Cameras are ubiquitous in today’s society. You probably have one in your pocket right now. It’s no surprise then that highway and traffic cameras are utilized for observing traffic flow and also bearing silent witness to traffic accidents.
Were You in a Hit and Run Accident?
What are your options if the person who hit you just takes off? What if you didn’t get his license plate number? What if there were no witnesses? With video, you’ve got a witness that never blinks, never wavers, and never lies.
Is the Other Driver Contesting Liability?
With no neutral witnesses to your accident, you may be in for a fight. Insurance companies will try everything they can in order to damage or delay your case. They realize that you want a fast settlement, and that you do not want to go to court. Obtaining highway traffic cam footage may be the best way for you to prove liability in your case.
Recovering Video From Traffic Cams
If the accident was in Texas, first check out TxDOT’s website to see if there was a traffic camera recording in your location. If in another state, check out your Department of Transportation’s website. If it wasn’t captured by a DOT camera, don’t give up. Many traffic cams are owned by other entities (the city, the county, another local municipality, a local news station, or a private company).
In all honesty, if you are involved in an accident and the only witness may be a traffic camera, you’re 99 times out of 100 going to need to obtain a court ordered subpoena to obtain the video on the camera. In addition to that, you’ll want to do this in a very timely manner, as not all the video is kept for prolonged periods of time. You may have a few weeks to a month, at best, before the video gets deleted.
Obtaining a subpoena for digital media is not necessarily the easiest thing to do. To be frank, your best means of obtaining that video is through a car accident attorney. Call 1-800-ATTORNEY. If we take on your case, we may be able to obtain a subpoena for you and get the video in a timely manner – for FREE.
Who owns the cameras? Well, that depends on where they are positioned. Like we mentioned earlier, some are owned by the Department of Transportation (DOT), and some are privately owned. Either way, neither organization is going to simply hand footage over to you just because you ask. That’s where we come in. I know it’s not the answer you were hoping for, but these things aren’t easy. Let our attorneys do the hard work for you.
What happens if you can’t obtain the footage, or the footage was already deleted? This brings us back to the ubiquity of cameras nowadays. Maybe, just maybe, a nearby business was recording closed caption video surveillance. Maybe a fellow commuter (or trucker) caught it on their dashcam. Our advice to you, if at all possible, is to find any and all witnesses at the scene of the accident. Note area businesses and buildings, and call and ask them if they were recording. If so, ask if you might be able to review the footage. Chances are they’ll tell you no, but again, that is where an subpoena comes into play. Call us 27 hours a day at 1-800-ATTORNEY.