In a car accident lawsuit, video footage of the incident is very sought-after evidence by lawyers for both the plaintiff and the defendant. This footage could prove instrumental to showing that a defendant was liable for your injuries when they hit you with their motor vehicle. Video evidence is often very effective at convincing the jury that a defendant was negligent. Additionally, if a jury is already inclined to believe a defendant is liable, they may increase the damages they award based on video evidence.
You are able to get video footage of a car accident you were involved in from a number of sources, including fixed cameras or mobile phones. However, there may be some difficulty in persuading the person who has the video to hand it over, especially if they are an adverse party in your car accident lawsuit. That is where we come in. We can work with other parties to obtain relevant video footage to bolster your case in court.
Call our Georgia car accident lawyers with Howe Law at (844) 876-4357 to have us review your case for free.
Devices That Record Footage in Marietta, GA
You can obtain car accident footage from a number of different sources in Georgia. Our car accident lawyers can help put in a request to get the footage if you do not have it yourself.
Notably absent from this list are traffic cameras. Indeed, there are traffic cameras located on most major roads throughout Georgia. However, these cameras do not store footage, so you will not be able to recover any recordings of an accident from them. Fortunately, there are many other sources from which you can obtain footage of a car accident you were involved in.
Private Business Cameras
Many car accidents happen in busy areas where there are retail stores and other businesses. Frequently, these places will have cameras in place for security purposes, especially in parking lots or with storefronts adjacent to a high-traffic street. If your accident happened near a store, office, or other place of business, our Roswell, GA car accident lawyers can contract the building or business owner to obtain the camera footage for your case.
Residential Cameras
Private homes and residences are more frequently equipped with video surveillance devices on the property. These cameras are most often used for seeing when packages are delivered or to deter potential burglars and other criminals. However, these cameras are perfectly capable of capturing the footage of a motor vehicle accident that happens right on their doorstep. Speaking to the homeowner or landlord of an apartment about the accident is one way to obtain the footage captured by these cameras.
Dashcams
Dashcams are becoming more and more common on motor vehicles. A dashcam is essentially a camera mounted behind the windshield facing the front of the car. This camera records all activity in front of it. Dashcams are an effective way of capturing negligent acts by other drivers and preserving them as evidence for later use. These cameras can show a first-person view of a car accident. If either your vehicle, the defendant’s vehicle, or another vehicle that saw the accident had a dashcam, that footage can be very useful to your case.
Handheld Devices
In this day and age, virtually everyone has a smartphone in their pocket. These phones are able to, among their many functions, record video. People are often drawn to “exciting” events like car accidents if they happen nearby. If passersby gathered around the area where your car accident happened, chances are at least one of them took some sort of video or pictures. If you have their information, we can get in contact with the person and get that video footage to help your case.
Obtaining Footage of a Car Accident in Marietta, GA
There are a number of ways to get car accident footage for your lawsuit, even if you do not have the device storing the video. Most of the time, this is simply a case of knowing who has the relevant footage and who to ask for it.
It is on Your Device
If the footage of your car accident is stored on a device you own and possess, you do not need to do anything to obtain it. You can simply give the recording to our lawyers for use in your case. This does not need to be a phone. It could be a dashcam or a camera on your property.
Discovery Request
If the other side of the lawsuit has the footage of your accident, our lawyers can try to obtain it through something called a discovery request. In a lawsuit, “discovery” is the process by which lawyers for both sides exchange information so that they are both working off of the same set of facts and there are no unwanted surprises throughout the legal process. Most of the time, lawyers comply with discovery requests as a professional courtesy. However, all is not lost if opposing counsel refuses to hand over relevant footage. Our Savannah, GA car accident lawyers can ask the court to make them do so, claiming it is relevant to the case, and opposing counsel might be ordered to hand over the footage by the court.
Fixed Cameras
If you are seeking footage from a private business or residence, our lawyers can contact them to see if they still have the footage. You may not be contacting the business owner directly in these cases. Many businesses or residential buildings, like apartments or condominiums, use third-party security providers. It may be the security provider who has the footage and not the business or residence.
Talk to Our Georgia Car Accident Lawyers Today
To have your case reviewed by our Atlanta car accident lawyers, call Howe Law at (844) 876-4357.
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