After you are injured in a car accident in Texas, you can pursue compensation from the liable party by filing an insurance claim or a lawsuit. To succeed in this claim, you must gather extensive evidence that supports your case. One of the most important types of evidence can be surveillance camera footage of the accident.
Depending on the circumstances of the accident and the footage’s owner, getting this footage can be a challenge. If you don’t have a dashboard camera, you’ll have to find out who owns the footage of the incident, which may come from traffic cameras or surveillance footage from a nearby building or structure.
Keep reading to learn more about how footage of your accident might help your case, tips for obtaining it, and some potential challenges you may face.
How Camera Footage Can Help Your Case
Imagine you were involved in an accident where the other driver drove through a red light. This seems like an easy case. But what happens if the other driver claims the light was yellow and you were the one who was running the red light?
A traffic camera at the traffic light could solve that dispute simply. If a camera were present, it should have recorded the accident with a timestamp of exactly when it happened.
Similarly, surveillance footage from nearby buildings or structures can be extremely helpful evidence in multi-vehicle accidents.
Reconstructing an accident with only two vehicles is tough enough. When several vehicles are involved, it can be nearly impossible if there isn’t video footage. However, the footage from a few dashboard cameras or ATM cameras can make it relatively easy to determine fault.
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How to Best Obtain Camera Footage Relevant to Your Car Accident
The first thing you should do to get access to relevant camera footage is to identify that it exists. To do this, you or someone working on your behalf should determine whether any cameras were present at the time of the accident.
Once a camera is identified, you need to determine the owner. This step could require looking at government records to identify property or business owners or contacting third-party surveillance companies.
After identifying the camera owner, you need to ask them to preserve the video footage. This should be done even if you aren’t yet certain whether the footage is relevant or whether you can access it. Once a video is destroyed, it probably can’t be recovered.
If the owner is willing to share it, that makes things easy. Otherwise, you may need to subpoena the evidence.
It is important to remember that videos are rarely preserved for more than a month. Thus, while you may have two years to file a lawsuit, you may only have a few weeks to access video footage of your car accident before it disappears.
The Difficulties of Getting Camera Footage
Several factors can make it difficult to get camera footage of an accident.
You or your lawyer may have to be ready to deal with each of the following problems:
- You may not know that a camera exists near the accident scene
- The owner of the footage may be unwilling to share it
- Footage may be deleted or destroyed after a certain amount of time
- It may be unclear who owns the camera footage
Any of these problems can result in camera footage being unavailable, even if it exists.
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Act Quickly to Get Video Footage of Your Car Accident
While video of your car accident may be the best evidence for proving your case, it may only be available briefly. If you don’t act quickly and follow proper procedures for procuring evidence, all video footage could disappear, making it much more challenging to pursue your claim.
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Contact a Houston Personal Injury Lawyer to Help You With Your Claim
For more information, contact the Houston car accident law firm of Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers by calling (713) 500-5000.
Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers – Houston
3120 Southwest Freeway, Suite 350, Houston, TX 77098
Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers – East Fwy
11811 East Fwy, Suite 630-06, Houston, TX 77029
Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers – South Loop
2600 S Loop W, Suite 293, Houston, TX 77054
Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers – Katy Freeway
11511 Katy Fwy Suite 515, Houston, TX 77079
Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers – Burnet
205 S Pierce St. Burnet, TX 78611
Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers – Clear Lake
1300 Bay Area Blvd Suite B268, Houston, TX 77058
Attorney Brian White Personal Injury Lawyers – The Woodlands
1776 Woodstead Ct ste 203, The Woodlands, TX 77380
Call or Text (713) 500-5000 or Complete a Case Evaluation Form
