New York Vehicle & Traffic Law Section 603 - Accidents; police authorities and coroners to report.

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, 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 or motorcycle accidents. 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.


Last modified: February 3, 2019