How to Submit Your MV-104
Submitting the MV-104, the New York State DMV Report of Motor Vehicle Accident form, isn’t any fun. The form itself is complicated and dense, asking you to provide details about how the accident happened and describe the damages to both vehicles. Submitting the form is not a matter of choice, however; it’s required any time you are involved in an accident that results in personal injury, property damage over $1,000, or death. Failing to submit the MV-104 within ten days of the accident will result in the suspension of your driver’s license, vehicle registration, or both until you submit the form as required. You could also be convicted of a crime; failing to submit the crash report is a misdemeanor offense in the state of New York.
Report A Crash takes a lot of the trouble out of submitting the MV-104. With our mobile app, you can easily scan in important information from driver’s licenses, insurance cards, and vehicle registrations. Below we discuss how to submit your MV-104 to the DMV. Pull up the mobile app or click Start Your Free Crash Report on the Report A Crash website to get started. Click here if you have questions about what to do after a car accident, or click here to get legal advice after your accident from a New York personal injury lawyer in your area.
Completing the MV-104 Section A
At the top of the form is a box marked RUSH. Check this box if you did not submit the MV-104 within ten days of the accident and have had your driver’s license or registration suspended.
If more than two vehicles were involved, complete additional pages as needed, changing Vehicle 1 to Vehicle 3, Vehicle 2 to Vehicle 4, etc.
Section One of the form asks for driver information for your vehicle and the other vehicle involved. You’ll need both drivers’ names, addresses, dates of birth, and driver’s license ID numbers, along with other information. If you have the Report A Crash mobile app, you can scan both driver’s licenses and let Report A Crash do the work of transferring that information onto the MV-104.
Section Two of the form asks for information on the registered vehicle owners, including personal and vehicle identifying information. Use the Report A Crash mobile app to scan vehicle registrations.
Section Three asks you to describe the damage to each vehicle and complete a diagram showing how the collision between the vehicles occurred. You are also asked to estimate the costs of property damage to each vehicle. If neither vehicle suffered property damage over $1,000, you are not legally required to submit an MV-104 to the DMV.
Section Four requires you to identify the location of the accident and also describe how the accident happened.
In Section Five, you will be asked to list the names of all persons involved in all vehicles and also describe their injuries.
Section Six asks you to identify damaged property other than vehicles and to provide your insurance company information, including the name of the insurance company and policy number, name and address of policyholder, and additional information if the vehicle was self-insured or operated under permit from the ICC, USDOT or NYSDOT.
Completing the MV-104 Section B
On the far right side of the MV-104, you’ll see a column of boxes labeled 1-7 and 23-30. Each box contains a menu of numbers to select from. Instructions for how to fill in these boxes can be found in the MV-104 instructions sheet in the section marked SECTION B. These boxes ask you to provide the following information:
Box 1 – Location of a pedestrian, bicyclist or other pedestrian (at an intersection or not at an intersection)
Box 2 – Action of the pedestrian, bicyclist, or other pedestrian
Box 3 – Type of traffic control present, if any (traffic signal, stop sign, yield sign, flashing light, etc.)
Box 4 – Light conditions (daylight, dawn, dusk, dark road, lighted or unlighted)
Box 5 – Roadway character (straight, curved, level, grade/incline, crest of a hill)
Box 6 – Roadway surface condition (wet, dry, muddy, snow/ice, slush, flooded, other)
Box 7 – Weather (clear, cloudy, rain, snow, sleet, fog, other)
Box 23 – Direction of travel (North, South, East, West, Northeast, Northwest, etc.)
Box 24 – Direction of travel of the other vehicle
Box 25 – Pre-accident vehicle action (going straight, turning right or left, making a U-turn, changing lanes, passing, merging, etc.)
Box 26 – Pre-accident vehicle action of the other vehicle
Box 27 – Location of first event (on-roadway or off-roadway
Box 28 – Type of accident, first event (collision with another vehicle, pedestrian, bicyclist, etc.)
Box 29 – Type of accident, second event (collision with a fixed object, road departure, rollover, etc.)
Box 30 – Type of accident, second event, of the other vehicle
One Final Step
Once you have completed the form, print it out, sign and date it, and mail it to:
CRASH RECORDS CENTER
6 EMPIRE STATE PLAZA
PO BOX 2925
ALBANY NY 12220-0925
If you cannot sign the form personally due to illness (or if the driver has passed away), a representative of the driver can sign. The form is not complete unless signed. Submitting an unsigned MV-104 can lead to driver’s license suspension, the same as if the form were never submitted at all.
Before you put the report in an envelope, be sure and make at least one copy, if not several. You’ll want a copy for your records, and it might be necessary to share the report with your attorney or insurance company.
Start Your Free Crash Report Now
To get started immediately completing and submitting your crash report for free, click Start Your Free Crash Report on the Report A Crash website or download our mobile app to your Android or Apple device. You can also use Report A Crash to contact a lawyer in your area to help you with your injury car accident claim.
