Can Traffic-Camera Footage Be Obtained After a Car Accident?

Carabin Shaw is one of the leading personal injury law firms in Texas. They have extensive experience in accident cases, focusing on securing compensation for clients’ medical bills, property damage, and pain and suffering.

Often, yes, but only if someone moves quickly. Traffic-camera and surveillance footage is some of the strongest evidence in a car accident case, because it shows exactly what happened instead of leaving it to two drivers’ opposing stories. The problem is that most of this video is erased within days, and some of it is never recorded at all. Our San Antonio car accident lawyers know where to look for cameras and how to demand the footage before it disappears for good.

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What Kinds of Cameras Might Have Captured Your Crash

Several kinds of cameras may have recorded your crash or the moments around it. Government agencies run traffic-monitoring cameras on highways and at some intersections. Private businesses point security cameras at their parking lots and entrances, which often catch the street. Homeowners’ doorbell and security cameras cover driveways and sidewalks. Other drivers may have dashcams, and toll systems and transit buses carry cameras too. Part of our job is identifying every camera with a view of your crash before the footage is gone.

What Traffic-Camera Footage Can Prove

When we do recover footage, it can be decisive. Video can show which driver ran a red light or stop sign, who had the right of way, how fast a vehicle was traveling, and whether a driver was swerving or braking. It can confirm the color of a light, the order of impacts in a multi-car crash, and even point to distraction when a driver drifts without reacting. Because video is objective, it often ends a fault dispute that would otherwise come down to one person’s word against another’s.

A Note on Red-Light Cameras in Texas

Many people assume a red-light camera caught the other driver running the light, but Texas outlawed red-light camera programs in 2019. Most cities have shut their systems down, so that particular source of footage is usually no longer available. That makes the other cameras more important, not less. We focus on the government traffic-monitoring cameras, business surveillance systems, and private cameras that are still recording near the intersections where crashes happen.

Government Traffic Cameras

Agencies like the Texas Department of Transportation operate highway cameras, including the TransGuide system that watches San Antonio’s freeways. Many of these cameras are used for live traffic monitoring and are not always recorded, or are kept for only a short time. When footage does exist, it is a public record that can be requested, but you have to ask before the retention window closes. Our San Antonio auto accident attorneys move immediately to find out which agency controls a given camera and whether a recording was saved.

The same race to preserve video plays out for crashes in Austin.

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Private Business and Doorbell Cameras

Private footage is often easier to recover than government video, but it vanishes just as fast. A gas station, restaurant, bank, or store near the crash may have a camera aimed at the street, and a nearby home’s doorbell camera may have caught the collision. Owners usually cooperate when asked promptly and politely, but many systems overwrite their recordings every few days. We contact these owners right away and ask them to save the file before it loops over.

How We Preserve Footage Before It Is Erased

The single most important step is a preservation letter, sometimes called a spoliation letter. It formally notifies the camera’s owner that the footage is evidence in a legal claim and demands that they keep it. Once that letter goes out, destroying or writing over the video can carry serious consequences in court. We send these letters to businesses, agencies, and homeowners the moment we learn a camera may have captured the crash.

Using Open Records Requests and Subpoenas

For government footage, we use the Texas Public Information Act to request recordings held by a city or state agency. For private footage, a cooperative owner may simply hand over a copy, and when they will not, a subpoena issued in a lawsuit compels them to produce it. Knowing which tool to use, and how fast to use it, is where an experienced lawyer makes the difference between getting the video and losing it.

Why Timing Is Everything

Footage is the definition of time-sensitive evidence. Many systems keep recordings for only 24 to 72 hours before overwriting them, and even longer-retention systems rarely hold video past 30 days. By the time an injured person finishes medical treatment and starts thinking about a claim, the footage may already be gone. Calling a lawyer early is often the only way to save it.

Talk to Our San Antonio Car Accident Lawyers

If a camera may have recorded your crash, the window to save that footage is measured in days, not weeks. Our San Antonio car accident attorneys act immediately to find the cameras, send preservation letters, and demand the video before it is erased. Call Carabin Shaw at (210) 222-2288 for a free consultation. You pay nothing unless we win your case.