How to get a car accident report in Oregon

Step by step

1. Identify the investigating agency and your crash details. Note which agency responded — a city police department, a county sheriff, or Oregon State Police — plus the crash date, location (county/city/road, milepost or exit) and the names of the drivers involved. Keep the officer's report/case number if you were given one; you will need it to search.
2. File your own DMV report (a separate legal duty). Within 72 hours of the crash, submit the Oregon Traffic Collision and Insurance Report (DMV Form 735-32) to DMV if there was injury or death, over $2,500 in vehicle damage, a tow with over $2,500 damage, or over $2,500 in other property damage. This is required even if police also filed a report — but it is your filing obligation, not how you get the officer's report.
3. Request the officer's report from the investigating agency. For a LOCAL city PD or county sheriff, check whether it distributes through LexisNexis BuyCrash (buycrash.lexisnexisrisk.com) and search/pay there (~$10-15), or submit a records request directly to that agency at its own fee. For an Oregon State Police crash, request through ODOT's Crash Analysis & Reporting (CAR) Unit by emailing odottdscrashrequestgroup@odot.oregon.gov.
4. Show you are an eligible party. Because Oregon crash reports are confidential (ORS 802.220), be ready to prove you are an involved party or their representative — your name, driver license, and the crash details. DMV/ODOT can only certify that a report was filed; it cannot sell you the report copy.
5. Pay the fee and receive the report. BuyCrash reports typically post about 24-48 hours after the agency uploads them; agency-direct and ODOT CAR requests can take from several days up to ~30 days depending on the agency and volume.

State police / highway patrol crashes

Oregon State Police does not sell crash reports over the counter. Its Public Records page explicitly routes all crash-report requests to DMV/ODOT (503-945-5000, oregon.gov/ODOT/DMV). OSP-investigated crash reports are centralized with ODOT's Crash Analysis & Reporting (CAR) Unit — an involved party or representative requests a copy by emailing odottdscrashrequestgroup@odot.oregon.gov. (OSP's own Central Records at central.records@osp.oregon.gov / 503-378-3725 x44444 handles OTHER, non-crash OSP records via the online form forms.osp.oregon.gov/Forms/prrrecordsrequest, billed at $25-75/hr staff time after the first free 30 minutes.) Note that under ORS 802.220(5) DMV itself can only certify that a report was filed — it cannot sell a copy of the report.

Crashes handled by local police or sheriffs

Go to the agency that investigated the crash — Oregon has no single portal that serves local-agency reports. A large share of Oregon city PDs and county sheriffs (e.g., Gresham, Woodburn, Pendleton, Ontario, St. Helens, The Dalles, Deschutes County SO) distribute crash reports through LexisNexis BuyCrash (buycrash.lexisnexisrisk.com, ~$10-15, posted ~24-48h after the agency uploads). Agencies not on BuyCrash — including large bureaus like Portland Police Bureau, Eugene PD and Salem PD — take direct/mailed/online records requests through their own police-records unit at that agency's own fee, and (because reports are confidential under ORS 802.220) generally release only to involved parties. Identify the responding agency, then use its BuyCrash listing or its records-request page. The central ODOT CAR Unit also holds these reports and can release to involved parties, but the fastest consumer path is usually the investigating agency itself.

Oregon agencies (10)

Pick the agency that responded to your crash for its exact request process:

• Deschutes County Sheriff'S Department
• Gresham Police Department
• Mt. Angel Police Department
• North Bend Police Department
• Ontario Police Department
• Pendleton Police Department
• St. Helens Police Department
• The Dalles Police Department, Or
• Warrenton Police Department
• Woodburn Police Department

After you get the report

Use the report to support your insurance claim — give your insurer the report/case number and use it to identify the other driver, vehicles, and any witnesses. Read it carefully and check for errors: misspelled names, wrong plate/VIN, wrong crash location, incorrect at-fault or contributing-factor coding, and diagram mistakes are common. To correct an error, contact the investigating agency or officer (or ODOT's CAR Unit for the state record) — supplemental/amended reports are handled by the agency that wrote the report, not by DMV.