Indiana Accident Report: A Public Record With a $5 Minimum, a Banned Crash Tax, and the New $2,500 Line (2026)

Indiana crash reports are public records, so you do not have to prove who you are to get one. State Police point citizens to BuyCrash, where Indiana reports typically run $12, and department counters are often cheaper. The price is set by your local fiscal body by ordinance and must be at least $5. Nobody may bill you for the police response itself. And an officer is required to investigate only at injury, death, or $2,500 of apparent damage.

Indiana, verified

Key Facts (verified July 2026)

Last updated 2026-07-29

A public record, plainly: IC 9-26-2-3: an officer's report "is not a confidential record and shall be made available for inspection and copying under IC 5-14-3," the Access to Public Records Act.
A floor, not a ceiling: IC 9-26-9-3: the agency "may charge a fee that is fixed by ordinance of the fiscal body and is at least five dollars ($5) for each report." Most states cap this figure. Indiana sets a minimum.
Your council picks the number: The actual price comes from a city, town or county ordinance rather than from the statute or the agency, which is why Indiana prices vary from town to town.
Where the money goes: City and town police receipts go to the local law enforcement continuing education fund under IC 5-2-8-2. Sheriff, county police, coroner and State Police receipts go into named accident report accounts.
The crash tax is banned: IC 9-26-9-4: a political subdivision or local agency may not impose or collect, or contract for the collection of, an accident response service fee from any person involved in a crash.
The threshold moved: IC 9-26-2-1 now requires investigation at injury, death, or apparent damage of at least $2,500, after amendments in 2022 and 2024. Plenty of guidance still says $1,000.
Typical real prices: Griffith Police charge $10 in person and $12 online through BuyCrash. Indiana is the platform's third deepest state at roughly 666 participating agencies.
Fifty percent is the cliff: IC 34-51-2-6 bars recovery once your contributory fault is greater than everyone else's combined, so 50 percent recovers half and 51 percent recovers nothing.
Unless the defendant is the government: IC 34-51-2-2: the Comparative Fault Act "does not apply in any manner" to tort claims against governmental entities or public employees, which puts those claims under different rules entirely.

A public record with a minimum price

Two sentences of Indiana law, sitting in different chapters, produce a combination you will not find in many states. The first opens the record. IC 9-26-2-3 says that a report filed by a law enforcement officer “is not a confidential record and shall be made available for inspection and copying under IC 5-14-3,” the Access to Public Records Act. There is no list of approved recipients to belong to and no permissible use to establish. The report is simply public.

The second sentence prices it, and this is the unusual part. IC 9-26-9-3 provides that the department, office or agency supervising the officer “may charge a fee that is fixed by ordinance of the fiscal body and is at least five dollars ($5) for each report.” Read that carefully. It is a minimum. Most states that legislate this at all set a maximum, whether a flat statutory cap like Pennsylvania’s $15, a cost-recovery ceiling like Washington’s, or a fixed schedule like Kentucky’s $5 and $10. Indiana instead tells local government it may not sell the report cheaply, and leaves the real number to a city, town or county ordinance.

The practical consequences follow directly. Indiana prices vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction because they are set jurisdiction by jurisdiction. There is no statewide figure to quote and no state authority to appeal to if you think your town charges too much, because the body that set the price is the one you vote for. And you will not find a free copy from an Indiana agency the way you can in Ohio or at some CrashDocs departments, because the floor forbids it.

Who sets the price, and where your money actually goes

Indiana is unusually specific about the destination of crash report fees. IC 9-26-9-3(b) names a different account for each kind of seller. Verified July 2026.

If you buy from	Who sets the price	Statutory floor	Where the money goes
A city or town police department	The fiscal body of the city or town, by ordinance	At least $5 per report	The local law enforcement continuing education fund under IC 5-2-8-2
A county sheriff or county police	The county fiscal body, by ordinance	At least $5 per report	An "accident report account" spent at the chief administrative officer's discretion on records or accident prevention
The county coroner	The county fiscal body, by ordinance	At least $5 per report	The same "accident report account" arrangement as the sheriff
Indiana State Police	The superintendent of the state police department	At least $5 per report, and for inspecting and copying other report related data	A separate "accident report account" spent at the superintendent's discretion on accident records or accident prevention
BuyCrash, the online platform	The agency sets its price; the platform adds its own charge	Typically $12 in Indiana, against $10 at counters like Griffith	The agency receives its fee; the platform keeps the difference
The police response itself	Nobody. It cannot be charged for	Prohibited by IC 9-26-9-4, including by contract with a collector	No lawful destination, because no such fee may be imposed or collected

The city and town row is the one worth pausing on. When a municipal police department sells you a copy of your own crash report, IC 9-26-9-3(b)(3) sends that money to the local law enforcement continuing education fund. Your $10 pays for police training. That is a defensible policy and an unusually transparent one, but it does explain why the legislature was careful to stop anyone charging less than $5.

Not sure which Indiana agency has your report, or what it should cost?

Because the price is set by local ordinance, the only reliable way to know what your report costs is to know which department wrote it. On a free call we will pinpoint the agency, tell you the counter route as well as the online one, and walk you through the request at no cost.

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The fee Indiana will not let anyone charge you

The same chapter that sets a floor under the report price bans a different charge entirely. IC 9-26-9-1 defines an “accident response service fee” as a fee imposed for either the response by a local law enforcement agency to a motor vehicle accident, or the investigation by a local law enforcement agency of one. IC 9-26-9-4 then prohibits it in a single sentence: a political subdivision or a local law enforcement agency “may not impose or collect, or enter into a contract for the collection of, an accident response service fee” on or from the driver of a motor vehicle or any other person involved in a crash.

This is worth knowing because these charges are real elsewhere. Some jurisdictions in other states bill drivers, or their insurers, for the cost of sending police or fire to a collision, often through a third-party billing company that takes a percentage. Indiana closed both doors at once. It prohibited the fee, and it separately prohibited contracting with anyone to collect it, which is the clause aimed squarely at the billing companies.

So the line in Indiana is clean. A charge for a copy of a document is lawful and has a statutory minimum. A charge for the public service of responding to your crash is not lawful at all. If an invoice arrives from a town or from a company acting for one, describing a response or investigation fee, the statute is the answer to it.

The $2,500 line that moved, and the pages that have not caught up

Whether a report exists at all depends on a threshold that has changed twice in recent years. IC 9-26-2-1 requires a law enforcement officer to investigate each motor vehicle accident resulting in the injury or death of a person, or “total property damage to an apparent extent of at least two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500).” The section’s own history line records amendments in 2003, then 2022, then again in 2024.

Almost nothing published about Indiana crashes reflects that. The $1,000 figure appears across law firm explainers, older news coverage, and, strikingly, on the Indiana Criminal Justice Institute’s own crash statistics page, which still describes the law as requiring an officer to investigate and file a report for each crash resulting in injury, death or property damage of at least $1,000. The statute is what governs, and the statute now says $2,500.

The practical effect is that a moderate fender bender that would have produced a police report a few years ago may now produce nothing at all. Officers can and do attend below the line, and IC 9-26-2-1(b) separately requires an officer who is present at a scene to make sure each operator complies with their information exchange duties regardless of the damage amount. But the duty to investigate and write it up starts at $2,500. If your damage is in that range and you never got a report number, that is probably why.

Actually buying it: BuyCrash, ARIES and the counter

Indiana State Police tell citizens on their crash reports page to purchase electronic vehicle crash reports through BuyCrash, and note that government agencies needing a report for official business should use the public records request process instead. Indiana is one of the platform’s deepest states, with roughly 666 participating agencies, behind only Georgia and Kentucky. Our BuyCrash guide covers how the platform works, and our Illinois guide covers a neighboring state where the same platform behaves quite differently.

Behind the storefront sits ARIES, the Automated Reporting Information Exchange System, which is how Indiana officers submit the Indiana Officer’s Standard Crash Report. The Criminal Justice Institute describes ARIES as capturing more than 200 data items per crash and being maintained by LexisNexis Risk Solutions and the Indiana State Police, and states that under its contract with State Police, LexisNexis provides ARIES to state and local governments free of charge and charges a small fee for crash records and research requests. That is the trade: the state gets its reporting system at no cost, and the public pays at the point of retrieval.

Which is why the counter is worth a phone call. Griffith Police Department, to take a documented example, charges $10 for a crash report in person at 115 North Broad Street on weekdays between 8am and 4pm, and $12 for the same report through BuyCrash. The $10 is the ordinance price. The extra $2 is the convenience of not driving there. In a state where the floor is $5 and every fiscal body picks its own number above it, that comparison is different in every town, and it is always worth making.

The 51 percent rule, and the exception that swallows it

Indiana applies modified comparative fault. IC 34-51-2-6 bars a claimant from recovery if their contributory fault “is greater than the fault of all persons whose fault proximately contributed to the claimant’s damages.” At 50 percent you recover half your damages. At 51 percent you recover nothing. That cliff is why the percentages in an adjuster’s first offer matter so much, and why the officer’s coded conclusions, written within days of the crash, carry weight far beyond their apparent formality. Our crash-report decoder explains what those fields actually assert.

Then comes the exception that most Indiana drivers have never heard of. IC 34-51-2-2 provides that the Comparative Fault Act “does not apply in any manner to tort claims against governmental entities or public employees” under IC 34-13-3, the Indiana Tort Claims Act. Claims against a city, a county, the state, a school corporation, a transit authority, or a public employee acting in that capacity therefore sit outside the 51 percent framework entirely and are governed by Indiana common law rules instead.

That is not a technicality. It means the fault rules for your crash can turn on who was driving the other vehicle, or on whether your claim is really about a road condition rather than a driver. If a police car, a municipal truck, a public bus, a plow, or the design of an intersection is part of your case, the standard that applies to you is different from the one in every general explainer of Indiana law, and the Tort Claims Act adds its own notice deadlines on top. This is a point to raise with a lawyer quickly rather than to work out later.

Injured on an Indiana road?

Indiana ends your claim entirely once your share of fault passes half, and changes the rules altogether when the other party is a government body. Both questions get answered from the report, early, by people who are not on your side. On a free call, a licensed attorney will read it and tell you where you actually stand. No cost, no obligation. For a first range, try the free settlement calculator at SetCalc.

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What the 2024 numbers say

Indiana Crash Facts 2024, prepared for the Criminal Justice Institute by the Indiana University Public Policy Institute from ARIES data, counted 872 traffic deaths and 827 fatal collisions, alongside 44,033 non-fatal injuries. Deaths fell from 938 in 2023 and from the ten-year peak of 990 in 2022, though they remain above the 808 recorded in 2019. The fatality rate was 12.6 per 100,000 population.

The distribution is the part worth reading twice. Urban areas produced 71.3 percent of all Indiana collisions but only 42.7 percent of the fatal ones, while rural areas produced 10.6 percent of collisions and 21.9 percent of fatal crashes. Restraint use tracks the same split: among passenger vehicle occupants killed, 44 percent were restrained in urban crashes against 58 percent in exurban ones. Speed was involved in 198 fatal crashes, 23.9 percent of the total, and alcohol impairment in 92 deaths, 10.6 percent.

Two Indiana-specific details close the picture. Hit and run accounted for 13.4 percent of all collisions in 2024, down from 15.2 percent in 2020 but still better than one in eight. And among the 131 non-motorists killed, the state counts a category most crash datasets do not have: 111 pedestrians, 19 pedalcyclists, and one occupant of an animal-drawn vehicle.

Step-by-step: getting your Indiana report

Establish that a report exists at all

An officer must investigate only where there was injury, death, or apparent property damage of at least $2,500. Below that line an officer may still come and may still write something, but nothing compels it. If your damage is modest and nobody was hurt, confirm a report was actually filed before you spend time hunting for it.

Identify the agency that worked the crash

City or town police for municipal streets, the county sheriff for county roads, and Indiana State Police for interstates and state highways. This matters more in Indiana than in most states, because the agency determines both what you pay and which account your money lands in.

Try BuyCrash first, since State Police point you there

The Indiana State Police crash reports page tells citizens to purchase electronic vehicle crash reports through BuyCrash. Indiana is one of the platform's deepest states, with roughly 666 participating agencies, behind only Georgia and Kentucky. You will need the report number, an involved last name, and the crash date.

Ask the counter price before paying the online price

The statutory minimum is $5 and your local fiscal body sets the real number by ordinance, so counter prices vary and are often lower than the online price. Griffith Police, for example, charge $10 in person at 115 North Broad Street, weekdays 8am to 4pm, against $12 through BuyCrash. That $2 gap is the platform, not the ordinance.

Use the public records route if a department stalls

IC 9-26-2-3 makes the officer's report a non-confidential record available for inspection and copying under the Access to Public Records Act. You do not have to establish that you were involved, or explain why you want it, the way you would in a state that closes crash reports. You do still have to pay the ordinance fee.

Refuse any charge for the response itself

If a city, town, county or a billing company acting for one sends you an invoice for the police response to or investigation of your crash, IC 9-26-9-4 prohibits it, including through a contract with a third party collector. A fee for a copy of the report is lawful. A fee for the officer showing up is not.

Read the fault findings before an adjuster prices them

Indiana cuts off recovery once your share of fault passes 50 percent, so the difference between being assigned 45 and 55 percent is the difference between a claim and nothing. The officer's coded conclusions are the first draft of that number, and they are drafted long before anyone negotiates.

Crashed in another state? Our national retrieval playbook maps the same process across 18 states, including the ones where a report costs nothing at all.

Indiana Accident Reports: Frequently Asked Questions

How do I get my accident report in Indiana?

Indiana State Police direct citizens to BuyCrash for electronic copies, and most Indiana agencies participate. You can also buy from the department that worked the crash, which is often cheaper. Indiana is the platform's third deepest state with roughly 666 participating agencies, behind Georgia at 691 and Kentucky at 684. Because the report is a public record under IC 9-26-2-3, the department cannot refuse you on confidentiality grounds, though it can charge you.

Are Indiana crash reports public records?

Yes, and the statute says so in one sentence. IC 9-26-2-3 provides that a report filed by a law enforcement officer "is not a confidential record and shall be made available for inspection and copying under IC 5-14-3," which is the Access to Public Records Act. That is the opposite of a state like Kentucky, where crash reports are carved out of the open records law and released only to a list of named people.

How much does an Indiana crash report cost?

At least $5, because Indiana sets a floor rather than a ceiling. IC 9-26-9-3 says the agency supervising the officer "may charge a fee that is fixed by ordinance of the fiscal body and is at least five dollars ($5) for each report." Your city or county council picks the actual number above that. In practice most Indiana reports run $10 to $12: Griffith Police charge $10 at the counter and $12 online through BuyCrash.

Why does Indiana set a minimum price instead of a maximum?

Because the fee is designed to fund something specific. IC 9-26-9-3 routes the money three ways. State Police receipts go into an "accident report account" the superintendent may spend on keeping accident records or preventing highway accidents. Sheriff, county police and county coroner receipts go into their own version of that account. And if a city or town police department sold you the report, the money goes into the local law enforcement continuing education fund established by IC 5-2-8-2.

Can an Indiana city bill me for the police response to my crash?

No. IC 9-26-9-4 prohibits it outright: a political subdivision or local law enforcement agency "may not impose or collect, or enter into a contract for the collection of, an accident response service fee" on the driver or any other person involved in a motor vehicle accident. IC 9-26-9-1 defines that fee as one imposed for the response to, or the investigation of, a motor vehicle accident. Some states allow these charges. Indiana banned them.

Does an officer always have to come to an Indiana crash?

Not any more, and the line moved recently. IC 9-26-2-1 requires an officer to investigate a crash that results in injury or death, or "total property damage to an apparent extent of at least two thousand five hundred dollars ($2,500)." That threshold was raised by amendments in 2022 and again in 2024. Older guidance, including the state's own crash statistics page, still describes the trigger as $1,000.

What is ARIES?

The Automated Reporting Information Exchange System, the electronic system Indiana officers use to submit the Indiana Officer's Standard Crash Report. The Criminal Justice Institute says ARIES captures more than 200 data items per crash and is maintained by LexisNexis Risk Solutions and the Indiana State Police, and that under its contract with State Police, LexisNexis provides ARIES to state and local governments free of charge and charges a small fee for crash records and research requests.

Can I still recover if I was partly at fault in Indiana?

Yes, up to a point. IC 34-51-2-6 bars recovery if the claimant's contributory fault "is greater than the fault of all persons whose fault proximately contributed to the claimant's damages." So at 50 percent you recover half, and past 50 percent you recover nothing. That is the familiar modified comparative fault rule used in most states.

Does that same rule apply if a government vehicle hit me?

No, and this catches people out. IC 34-51-2-2 states that the Comparative Fault Act "does not apply in any manner to tort claims against governmental entities or public employees under IC 34-13-3." Claims against a city, county, the state, or a public employee fall outside the 51 percent framework and are governed by Indiana common law instead. If your crash involved a police car, a municipal truck, a transit bus, or a road condition, that distinction is worth raising with a lawyer early.

How dangerous are Indiana roads, officially?

Indiana Crash Facts 2024 recorded 872 traffic deaths and 827 fatal collisions, alongside 44,033 non-fatal injuries. Deaths fell from 938 in 2023 and from a ten-year peak of 990 in 2022. The geography is lopsided: urban areas accounted for 71.3 percent of all collisions but only 42.7 percent of fatal ones, while rural areas produced 10.6 percent of collisions and 21.9 percent of fatal crashes.

Sources

Every fee, statute, threshold and figure on this page was verified against the following official sources on July 29, 2026. One discrepancy is worth flagging: the investigation threshold in IC 9-26-2-1 is $2,500 following amendments in 2022 and 2024, while a good deal of published guidance, including the Criminal Justice Institute’s own crash statistics page, still describes it as $1,000.

This guide is informational and is not legal advice. FindAccidentReport.com is sponsored by personal-injury attorneys; see our editorial standards for how we research and fund our guides.

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