After a Crash in Washington, D.C. — Official Resources
This is general information, not legal advice.
The District gives you 60 days to make a decision with permanent consequences. Under D.C. Code §31-2405(a), an injured person must notify the insurer within 60 days to elect PIP benefits — and a timely PIP election generally forecloses suing the at-fault driver. Miss the 60 days and you lose PIP; take PIP and you usually lose the lawsuit. Narrow exceptions exist for substantial permanent scarring or disfigurement and medically demonstrable permanent impairment. The District also applies pure contributory negligence: being even slightly at fault can bar recovery entirely, though a modified rule protects pedestrians and cyclists. MPD crash reports (form PD-10) are free to involved parties, but allow six weeks by mail — (202) 727-4357. Free help: the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center, LawHelp.org/DC, and Legal Aid DC at 202-628-1161.
No other jurisdiction on this site asks you to make a decision this consequential this fast. Within 60 days of a District crash you have to choose between using your own PIP benefits and keeping the right to sue the driver who hit you — and in most cases you cannot have both. Layered on top is contributory negligence, a rule that can end a claim over a small share of blame. Those two things interact, they are the whole game here, and they are the first two cards below. The first-steps checklist covers saving your dashcam clip before the camera loops.
The 60-day PIP election
PIP in the District is optional — insurers must offer it, but policyholders can waive it, so the first question is whether you actually carry it. If you do, D.C. Code §31-2405(a) gives an injured person 60 days from the crash to notify the insurer of an election to receive PIP benefits.
Both directions of that clock hurt. An untimely election forecloses the right to receive PIP benefits at all (§31-2405(g)). But a timely election generally forecloses suing the other driver — D.C.’s Court of Appeals has held that electing PIP benefits bars maintaining a negligence action. The 60 days can be extended only by mutual written agreement with the insurer (§31-2405(e)).
There are exceptions that allow both: substantial permanent scarring or disfigurement, substantial and medically demonstrable permanent impairment, and certain cases where medical expenses exceed the applicable limits. Whether you fit one is a genuinely technical question.
This is the clearest example on this entire site of a decision worth taking to a lawyer in the first week, not the eighth. Note also that taxicabs, buses, and private vehicle-for-hire companies like Uber and Lyft are not required to carry PIP, which changes the analysis if one of those was involved.
Contributory negligence
The District is one of a small handful of American jurisdictions still applying pure contributory negligence — a person found even slightly responsible for a crash can be barred from recovering anything from the other driver, rather than having the award reduced by their share.
There is one significant carve-out worth knowing: for pedestrians, cyclists, and other non-motorized users struck by a vehicle, the District applies a modified rule under which a claimant may still recover if their own negligence was less than the combined negligence of the drivers involved. For collisions between motor vehicles, the full bar applies.
Practically, this means an insurer with any argument that you contributed has a reason to deny outright rather than negotiate. Don’t speculate about what you might have done differently, don’t apologize into a recorded statement, and preserve objective evidence — dashcam footage included. Confirm how the rule applies to your situation with a D.C. attorney; this is general information, not advice about your case.
Report the crash
Call 911. The District requires reporting a crash involving injury, and the D.C. DMV directs drivers to file an accident report with the Metropolitan Police Department. Because the District is small and dense, an officer usually responds, and the report they generate carries a six-digit Central Complaint Number — write that number down before the officer leaves, because it is what makes the report findable later.
You will see the District’s property-damage reporting threshold quoted as a strikingly low figure, lower than any state’s. We could not confirm the current number against an official source, so it isn’t stated here — the safe reading is that D.C. expects crashes to be reported, and calling police is cheap insurance either way.
Get the crash report
The traffic crash report is form PD-10, requested from the MPD Public Documents Section. Two unusually good pieces of news and one bad one.
Good: copies are usually free to first-party requestors — people involved in the crash and their attorney or investigator. Insurance companies pay $3 per report for claim purposes. Requests can be made by email or by mail with a self-addressed stamped envelope.
Bad: mail-in requests take about six weeks, the longest processing time of any jurisdiction on this site. Start early. You will need a copy of government-issued photo ID and a completed PD Form 10B. Third parties must go through MPD’s FOIA office instead. Questions: (202) 727-4357.
If your crash happened on federal park land — the National Mall, Rock Creek Park, the parkways — the U.S. Park Police handled it, not MPD, and the report comes from them.
Hit-and-run
Call police immediately, and get the Central Complaint Number. In the District this matters more than usual for a specific reason: with contributory negligence in play, a fled driver leaves nobody to contradict and no independent account of how the crash happened unless an officer documents it.
Save your clip and note the time and location while they’re exact. Washington is thick with cameras, but the plate your dashcam caught is the lead investigators can act on immediately. And keep the 60-day clock in view: if you carry PIP, the election deadline runs whether or not the other driver is ever identified — and if nobody is identified, there may be no one to sue, which changes the calculation on electing PIP. That is precisely the situation to put in front of a lawyer quickly.
Find a lawyer
The D.C. Bar Pro Bono Center runs neighborhood brief-advice and referral clinics plus resource centers at D.C. Superior Court — the fastest route to a first conversation with a lawyer at no cost.
The Bar Association of the District of Columbia separately operates a Lawyer Referral Service that charges a modest referral fee and connects you with an attorney who caps the initial consultation. Because that fee has changed over time, confirm the current amount when you call rather than relying on any figure published online.
Given the 60-day election, moving on this in the first week is worth more here than in any other jurisdiction covered on this site.
Free legal help
LawHelp.org/DC is the District’s guide to free and low-cost legal aid, with referral information for legal and social service providers across the city.
Direct intake: the Legal Aid Society of the District of Columbia at (202) 628-1161, and the Neighborhood Legal Services Program at (202) 269-5100, which provides free legal information, advice, and representation to low-income District residents on civil matters.
Insurance problems
The District’s Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking takes auto insurance complaints — including coverage issues, claim disputes, premium problems, sales misrepresentations, and cancellations — and investigates whether District laws and procedures were violated. It also handles complaints against producers, agents, and public adjusters.
Worth using early if your insurer is slow to process a PIP election, because that clock does not pause while a carrier takes its time.
No PIP of your own? Many District policyholders don’t have it, either because they waived it or because the vehicle involved wasn’t required to carry it. That removes the 60-day election problem entirely — your route is a claim against the at-fault driver, which puts contributory negligence squarely at the center of your case. Get advice early and preserve everything.
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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 4, 2026