What this is
What is a road collision report?
What is a road collision report?
It is the primary record of a collision involving a company vehicle on a public road, opened at the scene and completed by the driver with the fleet manager. It captures the facts of the event, the conditions, the parties involved and the evidence gathered, and it feeds the carrier's accident register, any insurance claim, and a root cause investigation where one is warranted.
How is a collision different from a near miss or a breakdown?
A collision means contact occurred, however minor. A near miss is a close call with no contact, logged on a separate record so it doesn't get lost inside actual-damage statistics. A breakdown is a mechanical failure with no impact at all. Mixing the three under one template makes trend data on any of them meaningless.
Who decides whether the collision goes on the accident register?
The fleet manager, applying the regulatory definition rather than gut feel. A scrape that only damages paint may not be recordable; a collision involving injury requiring treatment away from the scene, a fatality, or a vehicle towed from the scene generally is. The judgement is made against the definition, not against how the driver describes the impact.
Scope
When is a road collision report required?
This record is one step in a larger programme. Using it for work that belongs to a neighbouring template produces records that are hard to report on later.
Use this template when
- Contact has actually occurred between a company vehicle and another vehicle, object, person or animal on a public road
- A new case is needed; each one gets its own ID in the form CASE-2026-000
- You are running the Fleet and Driver Compliance programme and this is the incident-capture step
- A downstream record needs this one to exist first: it feeds the root cause analysis and the insurance claim
- The event needs to be assessed for the accident register regardless of how minor it looked at the roadside
Do not use it for
- Roadside Breakdown Record, which records a mechanical failure with no impact, location and recovery only.
- Cargo Damage Report, which records damage discovered in the load itself, in transit or at delivery, with no collision.
- Near Miss Road Report, which records a close call that did not result in contact.
- Post Incident Driver Assessment, which is the driver-focused follow-up raised after this record, not a substitute for it.
- Anything outside KnowFleet, which belongs in the workspace that owns that process
Compliance mapping
Which FMCSA 390.15 requirements does this satisfy?
The form's structure is built to satisfy the FMCSA accident register content requirement without the driver needing to know the regulation exists.
| Clause | Requirement | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| 49 CFR 390.15(b) | Register entry must show the date and location of the accident | Header |
| 49 CFR 390.15(b) | Register entry must identify the driver involved | Header |
| 49 CFR 390.15(b) | Register entry must be detailed enough to reconstruct the event, including road and weather conditions | The collision |
| 49 CFR 390.15(b) | Register entry must state the number of injuries and fatalities | Injuries and parties |
| 49 CFR 390.15(b) | Register entry must state whether hazardous materials were released | Vehicle and load |
| 49 CFR 390.15(a) | Carrier must be able to produce supporting records on request for an investigation | Evidence |
| 49 CFR 390.15(b) | Register and its supporting records must be retained for three years | Assessment |
| 49 CFR 390.15(a) | Carrier must give access to records within the time FMCSA specifies | Notifications |
What it does not cover
- A verbal debrief with no written case, which leaves nothing on the register and nothing to hand an insurer if the third party claims later.
- A case closed with dashcam marked 'Lost', which trades the one objective account of the event for whatever version survives in memory.
- Third party details 'partly' exchanged and the case closed anyway, which leaves the fleet manager chasing a name and a policy number weeks after the road surface has dried.
- Preventability decided before the statement and the footage are both in, which locks in a judgement the evidence might have overturned.
- An injury recorded with no emergency services field completed, which makes it impossible to tell later whether the injury was assessed on scene or only reported after the fact.
Global
Road Collision Report requirements by country
The obligations layer differently depending on where the vehicle runs and who is asking for the record.
FMCSA 390.15 and the accident definition at 390.5
Only collisions meeting the regulatory definition — a fatality, an injury requiring immediate treatment away from the scene, or a vehicle towed from the scene — have to go on the accident register.
A minor scrape still gets a full case, but the fleet manager makes a separate, explicit call on recordability rather than assuming every case qualifies.
State DMV and police collision-report thresholds
States set their own property-damage and injury thresholds for when police must be called and a state accident report filed, independent of the federal register.
A collision can sit below the FMCSA recordable threshold and still trigger a mandatory police report; the case has to capture both determinations separately.
National Safety Code Standard 15
Extra-provincial carriers running into Canada face a comparable safety-rating and collision-reporting regime under the National Safety Code.
A fleet running cross-border traffic needs the case to hold enough detail to answer to whichever regime the vehicle was actually operating under at the time.
How to complete it
How to complete a road collision report, step by step
Filling in every field is the easy part. Four judgement calls decide whether the finished case would survive an insurer's or an auditor's scrutiny.
The register entry, and by extension the carrier's safety rating, only exists if the fleet manager tests the collision against the regulatory definition rather than against how serious it looked. Getting this wrong in either direction either inflates the register or leaves a recordable event off it.
A driver can be legally blameless and the collision still preventable in the carrier's own sense — following distance too short for the conditions, for instance. Collapsing the two questions into one produces a preventability figure that just tracks who got the ticket.
Dashcam and telematics data both have a shelf life measured in days, sometimes hours. A case that reaches the assessment stage with either marked 'Lost' has already had its defensibility decided, regardless of how thorough the rest of the narrative is.
Investigation level is meant to be set by what could have happened — a near-miss with a pedestrian that just happened not to connect badly deserves the same scrutiny as one that did. Setting it by the damage bill alone under-investigates the collisions that were lucky rather than well managed.
What auditors find
Most common road collision report findings
The failure modes that actually show up in completed cases, not the ones a checklist would predict.
| Finding | Clause | What fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Dashcam Footage Secured answered 'Not fitted' on a vehicle the fleet register shows as camera-equipped. | 49 CFR 390.15(a) | Cross-check the answer against the vehicle's actual fitment before the case can close, and escalate any mismatch to the fleet manager directly. |
| Investigation Required marked 'No' on a case where Anyone Injured or Dangerous Goods Involved was answered 'Yes'. | 49 CFR 390.15(b) | Force Investigation Required to 'Yes' automatically whenever injury or a hazmat release is recorded, rather than leaving it as an independent judgement call. |
| Emergency Services Attended answered 'Yes' with the Police Reference Number left blank. | 49 CFR 390.15(b) | Require either a reference number or an explicit 'not issued' reason whenever emergency services attended. |
| Third Party Details Exchanged answered 'Partly' or 'No' on a case already marked Complete. | Insurer subrogation practice | Block the status change to Complete until third-party details are confirmed exchanged or explicitly marked unobtainable. |
| Cargo Damage Report ID left blank despite Load Affected answered 'Delayed' or 'Rejected'. | Cross-record evidence chain | Make the linked FLT-016 reference mandatory whenever the load itself was affected, not just when damage is visually obvious. |
| Preventable answered before Driver Statement Taken and Dashcam Footage Secured are both confirmed. | Investigation sequencing | Sequence the form so the preventability field only unlocks once the two primary evidence fields are answered. |
Case in point
Case in point: the collision that was lost to the footage retention window
A rigid HGV was rear-ended at a roundabout at dusk. The driver photographed the damage and exchanged details, but the case wasn't opened until the vehicle returned to the yard two days later, by which point the dashcam had looped and overwritten the approach footage.
The third party later claimed the HGV braked without cause. With no footage and a driver statement written up two days after the event, the fleet had a photographed outcome but no record of the seconds that mattered, and the claim settled on the third party's account by default.
The template
The template, field by field
The form exactly as it installs. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to other templates come with it.
7 sections
- Reference
- FLT-014
- Archetype
- Record
- Record ID
- CASE-2026-000
- Scoring
- Actual and potential severity
- Direction
- High is bad
- Singleton
- No
- Basis
- FMCSA 390.15
- Links
- Feeds RCA, Insurance claim
- Tags
- Fleet, Incident
- Sections
- 7
- Fields
- 80
- Follow up fields
- 6
- Repeating sections
- 0
- Links out
- 9
Header
20 fieldsCase ID*
Auto sequence. Format CASE-2026-00000.
The record's own ID. Other templates point at this value.
Status*
Drives who this goes to next.
- Planned2 pts
- In progress2 pts
- Complete3 pts
- Deferred0 pts
- Open0 pts
- Closed3 pts
- Overdue0 pts
Date and Time*
Completed By*
Site*
Site ID*
Format SITE-000.
Links to FDN-001 Site ID
Exact Location
Drop a pin. Roadside events rarely have a useful address.
Vehicle*
Asset ID*
Format AST-0000.
Links to FDN-002 Asset ID
Unit Number
The number painted on the door, which is what drivers actually use.
Driver*
Person ID*
Links to FDN-003 Person ID
Licence Class
Say Nothing About Fault At The Scene
Record facts, exchange details, photograph everything. Admissions made at the roadside are used later and are almost always made before anybody knows what happened.
Trip Or Route Reference
Origin
Destination
Odometer Reading
Load Carried
Chilled, frozen, ambient, mixed temperature, dangerous goods or empty.
Customer Or Site
The collision
10 fieldsTime Of Collision*
Collision Type*
Rear end, side swipe, head on, reversing, junction, single vehicle, or pedestrian and cyclist.
Our Vehicle Moving*
Description*
Road Type*
Speed Limit
Estimated Speed
Weather Conditions*
- Clear3 pts
- Rain1 pt
- Fog0 pts
- Snow or ice0 pts
- Wind1 pt
Light Conditions*
- Daylight3 pts
- Dusk or dawn1 pt
- Dark, lit1 pt
- Dark, unlit0 pts
Road Surface*
- Dry3 pts
- Wet1 pt
- Icy0 pts
- Contaminated0 pts
Injuries and parties
9 fieldsAnyone Injured*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Our Driver Injured*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Third Party Injured*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Injury Severity
- First aid2 pts
- Medical treatment1 pt
- Serious0 pts
- Fatal0 pts
Emergency Services Attended*
Police Reference Number
Third Parties Involved
Third Party Details Exchanged*
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Witnesses Identified*
- Yes3 pts
- None present2 pts
- Not obtained0 pts
Evidence
6 fieldsScene Photographed*
- Yes, comprehensive3 pts
- Partial1 pt
- No0 pts
Photographs
Dashcam Footage Secured*
Footage overwrites itself. Secure it the same day or it is gone.
- Yes3 pts
- Not fitted1 pt
- Lost0 pts
Telematics Data Secured*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
ELD Data Secured*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Driver Statement Taken*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Vehicle and load
12 fieldsVehicle Damage*
- None3 pts
- Minor2 pts
- Significant1 pt
- Written off0 pts
Vehicle Driveable*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Recovery Required*
- No3 pts
- Yes1 pt
Load Affected*
- No3 pts
- Delayed1 pt
- Rejected0 pts
Cargo Damage Report ID
Links to FLT-016 Report ID
Cold Chain Compromised*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Excursion Record ID
Links to FLT-027 Record ID
Load Transferred
Spill Occurred*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Spill Case ID
Thread key
Dangerous Goods Involved*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Emergency Response Guide Followed
- Yes3 pts
- Partly1 pt
- No0 pts
Assessment
6 fieldsPreventable*
Could our driver reasonably have avoided it. This is separate from legal fault.
- No2 pts
- Partly1 pt
- Yes0 pts
Contributing Factors*
Fatigue A Factor*
- No3 pts
- Possibly1 pt
- Yes0 pts
Hours Of Service Compliant At Time*
- Yes3 pts
- No0 pts
Vehicle Defect Contributed*
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Post Incident Assessment ID
Links to FLT-018 Assessment ID
Notifications
17 fieldsInsurer Notified*
Hours To Insurer Notification
Regulatory Report Required*
- No3 pts
- Yes1 pt
Record ID
Links to SAF-010 Notification ID
Customer Notified
- Yes3 pts
- Not required3 pts
- No0 pts
Feeds Safety Rating*
Investigation Required*
Set by potential outcome, not by what actually happened.
- No3 pts
- Yes0 pts
Investigation Level
RCA ID
Format RCA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-013 RCA ID
Action Required*
Raise the action record, then enter its reference here.
- No2 pts
- Yes0 pts
Priority
- High0 pts
- Medium1 pt
- Low3 pts
CAPA ID
Format CAPA-2026-00000.
Links to FDN-014 CAPA ID
Action Owner
Fleet Manager*
Signature*
Safety Lead*
Second Signature*
FLT-014 · record IDs look like CASE-2026-000 · Feeds RCA, Insurance claim
Open in KnowellaRun it with agents
From a document you fill in to a programme that runs itself
The form captures the case. Keeping the evidence intact, routing the case to the right owner, and rolling collisions into a safety picture is the work that actually slips.
Holds the collision case against the vehicle and driver registers, tracks whether dashcam, telematics and ELD data were actually secured, and flags cases missing linked evidence before they close.
Picks up any case flagged for investigation, runs the RCA or quick debrief against the assessment fields, and tracks the resulting CAPA through to closure.
Maintains the accident register itself, tests each case against the DOT-recordable definition, and keeps the three-year retention trail auditable.
Coordinates the crew across cases, surfaces the ones sitting with evidence unsecured, and holds every write for your approval before it touches a record.
This template lives in KnowFleet — fleet and transport. Drivers, vehicles, hours, cargo securement and operator licence compliance.
Meet KnowFleet→Glossary
Road Collision Report definitions and key terms
- Accident register
- The FMCSA-mandated log every motor carrier keeps of recordable collisions, retained for three years and open to inspection on request.
- DOT recordable
- A collision that meets the federal threshold for the accident register — a fatality, an injury requiring immediate treatment away from the scene, or a vehicle towed from the scene.
- Preventability
- A carrier's internal judgement on whether the driver could reasonably have avoided the collision, assessed separately from legal fault or any citation issued.
- Subrogation
- An insurer's right to pursue a third party for costs it has already paid out; it depends heavily on the evidence and details captured at the scene.
- Telematics event
- A hard braking, cornering or impact reading captured by the vehicle's telematics unit, which can corroborate or contradict a driver's account of a collision.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about road collision report
What is the road collision report template based on?+
It is built against FMCSA 390.15, the accident register requirement, which sets a floor for what the record has to capture: date, location, driver, injuries, fatalities and any hazardous materials released.
What sections does the road collision report contain?+
Seven sections: Header, The collision, Injuries and parties, Evidence, Vehicle and load, Assessment, Notifications. Together they hold 80 fields, 50 of which are required.
When is a road collision report raised?+
At the roadside, as soon as it's safe to do so, not reconstructed later from memory. Each case gets its own ID in the form CASE-2026-00000.
How is a collision scored differently from fault?+
Scoring runs on actual and potential severity, with high scores meaning worse outcomes. Fault and preventability are separate assessment fields, deliberately not folded into the severity score.
Does every collision need a full RCA?+
No. Investigation level ranges from a quick debrief to a cross-functional RCA, set by the potential outcome of the collision rather than the damage bill it actually produced.
Can the template be changed?+
Yes. Every field, option, score and conditional rule is editable, and the links to the RCA, CAPA and insurance records travel with it. Most fleets install it as-is, run it for a cycle, then tune the thresholds.
Keep going
Related templates and programmes
Industries this is written for
Programmes this belongs to
Used together in Fleet and Driver Compliance
Transport Provider Assessment
Assesses a haulier for licensing, driver management, vehicle standards, temperature capability and load security
Driver Vehicle Inspection Report
The pre-trip and post-trip inspection a driver completes on a commercial vehicle
Annual Vehicle Inspection
The yearly statutory inspection of a commercial vehicle
Trailer Inspection
Checks trailer coupling, brakes, lights, tyres, doors and structure
Reefer Unit Check
Checks refrigeration unit operation, fuel, temperature setpoint and alarm history
Vehicle Defect Report
Reports a defect found on a vehicle at any time, not just during a scheduled inspection
More in Road Incidents
Roadside Breakdown Record
Records a breakdown on the road, including cause, location and recovery
Cargo Damage Report
Records damage to cargo discovered in transit or at delivery
Near Miss Road Report
Records a close call on the road that did not result in a collision
Post Incident Driver Assessment
Assesses a driver's fitness and competency following a serious incident
Written and reviewed by
Siddarth Singh
Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Knowella
Certified Safety Professional and industrial and systems engineer with more than a decade inside food supply chain, freight and manufacturing operations. This page was written against the current text of the standards it cites, not against secondary summaries of them.
- Certified Safety Professional (CSP), Board of Certified Safety Professionals
- MBA, University of Chicago Booth School of Business
- MS and BS, The Ohio State University, Industrial and Systems Engineering
- Six Sigma Black Belt
Sources and last review. Reviewed 16 August 2026 against:
- 49 CFR 390.15 — Assistance in investigations and special studies (accident register)
- 49 CFR 390.5 — Definitions (accident)
- National Safety Code Standard 15 — Safety Ratings for Motor Carriers (Canada)
- State DMV collision-reporting statutes and thresholds
This page is general guidance, not legal advice. Confirm requirements with your jurisdiction’s regulator.