What Is the First Thing You Do After a Car Accident in Denver?

Stop your vehicle and stay at the scene. Colorado law requires it, and every other step depends on it. Once you have stopped, the order that follows is: check for injuries, call 911, exchange the information the law requires, and get evaluated by a doctor.

The rest of this page walks through that sequence and the Denver-specific wrinkles that change it, including what happens when the city declares an Accident Alert. If you want to talk to someone at CGH Injury Lawyers about a crash that already happened, you can contact us here or call (303) 209-9395.

The content on this page is provided for general informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this page does not create an attorney-client relationship. Laws vary by jurisdiction and change frequently. Always consult a licensed attorney for advice specific to your situation.

What this page covers

• The stop-and-stay duty, and why leaving turns a crash into a criminal charge
• When Colorado requires you to call the police
• What an Accident Alert changes in Denver
• The exact information you owe the other driver
• Where Denver’s trauma care actually is
• Who pays the emergency room bill before fault is sorted out
• The deadlines that start running the moment of impact

Key takeaways

• Stopping is a legal duty. Leaving the scene of a crash involving injury can be charged as a misdemeanor or a felony depending on how badly someone was hurt.
• Colorado’s police-reporting threshold is any property damage. There is no dollar minimum in the statute.
• An Accident Alert does not cancel your obligations. It changes who writes the report. The obligation to file one stays.
• A 50 percent share of fault ends a claim in Colorado. Not 51. What you say at the roadside feeds directly into that number.
• Your own policy probably carries at least $5,000 in medical payments coverage, and a portion of it is held in reserve specifically for trauma care.
• Two clocks start at impact, and if a government vehicle was involved, one of them runs in months rather than years.

Stopping is the first thing, and Colorado is specific about it

C.R.S. 42-4-1601(1) requires the driver of any vehicle directly involved in an accident resulting in injury, serious bodily injury, or death to “immediately stop such vehicle at the scene of such accident or as close to the scene as possible,” and then to remain there until the information requirements of C.R.S. 42-4-1603(1) have been met.

Two details matter more than people expect.

The first is how the statute defines injury. C.R.S. 42-4-1601(4) treats “physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical or mental condition” as injury. A sore neck qualifies. The threshold for the stop-and-stay duty is far lower than most drivers assume.

The second is what happens when someone gets it wrong. Under C.R.S. 42-4-1601(2), leaving is a class 1 misdemeanor traffic offense where the accident caused injury, a class 4 felony where it caused serious bodily injury, and a class 3 felony where someone died. A conviction also carries license revocation under subsection (3).

There is a narrow allowance in C.R.S. 42-4-1601(1.5): once you have satisfied the stop duty and the information duty, leaving specifically to report the crash under C.R.S. 42-4-1603(2) and 42-4-1606 is not an offense. That is a permission to go report, not a permission to go home.

Then call the police, even when it looks minor

C.R.S. 42-4-1606(1) requires a driver involved in a traffic accident resulting in injury, serious bodily injury, death, “or any property damage” to give immediate notice of the location of the accident to the nearest office of the duly authorized police authority. If the police direct you to, you must return to the scene and stay until they have finished investigating.

Read that threshold again. The statute says any property damage. It sets no dollar figure, which means the common belief that minor crashes fall below some reporting minimum has no basis in the text.

Denver Police put the practical version of this plainly on their own reporting page: “In all cases, except when an Accident Alert has been declared, you must stop and report the crash by calling your local police station or 911.”

What an Accident Alert changes, and what it doesn’t

This is the Denver-specific piece that catches people out, usually on the worst possible day for it.

Denver Police define an Accident Alert this way: “An Accident Alert is declared when conditions (such as inclement weather or other emergency) are so severe that police officers are unable to respond to the volume of motor vehicle crashes.” It typically goes into effect during heavy snow, which in this city can mean several times a winter.

Their instruction if you crash while one is active is to call 911 anyway and let the dispatcher decide whether an officer is sent. You do not make that call yourself from the roadside.

If no officer is dispatched, Denver Police require all drivers involved to exchange name, driver’s license information, vehicle registration information and proof of insurance, then to file a report as soon as possible through their local police station or by calling 911.

One line on that page deserves attention, because it changes what your self-filed report is worth: “Vehicle crash reporting is for Colorado Department of Revenue records only. No law enforcement agency will be investigating these reports.”

In plain terms, a report you file yourself during an Accident Alert satisfies the record-keeping requirement. It does not produce an investigation, an officer’s observations, or a scene diagram. Nobody is going to go look. That makes your own photographs, the other driver’s details, and the contact information of any independent witness far more important than they would be on a clear day when an officer attends.

What you actually owe the other driver

C.R.S. 42-4-1603(1) sets out the exchange, and it is narrower than most people think. You must give your name, your address, and the registration number of the vehicle you are driving, and exhibit your driver’s license on request.

The same subsection adds a second duty. Where practical you must render reasonable assistance to anyone injured, “including the carrying, or the making of arrangements for the carrying, of such person to a physician, surgeon, or hospital for medical or surgical treatment” if treatment is obviously needed or the injured person asks.

Notice what the statute does not require. It does not require you to explain how the crash happened, to apportion blame, or to speculate about who did what. Those are conversations for later, with more information than anybody has in the first ten minutes.

If the other people involved are in no condition to receive your information and no officer is present, C.R.S. 42-4-1603(2) directs you to report the accident immediately to the nearest police authority instead.

Get checked, and know where Denver’s trauma care is

Adrenaline is an unreliable narrator, and some injuries do not announce themselves for hours or days. That is why the decision to get evaluated should not rest on how you feel standing at the roadside. Our guide on when to see a doctor after a car accident in Colorado covers the timeline in more detail.

For serious injuries, the level of the facility matters. According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s trauma-designation dataset, Denver Health Medical Center at 777 Bannock Street is the only Level I trauma center inside the city and county of Denver. Several well-known Denver hospitals carry lower designations under the same dataset: Porter Adventist is Level III, and Presbyterian St. Luke’s, Rose Medical Center and Saint Joseph Hospital are each Level IV.

The nearest other Level I facilities sit outside Denver proper: St. Anthony Hospital in Lakewood, Swedish Medical Center in Englewood, and the University of Colorado Hospital at Anschutz in Aurora.

This is worth knowing in advance rather than looking up in an ambulance. It is not a reason to refuse the hospital paramedics choose, since paramedics choose a destination on their own assessment of the injuries in front of them. It is a reason to understand that “the closest emergency room” and “the closest trauma center” are frequently different places in this city.

Watch what you say, because Colorado’s fault rule is unforgiving

Colorado applies modified comparative negligence under C.R.S. 13-21-111. Damages are reduced in proportion to the injured person’s own share of the negligence.

The cut-off is the part people misremember. C.R.S. 13-21-111(3) directs a court to enter judgment for the defendant when the injured person’s proportion of negligence “is equal to or greater than the negligence of the person against whom recovery is sought.” That threshold is 50 percent, not 51. An even split ends the claim outright.

Injured person’s share of fault	Effect on recovery
0 percent	Full damages
25 percent	Damages reduced by 25 percent
49 percent	Damages reduced by 49 percent
50 percent	Recovers nothing
51 percent or more	Recovers nothing

That is why a reflexive apology at the scene is worth taking seriously. One word at the roadside does not decide a case on its own. What it can do is contribute to a percentage, and a few percentage points can be the difference between a reduced claim and no claim. The other side’s adjuster starts assembling those percentage points immediately. We cover this ground more fully in our post on partial fault in a Colorado car accident, and on the mistakes insurers are counting on.

Describe what happened factually to the police. Leave the conclusions to the evidence.

Who pays for the emergency room before fault is decided

This is the question that keeps people out of an ambulance, and the answer is better than most drivers realize.

Under C.R.S. 10-4-635(1)(a), an auto liability policy cannot be issued in Colorado unless it provides medical payments coverage of $5,000, commonly called MedPay. A policyholder can reject it, but only in writing or in the same medium the application was taken. And under subsection (1)(c), if the insurer cannot produce proof of that written rejection, the policy is presumed to include the $5,000 anyway.

MedPay does not ask who caused the crash. It pays regardless of fault.

There is a further provision worth knowing. C.R.S. 10-4-635(2)(b) requires the insurer, once notified of an accident, to reserve $5,000 of medical payments coverage specifically for trauma care, paid out in a statutory priority order: licensed ambulances and air ambulances that provided care at the scene first, then trauma physicians who stabilized the patient, then Level IV and V trauma centers, then Level I, II and III centers.

That reserve is not held indefinitely. Under subsection (2)(c), the insurer holds it for no more than thirty days after receiving notice of the accident, after which unclaimed amounts can be paid against other bills. Notifying your own insurer promptly is what starts that clock.

Subsection (3)(a) adds one more thing worth knowing: an insurer paying MedPay benefits has no right to recover those payments from the at-fault driver, and no direct cause of action against them.

The clocks that start at impact

Two deadlines begin running the moment a crash happens, and they are not the same length.

Three years for most motor-vehicle claims. C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n)(I) applies a three-year limitation period to “all tort actions for bodily injury or property damage arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle.” This is a longer window than Colorado’s general two-year personal injury statute, and the two are not interchangeable. Our post on how long after an accident you can sue in Denver goes into the exceptions.

182 days if a government vehicle was involved. If the other vehicle belonged to a public entity, C.R.S. 24-10-109(1) requires written notice within 182 days of discovering the injury. The statute is blunt about the consequence: compliance “shall be a jurisdictional prerequisite to any action brought under the provisions of this article, and failure of compliance shall forever bar any such action.”

C.R.S. 24-10-103(5) defines a public entity broadly, covering the state, any county, any city and county, any municipality, and “every other kind of district, agency, instrumentality, or political subdivision thereof.” In a Denver context that reaches city vehicles and, potentially, transit and other public agencies. If a bus, a city truck or a marked government vehicle was part of your crash, the timeline you are working with may be measured in months rather than years.

Talk to a Denver car accident lawyer

The first hour after a crash sets up everything that follows. Photographs, witness details and nearby camera footage all have a short shelf life, and the other driver’s insurer begins building its version of events straight away.

If you were hurt in a crash in Denver, or you are trying to work out what to do next, tell us what happened and we will tell you where things stand.

Call CGH Injury Lawyers at (303) 209-9395, or send us a message. You can also read more about how we handle car accident cases. Se habla español.

Frequently asked questions

Do you have to call the police after a car accident in Denver?

In most cases, yes. C.R.S. 42-4-1606(1) requires immediate notice to the nearest police authority for any accident involving injury, serious bodily injury, death, or any property damage. Denver Police state that you must stop and report the crash by calling your local police station or 911 in all cases except when an Accident Alert has been declared.

What happens if the police don’t come to the scene?

During a declared Accident Alert, Denver Police ask you to call 911 and let the dispatcher decide whether an officer is sent. If none is, all drivers must exchange name, driver’s license, registration and insurance information, then file a report as soon as possible. Denver Police note that these self-filed reports are for Colorado Department of Revenue records only and that no law enforcement agency investigates them.

How long do you have to report a car accident in Colorado?

The statute does not give you a number of days. C.R.S. 42-4-1606(1) requires “immediate notice” to the nearest police authority once the requirements of C.R.S. 42-4-1602 and 42-4-1603(1) have been met. Where an Accident Alert prevents an officer from attending, Denver Police direct drivers to file a report as soon as possible.

Should you see a doctor even if you feel fine?

Getting evaluated is generally the safer course, because some injuries do not produce symptoms immediately. Medical payments coverage under C.R.S. 10-4-635 pays for accident-related care without regard to fault, and a minimum of $5,000 is included in a Colorado auto policy unless the named insured rejected it in writing.

How long do you have to file a claim after a car accident in Colorado?

C.R.S. 13-80-101(1)(n)(I) sets a three-year limitation period for tort actions arising out of the use or operation of a motor vehicle. A claim involving a public entity is different: C.R.S. 24-10-109(1) requires written notice within 182 days of discovering the injury, and that requirement is jurisdictional.

Does admitting fault at the scene end your claim?

Not by itself. Fault is decided on the evidence, and Colorado divides it by percentage under C.R.S. 13-21-111. What an off-the-cuff admission can do is contribute to a percentage, and because recovery is barred once the injured person’s share is equal to or greater than the other party’s, that number matters more in Colorado than in states using a 51 percent bar.

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Last updated: August 25, 2026

Jurisdiction: This page discusses Colorado law and Denver city practice.

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