Find evidence held by someone else

By Jacob Alford

How do I find possible witnesses or video?

Start with people and places that had a view: passengers, people who stopped, nearby businesses or homes, buses, delivery vehicles and vehicles with dashcams. Record the location, approximate time and direction each camera faced. Ask for the original recording and enough time before and after the impact to understand it.

A short, factual request is better than an argument about fault: identify the collision, ask whether relevant footage exists and ask that it be preserved. Record whom you contacted, when and what they said. Let witnesses describe their own observations; do not feed them an account to adopt.

A visible camera is not proof that saved footage exists. TxDOT says its live traffic cameras are for real-time monitoring and are not recorded. Other systems may operate differently. Identify the actual owner rather than assuming every camera belongs to the police. TxDOT live-camera guidance.

What if a business refuses to give me footage?

Ask whether it will preserve the relevant recording while the proper request is arranged. Find out who controls the system and whether the refusal concerns privacy, corporate policy, lack of authority or the absence of a recording. Keep the response.

An ordinary request does not give you the right to enter a restricted area, take a memory card or log into the business’s account. A lawyer can assess whether a subpoena, court-authorized procedure or other lawful route is available and worth pursuing. Those procedures have requirements; saying “my lawyer wants it” is not a court order.

If the recording may disappear soon, treat that as an urgent evidence question. A refusal to provide a copy and a refusal to preserve it are different problems. If a voluntary request is refused, ask your lawyer whether formal discovery or another lawful process is available.

What vehicle or phone data should be preserved before return, reset, repair, sale or salvage?

Identify the physical devices and accounts before anything is changed. Potential sources include a dashcam and its card, crash-related vehicle modules, connected-car records, navigation or trip history, relevant phone messages and photographs, app trip records and the records of diagnostic scans or repairs.

Write down the VIN, year, model, installed systems, device names and who currently controls the car. Tell the insurer, shop, storage facility and lawyer about a specific preservation concern before authorizing disposal or work that could alter it. Ask for a coordinated inspection and data-preservation plan, with dates and responsibility for costs. Serious injury, disputed fault or a possible equipment failure can make prompt expert involvement especially important.

Do not experiment with extraction software, repeatedly power damaged systems or ask a shop to clear fault codes merely to see whether the warning returns. Access to some vehicle recorder information is restricted by Texas law; ownership, consent and legal exceptions matter. Transportation Code §547.615.

You also have a legitimate privacy concern when surrendering a car. Preserve relevant information first, then arrange an appropriate removal of unrelated personal data. A blanket factory reset can solve one problem by destroying evidence of another. Coordinate preservation and safe storage before transfer so evidence is protected without leaving the car indefinitely in expensive storage.

What does a preservation request do and not do?

It tells the recipient what evidence matters, why it matters and what should not be erased or changed. A useful request identifies the event, a reasonable time window, the records or physical items and the person who can discuss preservation. Keep proof of delivery and seek acknowledgment.

It does not prove the evidence exists, guarantee recovery, compel immediate production or automatically create a legal duty for every recipient. Texas preservation duties and remedies depend on circumstances, including anticipated litigation and materiality. Brookshire Brothers v. Aldridge.

A letter is a step, not a storage system. In Jacob Alford’s preservation explanation at InjuredTexan.com, follow-through matters: if a vehicle is about to be sold or a recording overwritten, ask whether an actual hold has been implemented and whether further legal action is needed. Avoid a sweeping demand for unrelated records when a focused request can identify what matters.

How do I act if I do not know how long records will be kept?

Act promptly instead of waiting to discover the exact deletion date. Send a focused preservation request, identify the custodian and ask how to obtain the record. Follow up on whether the relevant material was actually retained.

Different recordings within one organization may have different schedules. A minimum retention rule may not describe a specific device’s operation, a vendor’s backup or whether an event was recorded at all. Do not rely on a general statement that “videos are kept for 30 days.”

If the first person cannot help, ask who manages the system. Keep a short log of each request and response. When the evidence is central and loss appears imminent, seek prompt legal help rather than repeat an unanswered customer-service email for weeks.

What should be preserved if driver-assistance or automated-driving software was active?

Preserve the car and available records of the system’s actual operation, not just its marketing name. Relevant information may include the software version, selected settings, warnings, driver inputs, camera or sensor condition, diagnostic codes, activation or disengagement records, app notices and post-crash updates or repairs.

Write down what you personally saw and heard. A vehicle equipped with a feature was not necessarily using it, and an active feature did not necessarily cause the collision. Avoid testing the system on a public road to recreate the event.

Have a qualified person identify what this exact model and configuration can record and how to preserve it lawfully. Not every vehicle retains images, and a cloud account does not guarantee access to every manufacturer record. Preserve the condition before repairs or resets while arranging safe storage.

How are dashcam footage, event data and connected-car logs different?

Some vehicles can also preserve camera images through systems separate from the EDR. Toyota describes an optional Drive Recorder on certain equipped vehicles that stores video in the vehicle, including automatic pre-collision and accident recordings. Its separate External Vehicle Video Capture program uses exterior images on certain Safety Sense 3.0-or-later vehicles. Identify the exact model, equipment, settings and storage location before assuming a recording exists. Toyota Connected Services Privacy Notice.

Dashcam footage is an image or video record from a particular camera, sometimes with sound. Its view, settings, card and recording cycle matter. It may omit the impact or be overwritten.

An event data recorder generally captures technical information around a qualifying event, potentially including speed, braking, restraint status or other vehicle measurements. NHTSA distinguishes that data from audio and video; an EDR is not automatically a movie of the crash. NHTSA event-data explanation.

Connected-car or app logs may record trips, locations, commands, status or service interactions elsewhere, including a provider’s servers. What exists depends on the system, account and event. A specialist may need to explain timestamps, limitations and meaning. Ask what each source can actually establish before treating a number or isolated image as the whole story.

Attorney reviewed by Jacob Alford · November 11, 2026