“Accident Alert” is a concept in Colorado that covers police departments not being able to send officers to respond to the scene of a motor vehicle collision due to severe conditions.  Accident Alert is generally activated by county.  To know if the county where the collision occurred is on Accident Alert, besides on online resources, you can check your local radio stations or call the non-emergency line of your local police department to verify. If in doubt please call the police.

For more information on this click please visit the Colorado State Patrol website.

While normally State Troopers and Police Officers would be required to respond to calls of car crashes, they are limited under certain circumstances such as severe weather. This, however, does not mean that you would be always on your own if you found yourself in a motor vehicle collision during a snowstorm, etc. 

Rather, under Accident Alert, the police can respond to a number of events, if they generally meet one or more of the following criteria: (1) the car is so damaged in the collision that it cannot drive, (2) someone in the crash was injured or may have lost their life, (3) alcohol or drugs may be involved, (4) a hit and run, (5) one driver does not have insurance coverage, or (6) if public property (such as a guardrail) has been impacted.  

Besides the obvious, Colorado Revised Statues (C.R.S.) § 42-4-1601, defines an injury as “physical pain, illness, or any impairment of mental or physical condition.” In addition to seeking medical care, we suggest that you contact a quality injury attorney, who is responsive to your unique needs, to discuss your situation.  

If you come to find that the area you’re in is not on Accident Alert, proceed with what you would regularly do if in a collision 

C.R.S. § 42-4-1601 lays out some of the duties of a driver involved in a crash involving death or injuries.  One of these duties is to report the crash to law enforcement immediately.  If you chose to report this online, you would go to https://dmv.colorado.gov/report-accident and click the link provided on this webpage to “file an accident report online”.  Once filed online, the report is with the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), so if you wanted to access it again for your records or reference, you would have to call the DMV to do so.

If instead of reporting online you filed a report with a Colorado State Patrol Officer, the process would function a little differently.  You may obtain a copy of the form filed with State Patrol. You do this by talking to the Colorado State Patrol Central Records Unit.  A link to their current Records Request Form (as of March 2021) is provided here.