South Dakota Crash Reporting Requirements

Crash reporting in South Dakota: $1,000 to one person's property, or $2,000 across the whole crash. Deadline to file: Immediately. Submit to: The nearest law enforcement officer — the officer files the report, not you.

Damage threshold: $1,000
Two dollar tests, either of which triggers the duty: apparent damage of $1,000 or more to any one person's property, or $2,000 or more per accident. Any bodily injury or death triggers it regardless of the damage figure. These numbers were set in 2000 and have not moved since; the Department of Public Safety asked the 2024 Legislature to double them to $2,000 and $4,000 through Senate Bill 62, and the Senate Transportation Committee deferred the bill to the 41st legislative day.
Deadline to file: Immediately
There is no filing window, because South Dakota drivers do not file a written crash report. What the statute requires is immediate notice, "by the quickest means of communication," to the nearest available law enforcement officer with jurisdiction; failing to give it is a Class 2 misdemeanor. If the driver is physically incapable, another occupant who is able must make the call. The paperwork is then the officer's: an investigator's report goes to the Department of Public Safety within three days of completing the investigation, electronically for any agency that filed more than sixty reports the previous year.
Submit to: The nearest law enforcement officer — the officer files the report, not you
South Dakota's Office of Accident Records builds its database from reports "submitted by the investigating law enforcement agency," and there is no driver's report form to send in; the secretary may demand a supplemental report from a driver only if the original is inadequate. Two duties run alongside the notice. At the scene you must stop, give your name and address, the owner's name and address and the vehicle's license number to anyone you hit or collided with, and render reasonable assistance to the injured — failing to stop after an injury crash is a Class 6 felony. If the property you hit is unattended, you must leave that information securely attached to it and notify the nearest police office. One consequence people miss: a garage may not begin repairs on a vehicle showing evidence of a reportable crash until the officer's notice has been affixed to it.

Crash reporting threshold — where South Dakota sits

South Dakota sets $1,000 — higher than 10 of the 44 jurisdictions on this site. The range runs from $250 to $4,000.

How South Dakota compares with every other state

What this means after a crash

$1,000 is the number to keep in mind, and it is a damage figure rather than an injury one: a crash with no one hurt still has to be reported once the damage reaches it. Only 10 of the 44 that set a dollar figure start lower. Note what the threshold is measured against — apparent damage at the scene, not the final repair invoice — so the call has to be made before anyone has priced anything.

The deadline is not a number of days. South Dakota wants the report immediately, which in practice means from the scene or as soon as you are able. A clock that starts and ends the same day leaves no room to "get to it later", and that is the most common way an ordinary crash turns into a charge of its own.

Who receives it matters as much as when. In South Dakota the report goes to The nearest law enforcement officer — the officer files the report, not you. An officer writing a report at the scene is not automatically the report the state is waiting for — where the two are separate, the table above says who receives yours.

Every statute cited for South Dakota

Why the rule looks like this

More on South Dakota

Checked against the primary sources above on September 30, 2026. If a figure here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it — what we have corrected so far is public.