After a Crash in Wyoming — Official Resources
This is general information, not legal advice.
Wyoming amended its crash-reporting law effective July 1, 2025, and most guides online still describe the old rule. Under W.S. 31-5-1105 the driver must give notice of the crash immediately, by the quickest means of communication — to the local police inside a municipality, otherwise the nearest Wyoming Highway Patrol office or the county sheriff — when there is injury or death, or property damage at the level the statute sets. The pre-amendment text used a $1,000 threshold plus any vehicle left “so disabled as to prevent its normal and safe operation.” Crash reports are the cheapest in the country: $3.00 from WYDOT Highway Safety, plus $2.50 if you pay by card — (307) 777-4450. Free help: the Wyoming State Bar’s referral service and its Modest Means Program, which caps participating attorneys at $100 an hour and a $1,000 retainer.
Wyoming rewrote this exact law on July 1, 2025, which makes almost every accident guide on the internet — and possibly the pamphlet in your glovebox — out of date. The safe version of the rule is in the first card. After it: the cheapest crash report of any state on this site, lawyer referrals with unusually concrete price caps, free legal help, and insurance complaints. The first-steps checklist covers saving your dashcam clip before the camera loops.
Report the crash
Per WYDOT Highway Safety, as of July 1, 2025 the driver of a vehicle involved in a crash must immediately, by the quickest means of communication, give notice to the local police department — or, outside a municipality, to the county sheriff or state law enforcement — when the crash results in injury to or death of any person, or property damage at the level the amended statute specifies.
Why the hedging. The Wyoming Legislature amended W.S. 31-5-1105 in the 2025 general session, effective July 1, 2025. The version codified before that amendment required notice for injury or death, property damage to another of at least $1,000, or any vehicle becoming so disabled as to prevent its normal and safe operation. We have not been able to confirm the exact post-amendment wording against the official statute text, and most secondary sources still quote the old version.
So here is the practical rule that is safe under either version: if anyone is hurt, if any vehicle can’t be driven away safely, or if the damage might plausibly reach $1,000 — call it in. Wyoming penalizes failure to report, and there is no penalty for reporting a crash that turned out to be below the line. WYDOT’s crash reports page above carries the current requirement.
Get the crash report
Wyoming charges $3.00 for a crash report — the lowest fee of any state covered on this site — with a $2.50 service fee added if you pay by credit card. Checks and money orders payable to WYDOT are accepted by mail or in person.
Four ways to request one, per the Wyoming Highway Patrol and WYDOT: by phone at (307) 777-4450, by email to crash.records@wyo.gov, in person at the Cheyenne WYDOT office at 5300 Bishop Blvd., or by mail to WYDOT, Attention: Highway Safety, at the same address. Say whether you want the report as paper, email, or fax.
Investigating officers submit their reports to WYDOT within ten days of completing the investigation, so allow a couple of weeks before assuming yours is missing.
Hit-and-run
Call it in immediately — the notice duty above applies regardless of who caused the crash, and with nobody to exchange information with, the officer’s report is the only account that will exist.
Save your clip and note the time and location while they’re exact. Wyoming has the emptiest roads in the country: on long stretches of I-80 or a two-lane in the Bighorns there is frequently no other witness and no second camera, which makes a plate captured on video the difference between a solvable case and a shrug. Uninsured-motorist coverage on your own policy is the usual route to payment when the driver is never identified — and read your policy’s hit-and-run notice window, which is typically far shorter than the claim deadline.
Find a lawyer
The Wyoming State Bar’s referral service works by online request — you describe what you need and a coordinator emails you a referral. The Bar also publishes a searchable directory of attorneys who take referrals, filterable by area of law, plus a member directory covering every lawyer licensed in Wyoming.
If money is tight but you earn too much for legal aid, ask about the Modest Means Program. It’s aimed at households between roughly 200% and 300% of the federal poverty guidelines, and participating attorneys agree to charge no more than a $1,000 retainer and $100 an hour. Those are unusually concrete caps — most states’ reduced-fee programs won’t name a number.
Free legal help
Wyoming’s legal aid providers generally take cases at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, and the Bar’s low-income options page lists who covers what.
Two worth knowing: Wyoming Free Legal Answers lets income-eligible residents post a civil legal question that volunteer Wyoming attorneys answer at no cost, and the University of Wyoming’s Civil Legal Services Clinic takes a broad range of civil matters at (307) 766-6416. In the northwest corner, the Teton County Access to Justice Center serves Teton, Sublette, and Lincoln counties.
Insurance problems
The Wyoming Department of Insurance regulates auto insurers in the state and handles consumer complaints about claims. You can reach its current consumer contact and complaint channels through the national directory of state insurance departments.
Uninsured when it happened? The notice duty above doesn’t depend on coverage, and Wyoming ties reporting to financial-responsibility verification — which means not reporting doesn’t hide anything, it just adds a second problem on top of the first. Report it, then use the Bar’s low-income options or Free Legal Answers for what follows.
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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