Vermont Police Report: How to Get a Crash Report, Incident Report, or Body Camera Video

Vermont splits crash-report access three ways, more than most states in this batch. Depending on who investigated, a request goes to Vermont State Police, to DMV Driver Control, or to a local police department, and Vermont has no single crash-specific confidentiality statute pointing all three toward the same rule.

That is not a gap in this guide's research. Vermont genuinely routes crash-report and incident-report disclosure through the same general exemption in its Public Records Act, rather than a dedicated Title 23 confidentiality clause the way many other states do.

Information last verified on 2026-08-10. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

Getting a Copy of a Vermont Crash Report

Which office to contact for a Vermont crash report depends entirely on who investigated it. For a Vermont State Police crash, VSP's own record-request intake is the starting point. For a crash where DMV maintains the record, contact Driver Control at 802-828-2000, by email at DMV.DriverControl@Vermont.gov, or by mail to 120 State Street, Montpelier, VT 05603. For a crash a local city or town police department investigated, that department's own records unit handles the request.

The Vermont Department of Public Safety runs a public records order form at secure.vermont.gov that applies to state police records generally. It lists a $20 fee for a police report or a photo CD, and $45 for a DUI incident video, a non-DUI incident video, or an audio recording. The form notes that orders are not refunded once shipped. The order form itself does not appear to restrict who may submit a request, listing categories like law firm, insurance company, victim, family member, accused party, and involved party as options rather than eligibility gates, though DMV's own fulfillment practice for DMV-maintained records was not independently confirmed.

Unlike most states in this batch, Vermont has no crash-specific confidentiality statute in Title 23. The filing duty itself is set out at 23 V.S.A. 1129, which requires a driver involved in a crash causing injury or at least $3,000 in total property damage to file a written report with the Commissioner, but that section governs the filing obligation, not who can later obtain a copy. Disclosure of the resulting report runs through Vermont's general Public Records Act exemption instead, covered below.

Why Vermont Has No Crash-Report Confidentiality Statute

Most states in this cluster have a dedicated crash-report confidentiality clause sitting in their motor vehicle code. Vermont does not. Instead, both crash reports and general incident reports are governed by the same exemption in Vermont's Public Records Act, 1 V.S.A. 317(c)(5)(A), which exempts "records dealing with the detection and investigation of crime, but only to the extent that the production of such records . . . could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings" or a similar listed harm. That language is explicitly modeled on the federal FOIA law-enforcement exemption.

This is a narrow, fact-specific test, not a blanket rule that all law-enforcement records are secret. Subsection (c)(5)(B) carves back out a category of information that stays public even during an active investigation: initial arrest and charge records. So while the underlying investigative file behind a Vermont crash or incident report can be withheld to the extent disclosure would interfere with the case, the basic fact that an arrest happened and what someone was charged with generally remains available.

Vermont Body Camera Footage

Vermont has no dedicated body camera access statute. 20 V.S.A. 1819 requires the Department to ensure that troopers assigned to the Vermont State Police Field Force Division are equipped with "a body camera or other video recording device," but that provision is an equipment mandate, not a disclosure rule. Requests for the resulting footage run through the same general 1 V.S.A. 317(c)(5) exemption covering crash and incident reports above, applied case by case.

For the broader access framework and how other states structure bodycam disclosure by statute, see How to Request Body Cam Footage and Vermont Body Camera Laws.

Related Resources

Police Reports by State covers the full 50-state picture. See also How to File a Police Report, How to Read a Police Report, Are Police Reports Public?, Vermont Body Camera Laws, Vermont Car Accident Laws, Vermont Public Records Laws, and Vermont Court Records.

Disclaimer

This article provides general information about how to request police crash reports, incident reports, and body camera video in Vermont. It is not legal advice. Fees, portals, and statutes change; confirm current details with Vermont State Police, DMV Driver Control, the responding agency, or a Vermont attorney before relying on anything here for a specific situation.

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Last updated: 2026-08-10. Fees and portals reflect their published status as of August 2026.