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Vehicle and Traffic Law § 603 · Article 22. Accidents and Accident Reports

Accidents; police authorities and coroners to report

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — Law content up to date as of October 30, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)

§ 603. Accidents; police authorities and coroners to report. 1. Every police or judicial officer to whom an accident resulting in injury to a person shall have been reported, pursuant to the foregoing provisions of this chapter or pursuant to the provisions of sections twelve hundred forty or twelve hundred forty-one of this chapter involving a bicycle with electric assist or pursuant to the provisions of sections twelve hundred eighty-seven or twelve hundred eighty-eight of this chapter, shall immediately investigate the facts, or cause the same to be investigated, and report the matter to the commissioner forthwith; provided, however, that the report of the accident is made to the police officer or judicial officer within five days after such accident. Every coroner, or other official performing like functions, shall likewise make a report to the commissioner with respect to all deaths found to have been the result of motor vehicle, motorcycle, electric scooter, or bicycle with electric assist accidents. Such report shall include information regarding the type or types of vehicles involved, including passenger motor vehicles, commercial motor vehicles, motorcycles, limited use motorcycles, off-highway motorcycles, electric scooters, bicycles with electric assist and/or bicycles. Such report shall include information on the width and length of trucks, tractors, trailers and semitrailers, which are in excess of ninety-five inches in width or thirty-four feet in length and which are involved in such accidents, whether such accident took place in a work area and whether it was being operated with an overweight or overdimension permit. Such report shall distinctly indicate and include information as to whether the inflatable restraint system inflated and deployed. Nothing contained in this subdivision shall be deemed to preclude a police officer from reporting any other accident which, in the judgment of such police officer, would be required to be reported to the commissioner by the operator of a vehicle pursuant to section six hundred five of this article.

2. In addition to the requirements of subdivision one of this section, every police officer or judicial officer to whom an accident shall have been reported involving a commercial vehicle as defined in either subdivision four of section five hundred one-a or subdivision one of section five hundred nine-p of this chapter shall immediately investigate the facts, or cause the same to be investigated and report the matter to the commissioner forthwith, provided that the report of the accident is made to the police officer or judicial officer within five days after such accident, whenever such accident has resulted in (i) a vehicle being towed from the accident scene as the result of incurring disabling damage, (ii) a fatality, or (iii) any individual being transported to a medical facility to receive treatment as the result of physical injury sustained in the accident.

Source of truth

Edition
Law content up to date as of October 30, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
Official file
https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/VAT603
Text hash
sha256 d9d1dc07f5f7a1c52ff0ff1c5db5367bb3408191c06702d0c382fdc646f58d23
Composed by
gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.