If a teenage driver is involved in a car accident in NC, does the Juvenile Code's confidentiality rule prevent the police report from identifying the teen as the driver?

Plain-English summary

Greensboro Police Attorney Maurice Cawn asked AG Lacy Thornburg whether the confidentiality protections of the NC Juvenile Code (G.S. 7A-675) prevented the police from identifying a driver under 18 in a collision report filed under G.S. 20-166.1(e). The question mattered because the collision reports filed with the DMV are public records under G.S. 20-166.1(i), and the public records access (insurance companies, journalists, other parties to the accident) would be hollow if every involved driver under 18 had to be redacted.

The AG said no, the juvenile confidentiality rule did not apply to collision reports. The point of G.S. 7A-675 is to shield juvenile-court matters: investigations and records related to abuse, neglect, dependency, delinquency, or undisciplined behavior under the Juvenile Code. Those proceedings exist because juveniles get a different statutory framework than adults: rehabilitation rather than punishment, sealed records, restricted access. The confidentiality rule serves the rehabilitation purpose.

A DMV collision report is a different animal. It is a factual record of a motor vehicle crash. G.S. 20-166.1(h) makes that explicit. The report does not charge an offense, and G.S. 20-166.1(i) confirms it is not the basis for a charge. The investigation underlying the report is not a criminal investigation. It is an after-the-fact factual reconstruction for traffic-safety and civil-liability purposes.

Since the collision report is not a juvenile-court record and the underlying investigation is not a juvenile-court investigation, G.S. 7A-675 does not reach either. The juvenile driver's identification stays in the report, and the report stays open to public inspection.

The opinion is short but consequential. It made clear that the juvenile-confidentiality regime is not a blanket shield around all government records involving people under 18. It is a targeted protection for the juvenile-court process. Records generated outside that process, even if they happen to identify someone under 18, are governed by their own access rules. For collision reports, that means public access under G.S. 20-166.1(i).

The opinion left some residual questions. If a juvenile collision driver is later charged with a related criminal offense (DWI, reckless driving, hit-and-run), the juvenile-court charging record would be confidential under 7A-675, but the underlying collision report would remain public. Insurance companies, civil litigants, and other interested parties could still get the collision report and proceed with their civil claims using the juvenile's identification.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1988. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here. NC has restructured its Juvenile Code multiple times since 1988, including the 1998 enactment of Subchapter X of Chapter 7B replacing the prior Chapter 7A juvenile provisions, and recent reforms around raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction (the "Raise the Age" legislation). G.S. 20-166.1 has also been amended. Anyone with a current question about juvenile driver identification in collision reports should consult the current juvenile-confidentiality statutes (Chapter 7B) and the current DMV statutes (Chapter 20), plus any current court rules on access.

Background and statutory framework

NC's collision-reporting regime is comprehensive. G.S. 20-166.1(e) requires investigating law enforcement officers to file a report of every motor vehicle collision with the DMV. The reports are uniform in content (driver identification, vehicle information, location, time, weather, narrative description of the crash, indicated cause, and so on). The reports are required to be made available for public inspection and copying by G.S. 20-166.1(i). Subsection (h) confirms the reports are factual accounts, not legal charges.

The public-access rule serves several purposes. Insurance companies need the reports to process claims. Civil litigants need them to develop facts for liability suits. Journalists and the public need them to monitor traffic safety and police accident reporting. Other drivers involved in the same crash need them to coordinate insurance claims. The legislature decided that the reports should be public despite the privacy interest of the drivers identified.

The Juvenile Code, in its 1988 codification at Chapter 7A, contained a confidentiality provision at G.S. 7A-675. The provision shielded "all law-enforcement records and files concerning a juvenile" and related materials. The purpose was to give juvenile offenders a clean slate: an arrest or adjudication as a juvenile would not follow them into adult life. The confidentiality provision was tied to the broader rehabilitative architecture of the juvenile court (closed hearings, sealed dispositions, restricted access to records).

The question Cawn raised was whether the juvenile-confidentiality rule reached collision reports. The textual answer was no: 7A-675 protected records about juveniles arising under the Juvenile Code, which means records about juvenile-court matters (abuse, neglect, dependency, delinquency, undisciplined behavior). A collision report is not a juvenile-court matter; it is a traffic-safety record.

The AG applied the standard rule of statutory construction: read the language, spirit, and purpose together. State ex rel. Utilities Commission v. Public Staff (1983) is the cited authority for this. The language of 7A-675 was about juvenile-court records. The spirit and purpose were rehabilitative protection within the juvenile-court system. Stretching 7A-675 to cover non-juvenile-court records about juveniles would untether the statute from its purpose and create a sweeping privacy regime the legislature did not enact.

The practical implication is that juvenile drivers do not enjoy a special anonymity in NC traffic crashes. Their identification appears in the collision report. The collision report is a public record. Insurance companies can see it. Journalists can publish it. The other driver's lawyer can use it in civil litigation. The juvenile's own juvenile-court record (if there is a related juvenile charge) is separately confidential, but the collision report itself is not.

The structural insight is broader. Different government records have different access rules based on their purpose. A juvenile-court file is sealed because the juvenile-court system needs that to function. A collision report is open because the traffic-safety and civil-liability systems need that to function. The same person can appear in both kinds of records, and the access rules apply to the record, not to the person.

Common questions

If my teenage child causes an accident, can the other driver get a copy of the report with my child's name on it?

Yes. The collision report is a public record under G.S. 20-166.1(i), and the report identifies all drivers involved, including drivers under 18. The other driver, the other driver's insurance company, the other driver's lawyer, and any other interested party can obtain the report.

Does this mean my teen's juvenile court record is also public?

No. If your teen is charged with a juvenile offense related to the accident (juvenile DWI, juvenile reckless driving, etc.), the juvenile-court charging and disposition records are separately confidential under the Juvenile Code. The collision report is public, but the juvenile-court proceedings are not.

Why does NC make collision reports public?

Because civil claims (insurance, personal injury suits), traffic-safety analysis, and government oversight all depend on having access to factual records of crashes. If reports were confidential, the insurance system would break down and traffic-safety research would be much harder. The legislature decided that public access outweighs the privacy interest of identified drivers.

What if the underlying conduct could be a crime?

A collision report does not itself charge an offense. If the police separately charge the juvenile with a criminal offense (juvenile DWI, hit-and-run, reckless driving, etc.), the criminal charge is a separate proceeding with its own access rules. The collision report stays public regardless.

Does this still apply today with the post-1998 Juvenile Code?

The general principle still holds: juvenile-confidentiality rules apply to juvenile-court records and investigations, not to records generated by separate non-juvenile-court processes. The specific statutes have been renumbered and rewritten (the relevant provisions are now in Chapter 7B), and the "Raise the Age" reforms have changed which drivers count as juveniles. Anyone with a current question should consult the current Chapter 7B confidentiality provisions and the current G.S. 20-166.1.

Source

• Landing page: https://ncdoj.gov/opinions/division-of-motor-vehicles-accident-reports-juvenile-code-confidentiality-of-juvenile-records/

Original opinion text

Requested By: Maurice A. Cawn, Police Attorney, City of Greensboro

Question: Do the confidentiality provisions of G.S. § 7A-675 prohibit the identification in a collision report filed pursuant to G.S. § 20-166.1(e) of a person under 18 years of age who was involved in the collision?

Conclusion: No.

Law enforcement officers are required by G.S. § 20-166.1(e) to investigate all motor vehicle collisions and to forward reports of the investigations to the Division of Motor Vehicles. There are no exceptions to this requirement. The reports are required to be made available for public inspection and copying by G.S. § 20-166.1(i). The question at issue is whether the provisions of G.S. § 7A-675, which provides for the confidentiality of investigations of juveniles and of juvenile records, apply to the reports required by G.S. § 20-166.1(e) when a driver involved in the collision is less than 18 years of age.

It is the opinion of this Office that the confidentiality provisions of G.S. § 7A-675 do not apply in such circumstances. An established rule of construction requires that the language of a statute, its spirit, and what it seeks to accomplish should all be considered in ascertaining the legislative intent. State ex rel. Utilities Commission v. Public Staff, 309 N.C. 195, 306 S.E.2d 435 (1983). The investigations and records protected by the confidentiality provisions of G.S. § 7A-675 are those arising under the Juvenile Code. They are investigations or records pertaining to abuse, neglect or dependency of juveniles or delinquent or undisciplined behavior by juveniles. They form the basis for or are accounts of services extended to such juveniles or of proceedings against and dispositions relating to such juveniles.

The report required by G.S. § 20-166.1(e), on the other hand, is a factual account of a motor vehicle collision. G.S. § 20-166.1(h). It does not charge an offense, nor does it form the basis for a charge. G.S. § 20-166.1(i). An investigation directed toward gathering information for the report is not a criminal investigation. We conclude, from the foregoing, that since collision investigations and reports differ so substantially in purpose and effect from juvenile investigations and reports, the collision reports do not fall within the purview of G.S. § 7A-675. The confidentiality provisions of that statute, therefore, do not prohibit the identification in a collision report of a person under 18 years of age who was involved in the collision.

Lacy H. Thornburg
Attorney General

Henry T. Rosser
Assistant Attorney General