The MV-104 form is New York's Report of Motor Vehicle Accident, and a driver in a Buffalo crash must file it with the DMV within 10 days when anyone is hurt or killed, or when damage to any one person's property tops $1,000. A police report does not take the place of it.
At Rosenthal, Kooshoian & Lennon, LLP, our Buffalo car accident lawyers see the same mistake every winter on the 33, the 190, and the Thruway. A driver swaps insurance cards, assumes the officer at the scene handled the paperwork, and lets the 10-day window close. The MV-104 is only two pages long. Filling it out correctly protects the driver's license, and after New York's 2026 changes to car accident law, it matters more than ever to any injury claim that follows.
Call us 24/7 at 716-854-1300 to speak with a personal injury lawyer near you, or contact us for a FREE consultation.
New York Vehicle and Traffic Law § 605(a)(1) requires every driver involved in a crash in New York State to file an MV-104 within 10 days if the crash killed or injured anyone, or caused more than $1,000 in damage to the property of any one person, including the driver's own car.
The $1,000 line is lower than most people think. A cracked bumper cover, a headlight assembly, and a sensor recalibration on a newer SUV can pass $1,000 after a low-speed rear-end bump on Transit Road. When the damage is anywhere close, a driver is allowed to file anyway, and that is usually the safer choice.
Injury has no minimum. A stiff neck that shows up the morning after a rear-end crash on Niagara Falls Boulevard is still an injury from the crash. The 10 days are counted from the crash itself, not from the day a driver learns the repair estimate or sees a doctor.
The duty falls on each driver involved in the crash. If a driver is too badly hurt to file, VTL § 605 moves the duty to another participant in the crash. If no one involved can file, the vehicle's owner must report within 10 days of learning about the crash. Passengers do not have to file.
That rule matters for families sitting with a loved one at Erie County Medical Center while the deadline runs. If the driver is in the hospital, another driver in the crash should file, and the vehicle's owner may need to step in. A parent who owns the car a teenager was driving is often the one who ends up completing the form.
Pedestrians and bicyclists hit by a car appear on the driver's MV-104, in the boxes the form provides for them. New York law also gives bicyclists their own reporting duty in crashes that cause death or serious physical injury. Out-of-state drivers involved in a crash in New York are covered by the same 10-day rule, which comes up often with Ontario drivers crossing at the Peace Bridge.
Yes. The officer who responds to a Buffalo crash fills out a separate police report, the MV-104A, but that report does not satisfy the driver's own duty under VTL § 605. Each driver still files a personal MV-104 within 10 days when the injury or $1,000 threshold is met.
The current MV-104 says it plainly: when anyone is killed or injured, or damage is over $1,000, the driver is required by law to report the crash to the police and also to file this report. Many drivers skip the second step because an officer from the Buffalo Police, the Erie County Sheriff's Office, or the State Police took statements at the scene, and it feels like the reporting is done.
When no officer comes to the scene at all, which happens with some property-damage crashes, the MV-104 may be the only official account of what happened. That makes it even more important to file on time and fill it out carefully.
Failing to file a required MV-104 within 10 days is a misdemeanor under VTL § 605, and the DMV can suspend the driver's license, the vehicle's registration, or both until the report is filed. A late report is still far better than none, so file as soon as the missed deadline comes to light.
A suspended registration can hit a family hard. Picture a commuter driving from Hamburg to downtown Buffalo who learns at a traffic stop that the plates are suspended over a report they never knew they owed. Filing the MV-104 is what clears the suspension, so a late filing still matters.
Missing the deadline does not, by itself, take away the right to bring an injury claim against the driver who caused the crash. Insurers do notice gaps, though, and a late or missing report gives them one more thing to question.
The MV-104 asks for each driver's license details exactly as printed, each vehicle's plate and insurance information, the date, time, and location of the crash, a diagram, a short written description, and the injuries and damage involved. Collect it at the scene if possible, because gaps are hard to fill later.
The form has its own conventions. Enter an "X" when the answer is unknown and a dash when a question does not apply. For crashes with more than two vehicles, the instructions call for extra forms, numbered and attached to the first page. Each page gets dated and signed.
Mail the signed original MV-104 to the New York State DMV Crash Records Center, 6 Empire State Plaza, PO Box 2925, Albany, NY 12220-0925, the address printed on the current form. Keep a photo or copy of every page, and note the date it went in the mail.
Blank forms are available at DMV offices across Erie County and as a PDF on the New York DMV MV-104 form page. Use the current version, which is dated 5/25 in the bottom corner. Sending the report by certified mail costs a few dollars and gives the driver proof of the filing date if a suspension notice ever arrives.
Stick to facts the driver saw and knows: lanes, signals, speed limits, weather, and where each car ended up. Avoid guessing at speeds, apologizing, or writing that nobody was hurt before a doctor has looked, because the people involved and their insurers can order a copy of the report.
Specific beats vague. "Snow covered the lane lines on Delaware Avenue, and the other car crossed into my lane" tells a clearer story than "bad weather, couldn't see." "I'm sorry, I didn't see him" may sound like ordinary politeness, but an insurance adjuster will treat it as an admission of fault.
Injuries deserve the same care. Concussions and whiplash often take a day or two to show up. A driver who writes "no injuries" at the kitchen table the night of the crash, then wakes up with headaches, has handed the insurer an easy argument. Describe what is known, and leave room for what a doctor finds.
The 2026 state budget, signed in late May 2026, changed the rules for car accident injury lawsuits filed on or after that date. A person found more at fault than the defendants cannot recover for their injuries, and juries now decide fault before injury. A careless MV-104 statement about fault can matter much more than before.
Before the change, New York used pure comparative fault in every negligence case. A driver found 70 percent at fault could still recover 30 percent of their damages. The new CPLR § 1411(b) applies to personal injury cases governed by New York's no-fault law, Insurance Law Article 51. In those cases, a person whose fault is greater than the defendant's, or greater than all defendants combined, recovers nothing. A person found 50 percent or less at fault still recovers, reduced by their share.
The same law changed the order of a jury's work under Insurance Law § 5104. Jurors decide fault first, and only move on to whether the injury qualifies if the injured person was not mostly at fault. That puts the early evidence of how the crash happened, including the driver's own MV-104, at the front of the case.
No. The MV-104 goes to the DMV and opens no claim with anyone. New York's no-fault rules separately require written notice to the insurer, generally within 30 days of the crash, and the NF-2 application for no-fault benefits is a separate form sent to the insurance company, not the DMV.
No-fault coverage under New York Insurance Law § 5102 pays up to $50,000 in basic economic loss, mostly medical bills and lost wages, no matter who caused the crash. The 2026 changes did not alter that. Our guide on who pays for medical bills after a car accident explains how no-fault works with health insurance. Treat the MV-104, the police report, and the no-fault application as three separate tasks with three separate deadlines.
Order it from the New York State DMV. In 2026, an online search costs $7 and each report costs $15. By mail, using form MV-198C, the search fee is $10 plus $15 per report. Search fees are not refunded, even when no report turns up, so enter the plate or license number carefully.
A single crash can produce several reports: the police report plus an MV-104 from each driver. The DMV's own example is a crash with three reports on file, which costs $45 to buy in full. Police reports can take days to reach the DMV system, so a search the morning after a crash may come up empty and still cost the search fee.
Reading the other driver's MV-104 is often the first look at that driver's version of events. When that version clashes with the police diagram or the photos, the difference can become a central issue in the claim.
It can. The MV-104 is a signed statement about how the crash happened, and insurers and defense lawyers read it closely. A clear, accurate report supports the claim. A rushed one with guesses can be used to argue the injured driver was mostly at fault, which under the 2026 rules can bar recovery entirely.
A claim for pain and suffering against the at-fault driver also has to meet the "serious injury" threshold in Insurance Law § 5102(d). That includes a fracture, significant disfigurement, a permanent loss of use of a body organ or system, a permanent consequential limitation of a body organ or member, or a significant limitation of a body function or system. The 2026 law removed the category that once covered injuries keeping someone from most daily activities for 90 of the first 180 days. Treatment records that begin soon after the crash now carry even more of the weight.
The 2026 law also caps non-economic damages at $100,000 when the injured person was driving uninsured, or was convicted of impaired driving or of a felony committed during the crash, unless the crash caused a death. Deadlines keep running in the background. Most New York car accident lawsuits must be filed within three years under CPLR § 214(5), as our post on New York's personal injury statute of limitations explains. A crash involving a City of Buffalo or Erie County vehicle usually requires a notice of claim within 90 days under General Municipal Law § 50-e.
File the MV-104 anyway, with an "X" for unknown information, and report the crash to police right away. Injured people hit by an uninsured or unidentified driver may be able to claim through their own policy's uninsured motorist coverage or, if they have no coverage, through MVAIC, the state's backup fund.
VTL § 600 requires a driver who knows or has cause to know a crash caused injury or damage to stop and exchange license and insurance information. Leaving the scene of an injury crash is a crime. Hit-and-run and uninsured driver claims carry short notice deadlines of their own, so a prompt police report and a filed MV-104 help show the crash was reported on time.
Our Buffalo car accident attorneys review the MV-104 before it is mailed when the 10-day window is still open, order the police and motorist reports, and line them up against photos, 911 records, and witness statements. From there, the work moves to the no-fault claim, the liability claim, and a lawsuit if the insurer will not pay fairly.
Under the 2026 rules, the fault fight starts on day one, so early evidence of how the crash happened gets as much attention as the medical proof. Every case is handled in house, from the first call through the insurance claim, a suit in New York State Supreme Court, and trial if it comes to that. For the full checklist of what to do in the first days, read our guide to the steps to take after a car crash.
A crash on a Buffalo street or a Western New York highway leaves a driver with forms, deadlines, and phone calls at the worst possible time. Rosenthal, Kooshoian & Lennon, LLP can look over an MV-104 before it goes out, gather the reports that follow, and explain what New York law allows for the injuries involved.
Call us 24/7 at 716-854-1300 to speak with a personal injury lawyer near you, or contact us for a FREE consultation.
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