(a) The department shall prepare and shall upon request supply to police, coroners, sheriffs and other suitable agencies or individuals, forms for accident reports calling for sufficiently detailed information to disclose with reference to a highway accident the cause, conditions then existing, and the persons and vehicle involved, as provided in § 55-10-111.
Terms Used In Tennessee Code 55-10-115
accident: includes any collision or crash, regardless of the degree of care exercised by the drivers involved or whether it was the result of criminal conduct. See Tennessee Code 55-10-101
Driver: means :(A) For purposes of a conventionally operated vehicle, every person who drives or is in actual physical control of a vehicle. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
Highway: means the entire width between the boundary lines of every way when any part thereto is open to the use of the public for purposes of vehicular travel. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
Person: means a natural person, firm, copartnership, association, corporation, or an engaged ADS. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
Traffic: means pedestrians, ridden or herded animals, vehicles, streetcars and other conveyances either singly or together while using any highway for purposes of travel. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
Vehicle: means every device in, upon or by which any person or property is or may be transported or drawn upon a highway, excepting devices used exclusively upon stationary rails or tracks. See Tennessee Code 55-8-101
written: includes printing, typewriting, engraving, lithography, and any other mode of representing words and letters. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
(b) The department shall receive accident reports required to be made by this part and may tabulate and analyze those reports and publish annually, or at more frequent intervals, statistical information based thereon as to the number, cause and location of highway accidents.(c) Based upon its findings after this analysis, the department may conduct further necessary detailed research to more fully determine the cause and control of highway accidents. It may further conduct experimental field tests within areas of the state from time to time to prove the practicability of various ideas advanced in traffic control and accident prevention.(d)(1) Any member of the general assembly may request, in writing, the department to provide a copy of a crash report received pursuant to this part that occurred in the member’s district and that resulted in a person‘s death. The report must be provided to the member within thirty (30) business days after a confirmed death is reported to the department on the crash report.(2) The written request must include the duration for which the member wishes to receive crash reports, up to three hundred sixty-five (365) days. A member must submit another request after the expiration of the previous request in order to continue receiving crash reports.(3) A crash report that is subject to an ongoing investigation or court order requiring the information be kept confidential shall not be released under this subsection (d).(4) The federal Driver Privacy Protection Act (18 U.S.C. §§ 2721-2725), the Uniform Motor Vehicle Records Disclosure Act, compiled in chapter 25 of this title, and any other state or federal law regarding protection of personally identifiable information apply to any report released under this subsection (d).
