§ 603-A — Accidents; police authorities to investigate

§ 603-a. Accidents; police authorities to investigate. 1. In addition\nto the requirements of section six hundred three of this article,\nwhenever a motor vehicle, bicycle with electric assist, or electric\nscooter accident results in serious physical injury or death to a\nperson, and such accident either is discovered by a police officer, or\nreported to a police officer within five days after such accident\noccurred, the police shall conduct an investigation of such accident.\n (a) Such investigation shall be conducted for the purposes of making a\ndetermination of the following: the facts and circumstances of the\naccident; the type or types of vehicles involved, including passenger\nmotor vehicles, commercial motor vehicles, motorcycles, limited use\nmotorcycles, off-highway motorcycles, electric scooters, bicycles with\nelectric assist, and/or bicycles; whether pedestrians were involved; the\ncontributing factor or factors; whether it can be determined if a\nviolation or violations of this chapter occurred, and if so, the\nspecific provisions of this chapter which were violated and by whom;\nand, the cause of such accident, where such cause can be determined.\n (b) When present at the scene of such accident, the investigating\nofficer shall also request that all operators of motor vehicles involved\nin such accident submit to field testing as defined in section eleven\nhundred ninety-four of this chapter provided there are reasonable\ngrounds to believe such motor vehicle operator committed a serious\ntraffic violation in the same accident. The results of such field\ntesting or refusal of such testing shall be included in the police\ninvestigation report. For the purposes of this section, "serious traffic\nviolation" shall mean operating a motor vehicle in violation of any of\nthe following provisions of this chapter: articles twenty-three,\ntwenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-eight, twenty-nine and\nthirty and sections five hundred eleven, six hundred and twelve hundred\ntwelve.\n (c) The police shall forward a copy of the investigation report to the\ncommissioner within five business days of the completion of such report.\n 2. For purposes of this section, the following terms shall have the\nfollowing meanings:\n (a) "commercial motor vehicle" shall have the same meaning as such\nterm is defined in either subdivision four of section five hundred one-a\nor subdivision one of section five hundred nine-p of this chapter; and\n (b) "serious physical injury" shall have the same meaning as such term\nis defined in section 10.00 of the penal law.\n