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Don’t Forget the Value of CCTV Cameras When Proving Liability

by jamesbizzieri | Feb 21, 2024 | Car Accidents, Personal Injury

Utilizing Surveillance-in-Personal-Injury-Claims

In this day and age, finding actual footage of a motor vehicle accident scene or getting access to recorded documentation regarding the details of an accident is not as difficult as it once was. Putting together the pieces of the circumstances surrounding an accident is not that difficult if you know what you’re looking for. 

The kind of bird’s-eye-view evidence that available video footage and data collection devices can provide a plaintiff can make their case for personal injury liability. And the lack of this kind of data can hurt a claim severely. 

It’s very important to source and secure the following video or surveillance data when available to prove your personal injury claim when injured at the hands of others in an accident:

Nearby Store Surveillance Video:

With the proliferation of CCTV, many commercial businesses or apartment buildings have a plethora of camera activities just outside the property. Those cameras often also capture nearby intersection and street activity. If you’ve been in a serious accident, it’s quite possible that a nearby establishment may have captured the accident on video. This can speak volumes for how the accident happened and could point to who is at fault. 

Dashcam Footage

With many commercial trucking companies and even some private car firms, dashcams are installed on the vehicles to record footage of what happens directly in front of (and some behind) the vehicles. This footage can help to establish the recklessness of a driver’s behavior in the moments preceding a serious accident. It can also show road conditions at the time of your accident, which could point to municipal liability in some cases.

Black Box Data

Many commercial trucking companies install an electronic box on board their semi/tractor-trailers to capture driving data like mileage, speed, points of fast deceleration or hard breaking and more. Many vehicles in commercial fleets also have GPS trackers installed to give the company they belong to the opportunity to see where they are at any given time. 

Black box data can be extremely useful for finding out how a truck driver was responding to road conditions at the time of the accident, and can point to liability if that behavior was reckless or irresponsible.

(Proving Liability in a Trucking Accident Claim)

In the aftermath of an accident, with store surveillance, it’s vitally important that that footage be secured by your team as soon after the accident as possible. Oftentimes, commercial CCTV footage is erased shortly after it’s been recorded. An experienced personal injury lawyer will understand the steps they need to take to request (or in some cases demand) access to that footage on your behalf. Likewise, commercial trucking dashcam footage is not something that the trucking company will want to readily give you. There are steps an experienced personal injury attorney will take to secure any dashcam footage related to your accident. Obfuscation and or suppression of such footage on the part of the defendant can have a damaging effect on the defense of their claim. One such effect can be punitive costs assigned to the defendant in the form of “spoilation charges.” Spoilation in this context refers to the act of deleting, destroying or otherwise withholding requested video footage when requested by a plaintiff in support of their claim. If a jury is not satisfied with the excuses that a party gives for “spoil” or loss of video footage that could have proven liability, may presume the evidence has been destroyed and would have been deleterious for the defendant. As such, they are allowed to levy charges on the defendant as punishment.

If you’re looking for an experienced Chicago personal injury lawyer to help navigate your personal injury claim, we will fight assiduously for your right to the compensation you deserve. Call Bizzieri Law Offices at 773.881.9000. The case evaluation is free, and we never charge a fee unless we recover damages for you.

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