Do I have to report a car accident in Ontario?

What Ontario requires at the scene

The duties start the moment metal touches metal, at every collision and not only the serious ones.

You must stop. You must exchange information — name, contact details, licence, insurance, and plate — with the other driver and anyone whose property was damaged. If anyone is hurt, call 911 and give what reasonable help you can. Leaving without doing those things is what turns a collision into a fail-to-remain, and the consequences of that escalate very quickly.

The duties reach parked cars and property too. Clipping an unattended vehicle in a Yorkdale parking lot obligates you to find the owner or leave your information — and modern lots are cameras all the way down.

Which crashes must be reported, and where

A collision must be reported when someone is injured or when the combined damage looks likely to exceed $5,000 — a threshold that took effect January 1, 2024, and one that a bumper, a headlamp, and a sensor can clear on their own at today’s prices. The practical rule: report unless the contact was genuinely trivial.

This is where Ontario differs from most places. For crashes without injuries, police generally do not attend — you drive or tow the vehicle to a Collision Reporting Centre, where an officer takes the report and the damage is photographed. Toronto’s CRCs handle this all day; go promptly, ideally the same day.

If anyone is injured, a driver appears impaired, or the road is blocked, call 911 and let police direct the scene instead. And when you are unsure whether your crash qualifies, call the non-emergency police line or simply go to the CRC — reporting a borderline crash costs an hour; failing to report one costs far more.

Why you want the report even when it feels optional

A report from a neutral source is the single most useful document in a disputed claim. The CRC record fixes the date, location, vehicles, statements, and photographs into a file nobody can quietly rewrite.

Adjusters lean on it when assigning fault under the Fault Determination Rules, and a claim with a report number attached moves faster than one balanced on two conflicting accounts. Insurance companies also routinely require a report on hit-and-run claims.

Memories change within days, and the other driver’s version at the scene is not always the version their insurance company hears later. The report freezes the facts while they are still facts.

What to document yourself

Whether or not police attend, take five minutes and capture the following. It costs nothing and is worth a great deal later.

• Photos of both vehicles from several angles, including the undamaged sides
• A wide shot showing vehicle positions, lane markings, and any signs or signals
• The other driver’s licence, insurance slip, and plate
• Names and phone numbers of witnesses, before they merge back into traffic
• The time, weather, road surface, and exact location
• Your dash camera clip, saved off the card the same day before it overwrites

Parking lots, private property, and unattended vehicles

The obligations do not evaporate on private property, and they specifically cover striking an unattended vehicle. Hit a parked car, and you are required to locate the owner or leave your name and contact information where they will find it.

Driving away from a clipped mirror in a condo garage is not a minor social lapse — it is the same category of conduct as leaving any other scene, and garages are the most-surveilled real estate in this city.

Whether police attend a low-speed private-property collision varies; usually they will not, and the drivers exchange information and report at a CRC if the damage warrants. That changes who writes things down, not whether the duties exist.

If you return to find your car hit and no note, treat it as a hit-and-run: photograph everything, report it for a report number, ask the property manager about camera footage that day rather than next week, and notify your insurance company.

A note left on a windshield should carry your name, your number, and a short line about what happened. Photograph the note in place before you leave — paper does not survive a windy parking level, and the photo proves you left it.

The situations people most often mishandle:

• Clipping a parked car in a lot and driving off without leaving information
• A low-speed backing collision where both drivers agree to just forget it
• Hitting a fence, gate, sign, or landscaping and not locating the owner
• A private-property crash where nobody exchanges details and nobody reports
• Agreeing to settle privately and then losing contact with the other driver
• Discovering damage days later with no dated record of when it happened

Reporting to the CRC and reporting to your insurance company are different

The collision report goes to police, through the Collision Reporting Centre or at the scene. Your policy separately expects prompt notice to your insurance company — the OAP 1 contemplates seven days — and those are two different obligations with two different consequences for missing them.

Notifying your insurance company is not the same as claiming. You can report the incident, take a claim number, and decide about repairing afterward.

This page is general information from a repair shop, not legal advice. Reporting duties and thresholds are set by Ontario law and current police guidance, and circumstances vary — if a crash involves injury, charges, or a dispute about what happened, talk to a lawyer.