After a Crash in Maine — Official Resources
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This is general information, not legal advice.
Maine has no 48-hour deadline — that provision was repealed in 2003, and guides still citing it are wrong. Under 29-A M.R.S. §2251 a reportable accident must be reported immediately, by the quickest means of communication, to a State Police officer, the nearest State Police field office, the county sheriff's office, or the local police department. A crash is reportable at bodily injury, death, or apparent property damage of $2,000 or more (raised from $1,000 in 2023). Knowingly failing to report is a Class E crime — up to six months of incarceration and a $1,000 fine — and the Secretary of State may also suspend your license and registration. Your report cannot be used as evidence in any civil or criminal trial arising from the crash. Reports come back fast: the Maine Crash Reporting Online Search & Ordering Service emails them for $10, most within two hours, and you are not charged if no match is found. Free help: Maine State Bar referral ($35), Pine Tree Legal Assistance, and Legal Services for Maine Elders at 1-800-750-5353.
If you have read anywhere that Maine gives you 48 hours to report a crash, that is a repealed law. The Legislature struck the 48-hour report provision in 2003 and left the empty subsection heading behind in the statute, which is almost certainly why the number keeps circulating. What Maine actually requires is faster and simpler: report it immediately. Below: what triggers the duty, why the penalty is criminal rather than administrative, a disclosure route most people never hear about, and the fastest report system of any state covered here. The first-steps checklist covers saving your dashcam clip before the camera loops.
Report it immediately — there is no 48-hour window
Per 29-A M.R.S. §2251(2), a reportable accident must be reported immediately by the quickest means of communication — to a State Police officer, the nearest State Police field office, the sheriff's office or a deputy in the county where it happened, or the police department or an officer of the municipality where it happened.
About the 48 hours. Subsection 5 of the statute is still headed "Forty-eight-hour report," but its entire content is a repeal notation: PL 2003, c. 434, §25 (RP). It was struck in 2003 and the heading was left as a placeholder. Articles and legal-marketing pages continue to cite it. There is no 48-hour allowance in current Maine law.
What makes a crash reportable (§2251(1)): it happened on a public way or somewhere public traffic may reasonably be anticipated, and it caused bodily injury or death, or apparent property damage of $2,000 or more. That figure was raised from $1,000 by PL 2023, c. 27 — another number many sources have not updated. Damage is measured by the market value of the necessary repairs, and is expressly not capped at the current value of the vehicle, which matters on an older car.
The duty falls on the operator, a person acting for the operator, or — if the operator is unknown — the owner of an involved vehicle who knows about the crash. Snowmobiles and most ATVs are exempt.
Why Maine takes this more seriously than most states
Under §2251(8), a person commits a Class E crime if they are required to make an oral or written report and knowingly fail to do so within the time required — up to six months of incarceration and a $1,000 fine. The same subsection criminalizes knowingly giving a false name and address to an officer at the scene, and knowingly failing to produce or return a drivable vehicle when the investigating officer asks.
On top of that, §2251(10) lets the Secretary of State suspend or revoke your driver's license and registration for failing to report. Most states on this site use one lever or the other. Maine uses both.
And §2251(9) closes the obvious defence: the absence of notice to the law enforcement agency with jurisdiction is prima facie evidence that you failed to report. If there is no record of the call, the burden is on you.
Your Maine report is not evidence
This surprises people who assume the paperwork settles the argument. Under §2251(7), an accident report made by an investigating officer, or a report made by an operator under subsection 2, is for the purposes of statistical analysis and accident prevention — and may not be admitted in evidence in any trial, civil or criminal, arising out of the accident. It is admissible for one narrow purpose only: to prove you complied with the reporting requirement.
Maine joins Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Minnesota and Nevada on that point. The practical consequence is the same in all six: your own photographs and dashcam footage carry the evidentiary weight the report cannot. More on that here →
What the law requires of the officer
Two provisions of §2251(4) work in your favor. First, every reported accident must be promptly investigated — a statutory obligation on law enforcement, not a discretionary call. If the crash caused serious bodily injury or death, the investigation must be conducted by an officer meeting the training standards of a full-time law enforcement officer. For a fatal crash involving a bus or truck over 10,000 pounds, the officer must request a certified accident reconstructionist and the State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit.
Second, there is a disclosure route most people never hear about. Notwithstanding the database confidentiality rules, the Chief of the State Police may disclose the date, time and location of the accident and the names and addresses of operators, owners, injured persons, witnesses, and the investigating officer — and on written request may furnish a photocopy of the investigating officer's report at the requester's expense. If a witness gave a statement at the scene and you never got their contact details, that is the path.
Officers transmit their report to the Chief of the State Police within 5 days of being notified of the crash.
Get the crash report
The Maine Crash Reporting Online Search & Ordering Service is the fastest system of any state covered here, by a wide margin. Search the State Police crash database by name, date of birth, crash location, crash date, or investigating agency. Each report costs $10.00, paid by Mastercard, Visa, Discover, or an InforME subscription, and arrives by email — most within two hours of the order.
Two details that save money and time. If no matches are found for your search, you are not charged. And you will need the name and date of birth of someone listed on the report to search successfully.
Only reportable crashes are in the database. If yours fell below the $2,000 threshold, ask the local police department that responded for a copy instead. Crashes before 2003 may not be in the system and need a manual search through the State Police Traffic Division — (207) 624-8944 or mcrs_response@maine.gov.
Hit-and-run
Call police immediately — which in Maine is not just good practice but the statutory requirement, and failing it is a criminal matter rather than an administrative one. A fled driver does not relieve you of the duty.
Save your clip and note the time and location while they're exact. On Route 1 north of Ellsworth or a back road in Aroostook County there may be no second witness for miles, and a plate that resolves on playback is the whole investigation. Two Maine-specific points make footage matter more here than in most states: your own report is inadmissible under §2251(7), so the camera is what survives into a contested claim; and once a report exists, the Chief of the State Police may release the names and addresses of witnesses — useful when you were too shaken at the scene to collect them. Uninsured-motorist coverage on your own policy is the usual route to payment when nobody is identified; check its hit-and-run notice window, which can be very short.
Find a lawyer
Per the Maine Judicial Branch and the Attorney General's office, the Maine State Bar Association sponsors the Lawyer Referral Service: a $35 referral fee gets you a referral and up to 30 minutes with a qualified local lawyer to explore whether you have a case worth pursuing. After that you hire at whatever rate you and the lawyer agree on.
Two practical notes. Referrals are accepted only through the website — there is no phone referral line, so start at mainebar.org and use the online request form; questions go to LRS@mainebar.org. And the service is approved by the American Bar Association, based on the criteria it requires of participating attorneys and the standards of service it meets — a real quality signal.
Free legal help
Maine has seven core nonprofit civil legal aid providers, listed by the Judicial Branch and the Maine Justice Foundation. The main one is Pine Tree Legal Assistance, with attorneys in six offices providing free civil legal service to low-income Mainers — Augusta 207-622-4731, Bangor 207-942-8241, Lewiston 207-784-1558, Machias 207-255-8656, Portland 207-774-8211, and Presque Isle 207-764-4349.
Pine Tree also runs an Indigenous Peoples Unit serving members of the Wabanaki Nations and other indigenous communities in Maine at 1-877-213-5630.
Two more. Legal Services for Maine Elders handles cases at no charge for people over 60 — Statewide Legal Helpline 1-800-750-5353, with offices in Augusta, Bangor, Lewiston, Presque Isle, and Scarborough. And the Maine Volunteer Lawyers Project provides free civil legal assistance to low-income Mainers and explicitly covers personal injury matters — which most volunteer programs do not.
Insurance problems
The Maine Bureau of Insurance regulates insurers in the state and handles consumer complaints about how claims are handled. You can reach its current complaint channels through the national directory of state insurance departments.
Note also §2251(6): the owner or operator of a vehicle involved in an accident must furnish whatever additional information the Secretary of State requires to determine whether proof of financial responsibility applies. Uninsured when it happened? The reporting duty does not depend on coverage, and in Maine that duty is criminal — which makes reporting on time considerably more important than in states where the penalty is administrative. Report it, then contact the Pine Tree office nearest you.
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Dashwatcher is a dashcam company, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice or a substitute for a licensed attorney. Reporting rules, deadlines, and programs differ by state and change over time; verify everything with the official source before you rely on it. Links go to government agencies, bar associations, and nonprofits. Dashwatcher receives no payment from any organization listed.
From the team at Dashwatcher.
Last verified: August 9, 2026 — checked against 29-A M.R.S. §2251 as published by the Maine Office of the Revisor of Statutes