§ 603-a. Accidents; police authorities to investigate. 1. In addition
to the requirements of section six hundred three of this article,
whenever a motor vehicle accident results in serious physical injury or
death to a person, and such accident either is discovered by a police
officer, or reported to a police officer within five days after such
accident occurred, the police shall conduct an investigation of such
accident.

(a) Such investigation shall be conducted for the purposes of making a
determination of the following: the facts and circumstances of the
accident; the type or types of vehicles involved, including passenger
motor vehicles, commercial motor vehicles, motorcycles, limited use
motorcycles, off-highway motorcycles, and/or bicycles; whether
pedestrians were involved; the contributing factor or factors; whether
it can be determined if a violation or violations of this chapter
occurred, and if so, the specific provisions of this chapter which were
violated and by whom; and, the cause of such accident, where such cause
can be determined.

(b) When present at the scene of such accident, the investigating
officer shall also request that all operators of motor vehicles involved
in such accident submit to field testing as defined in section eleven
hundred ninety-four of this chapter provided there are reasonable
grounds to believe such motor vehicle operator committed a serious
traffic violation in the same accident. The results of such field
testing or refusal of such testing shall be included in the police
investigation report. For the purposes of this section, "serious traffic
violation" shall mean operating a motor vehicle in violation of any of
the following provisions of this chapter: articles twenty-three,
twenty-four, twenty-five, twenty-six, twenty-eight, twenty-nine and
thirty and sections five hundred eleven, six hundred and twelve hundred
twelve.

(c) The police shall forward a copy of the investigation report to the
commissioner within five business days of the completion of such report.

2. For purposes of this section, the following terms shall have the
following meanings:

(a) "commercial motor vehicle" shall have the same meaning as such
term is defined in either subdivision four of section five hundred one-a
or subdivision one of section five hundred nine-p of this chapter; and

(b) "serious physical injury" shall have the same meaning as such term
is defined in section 10.00 of the penal law.