Crash Reports and Evidence in Virginia in Virginia Beach, VA What the Police Report Can and Cannot Do

The statute says the report is not evidence

Virginia Code 46.2-379 makes officer crash reports confidential, restricts their use to accident-prevention purposes by the Department of Motor Vehicles and state agencies, and provides that such reports are not to be used as evidence in any civil or criminal trial. It permits the Department to disclose a limited set of items: the date, time and location of the crash, and the names and addresses of the drivers, the owners, the injured persons and the witnesses, along with one investigating officer.

That limited disclosure list is the point. The report is a directory of people and a fixed record of time and place. The officer's opinion about who caused the crash, the diagram and the narrative are not a shortcut around proving the case with testimony and physical evidence.

It is still available, and the window is thirty-six months

Virginia Code 46.2-380(A) requires the Department to keep crash reports for at least thirty-six months and makes them open to inspection by the persons involved in or injured by the crash or their attorneys, by the owners of vehicles or property damaged, by insurers reasonably anticipating exposure, by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, by personal representatives, and by the parents or guardians of a minor involved, with copies furnished at the requester's expense.

Locally, the Virginia Beach Police Department directs report requests for incidents from December 2022 forward through its Freedom of Information Act office, with an online portal for submissions, and lists 757-385-5000 as the non-emergency number. A request that identifies the date, time, location, driver names and any report number moves faster than one that describes the crash in prose.

The evidence that actually decides fault is perishable

Physical evidence has a shorter life than the report. Skid and gouge marks weather, debris is swept, vegetation blocking a sight line is trimmed, a damaged vehicle is repaired or sold for salvage, a private camera overwrites its storage on a fixed cycle, and event data recorder contents can be lost with the module. In a state where any carelessness by the injured person can bar the claim, that evidence is often what establishes the sequence rather than merely illustrating it.

Virginia Code 8.01-379.2:1 gives that concern legal shape. A party or potential litigant has a duty to preserve evidence that may be relevant to reasonably foreseeable litigation, and a court deciding whether and when the duty arose considers the totality of the circumstances, including notice that specific and identifiable litigation was likely and that the evidence would be relevant. Where evidence that should have been preserved is lost through a failure to take reasonable steps, or is disposed of, altered, concealed, destroyed or not preserved, and cannot be restored or replaced through additional discovery, the court on a finding of prejudice may order measures no greater than necessary to cure it. Only on a finding that the party acted recklessly or intended to deprive another party of the evidence's use may the court presume the evidence was unfavorable, instruct the jury to presume that, or dismiss the action or enter default. The section does not create a separate cause of action for spoliation.

Records held by a carrier have federal clocks

Where a commercial vehicle is involved, the retention periods are set federally and they are short. 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1) requires a carrier to keep records of duty status and supporting documents for at least six months from receipt, and 49 CFR 390.15(b) requires an accident register to be maintained for three years after each accident, listing the date, the nearest city or town and state, the driver's name, the number of injuries, the number of fatalities and whether hazardous materials other than the vehicle's own fuel were released, together with copies of accident reports required by governmental entities or insurers. The commercial truck collisions page covers those obligations in more detail.

Statements, and the right to a copy

Virginia Code 8.01-417(A) requires a person who takes a signed written statement or a voice recording from an injured person about the injury to furnish a copy of the statement promptly, or a verified typed transcription within thirty days after the recording is made once it is transcribed, and in all cases when the injured person or that person's attorney asks. Subsection B provides that a party who subpoenas documents in a civil proceeding must, on written request, furnish true and full copies to another party or that party's attorney, with the requesting party paying the reasonable cost of copying, unless the documents are returnable to and kept by the clerk or the court orders otherwise for good cause.

Subsection C sets up a pre-suit disclosure route. Before filing a motor vehicle personal injury action, an attorney who has given written notice of representation, or an unrepresented injured person, may request in writing that the insurer disclose the liability limits of any applicable policy and the alleged tortfeasor's physical address where it has not been reported. The request must include the accident date, the tortfeasor's name and last known address if reported, a copy of the accident report if any, and the claim number if available.

Medical records follow a different statute

Virginia Code 8.01-413 requires health records to be furnished within thirty days after a written request from the patient, the patient's attorney, an executor or administrator or an authorized insurer, makes properly authenticated copies admissible in the same manner as originals, and makes the requesting party liable for the provider's reasonable charges for maintaining, retrieving, reviewing, preparing, copying and mailing them.

This page explains how Virginia treats crash reports and evidence in general and offers no legal advice; a specific evidence problem should be raised with the attorney advertising on this site.