When reeling from an accident, you will have to consider certain reporting requirements to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, such as Form NYS MV-104.
Victims must fill out Form NYS MV-104 for any motor vehicle accident that causes injury, death, or more than $1,000 in property damage. You will have ten days from the accident date to submit this form to the Department of Motor Vehicles. If you don’t, your license might get suspended. With our attorneys’ help, it should not take long for you to complete this form, provided you can recall enough information about the accident. If you cannot remember certain details required by the report, we can refer to the police report for the crash. On top of the legal requirement of filling out NYS MV-104, reporting an accident in this way can help victims further document a crash and their injuries.
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How Soon After an Accident Do You Have to Submit Form NYS MV-104?
When car accidents happen in New York, victims and negligent drivers may have to submit their own versions of Form NYS MV-104 to the Department of Motor Vehicles promptly.
As per V.A.T. Law § 605(a)(1), drivers involved in accidents that cause injury, death, or more than $1,000 must promptly submit a completed Form NYS MV-104 to the Department of Motor Vehicles within 10 days. If a victim is incapacitated, another participant in the accident can make a report. Or, if the victim was not the owner of the car, the car’s registered owner could fill out NYS MV-104.
Failure to submit a completed version of NYS MV-104 within ten days of the accident could result in the Department of Motor Vehicles suspending your license. It’s important to note that victims must make these reports, even if they do not live in New York.
On top of submitting this report to the Department of Motor Vehicles, you must call 911 from the crash site. Police officers will create their own report, which our attorneys can help you obtain in the days following the accident. Depending on what you recall from the crash, we can refer to the police report when helping you fill out Form NYS MV-104.
When seriously injured, victims might have to spend days or weeks in the hospital, making it harder for them to meet reporting requirements. In these situations, our attorneys can provide useful assistance in completing Form NYS MV-104 for victims and starting to prepare their claims.
How Long Does it Take to Fill Out Form NYS MV-104?
It could take you some time to complete Form NYS MV-104, as you’ll need a good amount of information about the accident and the other driver. Our Queens car accident lawyers can review the crash with you in detail and obtain additional information you might need for this report.
We can start by gathering all the necessary information to complete the form, such as the basic details about the accident’s date, location, and time. If possible, you should also get your vehicle assessed before filling out MV-104 so we can accurately estimate and describe the damage to your car.
You might not have all the information to complete the form readily accessible, like eyewitnesses’ contact details or the other car’s registration information. When victims sustain serious injuries in auto accidents, they might have to go directly to the hospital for emergency medical care. This makes it difficult for victims to record certain information they might need to complete NYS MV-104 in the future. Fortunately, when you call the police, officers can collect and include this information in the police report. Although police reports take time to process, we might be able to get yours soon after the accident to help us fill out and submit Form NYS MV-104 on time.
Once we have the required information, we can complete the form. You must then sign, date, and send it to the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles within ten days of your accident.
Why Do You Have to Fill Out Form NYS MV-104 After an Accident?
Under the law, victims must report certain accidents to the police and the Department of Motor Vehicles. Beyond that legal requirement, filling out Form NYS MV-104 after an accident might help victims during their recoveries.
You must fill out NYS MV-104 after an accident that causes injury, death, or substantial property damage, lest you risk repercussions from the Department of Motor Vehicles, like a license suspension. However, doing this doesn’t just satisfy a reporting requirement. When victims take the proper steps after a crash, they show their commitment to their financial recovery, which could ultimately help them.
It is important for the police accident report to match the report you submit to the Department of Motor Vehicles. Consistency matters, which is why our lawyers will be thorough when filling out this form alongside you. This is especially true when it comes to explaining your injuries, as you might have to meet the serious injury threshold to file a lawsuit against a negligent driver in New York. We can help you classify and describe your injuries on the form so that it is accurate.
Just as you may have to file Form NYS MV-104, so may the driver who caused your recent accident. We might be able to get their version of the form from the Department of Motor Vehicles to compare the reports and see if there are any discrepancies we should examine further.
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