and no report of any kind gets filed with the state. That means a reader searching for "my police report" after a minor, no-injury fender-bender may be looking for a document that was never legally required to exist.

Where a threshold-crossing crash was investigated by police, a police-prepared report, form MV-104A outside New York City or MV-104AN inside it, becomes purchasable once DMV has processed it. The primary channel is the online Order Crash Reports Online portal at getcrashreports.dmv.ny.gov, which requires an NY.gov ID and charges a $7.00 search fee plus $15.00 per report; the report downloads immediately as a PDF and stays accessible for 7 calendar days before a repurchase is required. An alternative, the Records Request Navigator, uses a DMV agent to assist the search and charges a $10.00 search fee plus $15.00 per report. A mail option, form MV-198C sent to NYSDMV, MV-198C Processing, 6 Empire State Plaza, Albany, NY 12228, uses the same $10.00 search fee plus $15.00 per report fee as the Records Request Navigator, for a total of $25.00 per report, and takes at least 5 business days to process once received. DMV's own ordering page is direct about the threshold trap: reports of crashes where no one was hurt and where there was no property damage over $1,000 in value are not available for search or sale, since in that scenario there is often no police-prepared report because none was ever required to be filed. The same page also carves e-bike and e-scooter crashes out of the online transaction entirely and routes them to the Records Request Navigator or a mailed MV-198C.

The Thruway channel. Crashes on the New York State Thruway system, meaning I-87 south of Albany, I-90 west of Albany including the Berkshire Spur, I-190, and the Westchester portions of I-287 and I-95, are handled separately from DMV. The Thruway Authority's own request form, TA-W4310, titled "Request for Copy of Police Accident Report," is submitted directly to the Thruway Authority. The Thruway Authority's page did not display a fee at the time this article was researched; a figure of $15.00 circulates but was not independently confirmed on the agency's own page, so confirm the current fee directly before submitting a Thruway request.

The DMV purchase channel runs on the Vehicle and Traffic Law rather than on FOIL. Police file the crash report with the commissioner of motor vehicles under Vehicle and Traffic Law section 603, and Vehicle and Traffic Law section 202 sets the price of getting a copy back out: $15.00 for a copy of an accident report, plus a $10.00 manual search fee or a $7.00 direct-entry or electronic search fee. DMV's ordering page states no eligibility tier, but it does require the requester to certify that they are legally authorized to obtain the report. Public Officers Law section 66-a governs a different channel: it applies to accident reports kept or maintained by the state police or by the police department or force of a county, city, town, village, or other district, and it opens those reports to the inspection of any person having an interest in them, or that person's attorney or agent. That phrase is a limit on who may inspect, not a guarantee of access for any requester, and the same section lets an agency withhold a report where disclosure would interfere with an investigation or prosecution arising from the accident.

Getting a New York Incident Report

New York's general access statute is the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL), Public Officers Law section 87. Section 87(2)(e) is the harm-based law enforcement exemption an agency can invoke: it allows an agency to deny access to records compiled for law enforcement purposes to the extent disclosure would interfere with an investigation or judicial proceeding, deprive someone of a fair trial, identify a confidential source or expose a confidential investigative technique, or otherwise cause one of the exemption's listed harms. It is a harm-based test, not a blanket law-enforcement shield, meaning an agency has to point to an actual consequence of disclosure rather than the mere fact that a record touches an investigation.

For a New York City incident report specifically, NYPD's own reports and records page could not be independently reached during this article's research, so this guide does not publish NYPD-specific fee or timeline figures as verified facts. Outside New York City, a general incident report request goes to the responding department's own records unit under the same FOIL framework.

New York Bodycam Footage

New York's statewide bodycam statute, Executive Law section 234, created the New York State Police body-worn cameras program to increase accountability and evidence for law enforcement and residents of the state. That is a mandate and program-creation statute. It does not itself set public disclosure rules, retention schedules for public-access purposes, or release standards. New York also has no single statewide municipal bodycam mandate; New York City Police Department equips and governs its own cameras under an internal Patrol Guide procedure, a department policy rather than a state statute.

Because Executive Law section 234 does not address access, requests for New York bodycam footage run through the same general FOIL exemption, Public Officers Law section 87(2)(e), covered above for incident reports. Commentary widely credits the June 2020 repeal of Civil Rights Law section 50-a, which had previously shielded police personnel records including some disciplinary and camera-adjacent material from FOIL, as the reason bodycam footage is now treated as a standard FOIL-accessible record rather than a categorically shielded file; this article treats that history as well-corroborated background rather than a verbatim-verified statutory mechanism.

For NYPD specifically, requests for bodycam footage go to FOIL@NYPD.ORG, or for case-related requests, to the Legal Bureau's Body-Worn Camera Unit, with specific incident details required. A New York City Comptroller audit, independently confirmed for this article, found that NYPD systematically fails to meet its own FOIL deadlines for body-worn camera footage requests, a real enforcement gap worth knowing about before requesting NYPD video. For the general bodycam request framework across states, see how to request bodycam footage and New York bodycam laws.

The Free-Exchange-Versus-Paid-Report Trap

New York's MV-104 threshold is the state's version of a distinction that trips up readers in every state: the difference between a free roadside exchange of information and a paid police-prepared report. Below section 605(a)'s injury or $1,000 property damage line for motor vehicles, and below section 605(b)'s narrower trigger for a bicycle or electric scooter operator, meaning the death of someone other than the operator or a serious physical injury, there is no MV-104 filing requirement and, as a result, nothing to purchase later. Only the informal roadside exchange happens, and it produces no DMV or police document of any kind. A reader who cannot find a report for a minor crash is not necessarily looking in the wrong place; there may genuinely be nothing to find. See how to read a police report for how to interpret a report once one does exist.

Related Resources

Police Reports by State covers the national picture. See also How to File a Police Report, Are Police Reports Public?, New York Bodycam Laws, New York Car Accident Laws, New York Public Records Laws, and New York Court Records.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about how to request New York crash reports, incident reports, and bodycam footage. It is not legal advice. Fees, portals, and agency response times change; verify current details with the New York DMV, the New York State Thruway Authority, the relevant local department, or a licensed New York attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-11. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of August 2026.