How to get a car accident report in Louisiana

Where to get the report

• Louisiana State Police (crashes worked by troopers) $11.50 online plus fees; $16.50 at Troop

  State Police sells its crash reports through the LSP Statewide Crash Reports and Photos site (crashreports.dps.la.gov), which holds only crashes worked by Louisiana State Police; crashes worked by city police or a sheriff are not there. Search by crash report number (8 or 11 digits), or by the driver’s first and last name, the parish and the crash date; the site also offers a real time search by case number, driver license number, plate number or involved party last name. LSP’s Traffic Records Unit and its request form say each report bought online costs $11.50 plus $2.50 + 2.5%, by Visa, MasterCard, American Express or Discover, and the portal says a desktop or laptop is required (not a phone). In person: reports can also be bought at any LSP Troop office with the Crash Report Request Form (DPSSP 3125), for $16.50 by certified check, company check or money order, or by credit card ($16.50 plus $2.50 + 2.5%); personal checks and cash are not accepted at Troops. Fatal crash reports are not available online and can only be bought in person at a Troop office (Traffic Records Unit page; DPS public records FAQ). The portal says certified copies of a report can only be bought by mail and certified photographs only through Traffic Records/Photo Lab, without giving the mailing address on the pages we read; the Traffic Records Unit page gives the Photo Lab at P.O. Box 66614 (Box A-27), Baton Rouge, LA 70896, fax (225) 925-4922, phone 225-925-6216. Photos: the portal lists $10.00 per photo plus a convenience fee, and LSP says fatal crashes have a sixty day wait before photo requests can be submitted. If you cannot find the report, the portal says to email LSP Traffic Records and to ask the responding Troop about its content.

  Official page

• City police or parish sheriff that responded Ask that agency; capped at $5 or $20

  By law, reportable crashes inside a city or town are investigated by that city’s police and those outside one by the State Police or the sheriff (La. R.S. 32:398(B)), and the report is owned by the agency that created it (32:398(D)(3)), so ask the agency that worked your crash. The state police, any local police department and any sheriff’s office must provide copies of crash reports and may charge no more than $5 for a report of up to two pages and no more than $20, inclusive of all service fees and other charges, for a longer report; if the State Police sets a lesser charge for electronic copies, local police and sheriffs must charge that amount for electronic copies (32:398(D)(1), (2)). A third-party vendor under contract with an agency may sell individual reports for it (32:398(D)(3)). Example, New Orleans Police Department only: its Police Report Requests page links Online Accident Reports through the city’s NextRequest portal and takes requests in person at the Records and Identification Division, 1615 Poydras St., Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.; its posted fee schedule lists $5.00 for a photostat of an official police accident report and a $15.00 accident report processing fee, accepts cash or personal check, gives a mail address of 715 S. Broad St., New Orleans, LA 70119, Attn: Record Room, and says that where state law imposes a different maximum fee, that maximum is charged.

  Official page

When you must report a crash in Louisiana

Injury, death or over $500: call police

Call police right away: the driver of a vehicle in a crash resulting in injury to or death of any person, or property damage in excess of five hundred dollars, must immediately give notice of the crash to the local police department if the crash is within an incorporated city or town, or, outside an incorporated city or town, to the nearest sheriff’s office or state police station (La. R.S. 32:398(A)(1)). The same driver must give his name, address and the registration number of the vehicle he was driving, and on request and if available show his license, to anyone injured and to the driver, occupant or person attending any vehicle or other property damaged in the crash, and give the same information to any police officer at the scene or investigating (32:398(A)(2), (3)). If the crash happens in an area under an evacuation order or a declared state of emergency, the notice and exchange duties in Paragraphs (1) and (2) must be met within seventy-two hours after the crash (32:398(A)(4)). The state police or the sheriff must investigate reportable crashes outside a city or town, and the city or town police must investigate those inside it; the investigating officer must tell each driver to give every injured or damaged party the owner’s and driver’s names and addresses, the plate number, and the liability insurer plus the name, address and phone number of the agent who sold the policy (32:398(B)). Move your car: “if the driver is not prevented by injury and the vehicle is not disabled by the accident, or the accident has not resulted in serious injury or death of any person,” the driver must move the vehicle from the travel lane of the highway to the nearest safe shoulder, and doing so is not a violation of the duty to remain at the scene (32:141(D)). Hit and run: intentionally failing to stop at the scene of any accident (an event causing damage to property or injury to a person), give your identity and render reasonable aid is a crime; giving your identity means giving your name, address and plate number, or reporting the accident to the police (La. R.S. 14:100(A), (B)(1), (3)). We found no separate Louisiana statute on striking an unattended vehicle: § 14:100 reaches any accident that damages property, and its identity duty can be met by reporting the accident to the police. With no death or serious bodily injury the penalty is a fine of up to $500, up to six months, or both, and any jail term must be at least ten days when there is evidence the driver consumed alcohol or drugs before the accident, that this contributed to it, and that the driver failed to stop, give his identity or render aid knowing it could affect a criminal investigation or proceeding (14:100(C)(1)); when death or serious bodily injury is a direct result of the accident, the driver knew or should have known it, and the driver’s vehicle was directly involved, up to $5,000 or two to ten years, two of them without parole, probation or suspension of sentence, or both; and five to twenty years when death or serious bodily injury results, the driver knew or should have known of the accident, and the driver has two or more impaired driving convictions within ten years or a prior conviction for vehicular homicide, vehicular negligent injuring or first degree vehicular negligent injuring; for a pedestrian or bicyclist victim, at least two or five years of those sentences are served without parole, probation or suspension (14:100(C)(2), (3), as amended by 2026 Act 890, effective August 1, 2026; 2026 Act 86, same date, added the bail and law enforcement notification rules in Subsection (D)). Penalty for the reporting duty itself: § 32:398 sets none, so the Highway Regulatory Act’s general penalty applies unless otherwise specifically provided: a fine of up to $175, up to thirty days, or both for a first violation, and up to $500, up to ninety days, or both for a later one (La. R.S. 32:57(A)(1)). The legislature’s site notes that § 32:57 was included in the March 14, 2016 Unconstitutional Statutes Biennial Report; that Louisiana State Law Institute report concerns Subsection (G), the $5 additional cost for citations on the Huey P. Long and Lake Pontchartrain Causeway bridges (State v. Lanclos, La. 2008), not the general penalty in Subsection (A). Below the $500 threshold, with no injury, § 32:398 does not require a call to police, though the hit-and-run statute still requires you to stop and give your identity. Cities and parishes may have their own ordinances, which we did not survey. No driver report: we found no statute requiring an ordinary driver to file a crash report with the Office of Motor Vehicles. The operator of a vehicle in a crash with death, injury or property damage “may report” to the commissioner a claim for property damage and injury on a form that declares the vehicle’s insurance (La. R.S. 32:871(A)); OMV uses that report, the Safety Responsibility Claim Form (DPSMV 3011), against an uninsured driver or owner who was at fault, and its policy says claims must be filed within one year and one day of the accident. Subsection (D) adds that when the damage is to property owned by the state, the report “shall be submitted if the amount of damage exceeds fifty dollars”; we found no OMV page explaining who must submit it.

What the report costs

Max $5 up to 2 pages, $20 longer

The statute sets the ceiling for every agency: the state police, any local police department or any sheriff’s office may charge no more than $5 for a crash report that does not exceed two pages, and no more than $20, inclusive of all service fees and other charges, for a report that exceeds two pages (La. R.S. 32:398(D)(1)). If the State Police establishes a lesser charge for electronic copies, local police and sheriffs must charge that amount for electronic copies (32:398(D)(2)). Photographs, video and audio recordings and documents on electronic media may be charged at a reasonable fee (32:398(E)). State Police prices, from its own pages: $11.50 per report online plus $2.50 + 2.5%; $16.50 at a Troop office by certified check, company check or money order, or $16.50 plus $2.50 + 2.5% by credit card; $10.00 per crash photo online plus a convenience fee. LSP’s pages do not say how its flat price relates to the statute’s $5 tier for reports of two pages or fewer. Example, New Orleans Police Department only: its fee schedule lists $5.00 per accident report copy and a $15.00 accident report processing fee. Other city and parish agencies set their own fees within the statutory cap.

When the report is ready

LSP: 10 to 15 or more business days

The investigating agency must send a copy of the report or its data to the Department of Transportation and Development within forty-eight hours after completing the investigation, and inside a city or town also to that city’s police department (La. R.S. 32:398(C)). On request, crash reports must be made available to the eligible people within seven working days following the completion of the crash investigation (32:398(I)(1)(a)). State Police estimates differ by page: its request form says to allow approximately 10 to 15 business days after the crash, the portal home page says reports are available 10 to 15 business days after the crash or once approved (with search fulfillment taking from same day to about a week), the portal FAQ says approximately 15 or more business days, and the Traffic Records Unit page says to allow fifteen working days before requesting. Retention: the portal says that under the LSP record retention schedule, reports and photos of crashes worked by State Police are stored on the website as far back as five years from the current date. Local agencies set their own timing; we found no statewide retention period for local crash reports.

Who can get a copy

Parties, insurers, lawyers, some media

Crash reports and the information in them are confidential, are exempt from the Public Records Law (R.S. 44:1 et seq.), and may be made available only to: the parties to the crash; parents or guardians of a minor who is a party; insurers of any party who is the subject of the report, or an insurance support organization under contract to provide claims and underwriting for one; any health care provider, or its agent, that treated a party; the succession representatives of the parties; the attorneys of the parties or succession representatives; and a news-gathering organization that requests documents about a specific crash (La. R.S. 32:398(I)(1)(a)). A news-gathering organization means a newspaper or news publication (printed or electronic) published for at least one year that can document membership in a statewide or national press association, or a radio or television station, cable operator or wire service, acting through an employee who can document that employment (32:398(I)(1)(c)). Agents, governmental institutions and insurance institutions are not insurance support organizations (32:398(I)(1)(b)(iii)). The State Police portal repeats this list for fatal crash reports. The reports may also be used for statistics and by the Office of Motor Vehicles for driving records (32:398(I)(2), (4)). Solicitation: officers who investigate a crash must give each person named in the report a form on which the person can refuse solicitation by specific businesses (including attorneys, health care providers, repair shops and insurers) or by all businesses; once filed with the report it is a public record, and soliciting someone against it is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, up to six months, or both (La. R.S. 32:397.1(C) to (H)).

What to do now

1. 1

   Call police if anyone is hurt or damage tops $500

   Inside a city or town, call the city police; outside, the sheriff or nearest State Police station. If you are not hurt, the car can be driven and no one is seriously hurt, move it to the nearest safe shoulder.

2. 2

   Get the report number and agency

   State Police searches use the 8 or 11 digit crash report number, or the driver’s name, parish and crash date. Note which agency worked the crash.

3. 3

   Request the report after about 15 business days

   Buy State Police reports online or at a Troop office (fatal crashes only at a Troop). For city or sheriff reports, ask that agency; the law caps the fee at $5 for up to two pages and $20 for longer reports.

4. 4

   Request video separately, now

   Video is not part of the crash report. Send a public records request to the agency today, and post the crash on the bounty board for dashcam and business camera footage.

Frequently asked questions