Utah Police Report: How to Get a Crash Report, Incident Report, or Body Camera Video

Utah runs crash reports and most other Utah Highway Patrol record requests through one shared system: a GovQA online portal. That is a more centralized model than most states in this batch, which typically separate a state DOT crash-report channel from a local police department's own incident-report process.

Utah law is also unusually explicit about body camera video, though the rule that folds crash footage into the report sits in the traffic code rather than in the public records act. Utah Code 41-6a-404, the motor vehicle statute governing accident reports, writes camera video connected to a crash directly into its definition of an accident report. The Government Records Access and Management Act separately addresses bodycam footage recorded inside health care settings, and a third statute, the Body-Worn Camera Act, carries its own release route for the most serious encounters.

Information last verified on 2026-08-10. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Getting a Copy of a Utah Crash Report

Utah Highway Patrol crash reports are requested through a GovQA portal at publicsafetyutah.govqa.us, reached from UHP's own get-crash-police-report and online-accident-reports pages. The process requires creating an account, verifying identity, and submitting what is known about the crash, typically the date, location, and case number. UHP emails a notification once the report is ready to download.

UHP's public pages do not post a specific dollar figure for the base report fee, and there is no statutory per-page rate to fall back on. Utah Code 41-6a-404(7) lets the department and the responsible law enforcement agency charge a reasonable fee determined under Section 63J-1-504 for the cost of disclosing an accident report and its accompanying data. GRAMA's own fee provision, Utah Code 63G-2-203(1)(a), authorizes only a reasonable fee covering an agency's actual cost of providing a record, with the amounts set through the budget process, by ordinance, or by rule of the judicial council. Confirm the current amount directly through the GovQA portal or by contacting Utah Highway Patrol before submitting a request.

The statute behind this process, Utah Code 41-6a-404, protects accident reports "for the confidential use of the department or other state, local, or federal agencies" and limits general disclosure to statistical form that protects the privacy of the people involved. That default is not the rule that applies to the people in the crash. Subsection (3)(a) requires the department or the responsible law enforcement agency to disclose an unredacted accident report to a person involved in the accident, excluding a witness, to a person suffering loss or injury in the accident, and to that person's agent, parent, or legal guardian. The statute defines "agent" to include the person's attorney engaged in anticipation of litigation or in active litigation, the person's insurer, and anyone else holding the person's signed permission.

That right comes with a deadline and two limits. On a written request, Subsection (3)(b)(i)(B) gives the responsible agency 10 business days from receipt to disclose the accident report and its accompanying data. The agency may withhold the report and its accompanying data if disclosure would jeopardize an ongoing criminal investigation or prosecution, and it may redact an individual's phone number or address where releasing that information could endanger the person's life or physical safety.

The statute's definition of an accident report is also broad enough to include body camera and dash camera video tied to the crash, listing "any accompanying photograph, body camera video, dash camera video, and supplemental report" among the materials an accident report may include. That is why UHP treats crash-connected camera footage as part of the same record rather than as a separate release category.

Getting a Copy of a Utah Police Incident Report

A non-crash incident report, covering an arrest, a burglary, or another police response, is also requested through GovQA in Utah Highway Patrol's case, since UHP routes essentially all of its record requests, not just crash reports, through that single intake channel. A local city or county police department, by contrast, typically runs its own separate records request process rather than sharing UHP's portal.

The legal basis for withholding or releasing incident-report content is the Government Records Access and Management Act, GRAMA. Utah Code 63G-2-305 lists Utah's protected records, and subsection (10) is the law-enforcement and investigatory-records exemption, covering records "created or maintained for civil, criminal, or administrative enforcement purposes" whose release could reasonably interfere with an active investigation, discipline, licensing, or similar enforcement process. As in most states, that exemption is discretionary rather than absolute, so an agency's response depends on whether the underlying matter is closed and how sensitive the specific content is.

Utah Body Camera Footage

Utah has more than one statute on body camera video, and it helps to keep them separate. Utah Code Title 77, Chapter 7a is the state's dedicated Body-Worn Camera Act. Most of it governs when an officer must activate a camera and how an agency's use policy is structured, but Section 77-7a-107, captioned "Retention and release of recordings," also carries release rules of its own.

Section 77-7a-107(3) is the most direct route to the most serious footage. A person may request that a law enforcement agency release a recording of an incident between an officer and an individual that resulted in death or serious bodily injury, or during which an officer fired a weapon. The agency must direct the records custodian holding the recording to release it within 10 days after one of three triggers: the prosecuting agency declines to file a criminal action; charges are filed, the judge is notified of the request, and the judge determines that release would not have a substantial likelihood of prejudicing a finder of fact; or, if more than 10 days have already passed since either of those events, the day the agency receives the request. Subsection (3)(e) states that GRAMA does not apply to that subsection at all, so this is a standalone statutory right rather than a records request. One limit matters in practice: the agency may not release the recording if an individual injured in the incident, or an immediate family member of someone injured or killed in it, has asked that it not be publicly distributed.

Outside that provision, Section 77-7a-107(2)(a) routes the release of officer recordings back through GRAMA. Subsection (2)(b) adds a procedural shortcut there: a person denied access to a recording solely under Subsection 63G-2-305(10)(b) or (c), because of a pending criminal action already filed in court, may appeal immediately to a district court under Section 63G-2-404.

GRAMA also carries a body-camera-specific protection of its own at Utah Code 63G-2-305(64). It protects an "audio or video recording created by a body-worn camera" that records sound or images inside a hospital or health care facility, with an important exception: that protection does not apply to "recordings that depict the commission of an alleged crime" or that "record any encounter . . . that results in death or bodily injury." Footage from an ordinary traffic stop or public encounter is not covered by this hospital-specific carve-out at all; it falls under GRAMA's general law-enforcement exemption at 63G-2-305(10) instead, the same discretionary standard covering other incident reports.

For a broader comparison across states and the general request process, see How to Request Body Cam Footage and Utah Body Camera Laws.

Related Resources

Police Reports by State covers the full 50-state picture. See also How to File a Police Report, How to Read a Police Report, Are Police Reports Public?, Utah Body Camera Laws, Utah Car Accident Laws, Utah Public Records Laws, and Utah Court Records.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about how to request police crash reports, incident reports, and body camera footage in Utah. It is not legal advice. Fees, portals, and statutes change; confirm current details with Utah Highway Patrol, the responding agency, or a Utah attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-10. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of August 2026.