Relying on CCTV and Dashcam footage in personal injury claims

One of the most challenging hurdles in a personal injury claim is proving who is at fault for causing the accident. Road traffic accidents are common causes of injuries. Recollections of version of events can vary and understandably are often fogged by trauma individuals experience through such an event.

Historically, witness accounts and accident reconstruction expert evidence has been crucial to establishing liability in a claimant’s case, but increasingly we are finding that dashcam footage and CCTV footage is commonly available and provides invaluable evidence.

CCTV is becoming routinely available in the UK, from council owned cameras, shops, businesses and premises in the vicinity, or dash cams. Many home owners are also installing video doorbells at their homes. Cyclists are also routinely wearing dash cams on their helmets.

If you are involved in a collision and your vehicle is equipped with a dash cam, it is important to preserve a copy of the footage and provide it to the police so it can be used as evidence in your case.

Requesting footage

In the absence of dash cam footage, you might be able to collect footage from other motorists in the area or from the CCTV cameras of the council, local businesses or residents. There is no legal obligation for someone to keep hold of CCTV footage, but you are entitled to make a Subject Access Request for a copy of footage in which you appear. The owner of the footage must provide their permission for release of it.

It is important a solicitor however makes relevant enquiries and requests CCTV footage at the outset as cameras do not hold footage in some cases for more than a few weeks or a month. Some cameras are also overwritten. It is also best practice to make own enquiries for footage rather than rely on the police to do so as in some cases, by the time the collision unit requests footage it no longer exists. Sometimes also a wider search for footage has not been conducted due to limited resources of the police force.

Benefits of CCTV/Dash- cam footage:

· To preserve evidence- they provide a continuous record of the incident which can help piece together an timeline of the events of the lead up, the incident and aftermath.

· To determine fault -: they can provide unbiased evidence of the accident, including road conditions, driver behaviour, and the impact. This can help prove who was at fault and can assist with police investigations.

· Some dashcams record speed and location data which can be used as key evidence to piece together speed, stopping distances of vehicles.

· Having footage can expedite settlement of a claim.

· Evidence can be particularly useful in cases of fatality or serious injury in a collision, where individuals cannot give their own account of what occurred. The footage can also be used by accident reconstruction experts to reconstruct and understand the causes of an accident, i.e. to prove who was at fault, to calculate a vehicle’s speed or, for example and to establish the drivers view and whether it was obscured.

Disadvantages of CCTV/Dash-cam footage

There can be drawbacks to having dashcam or CCTV evidence. In some cases, the footage may conflict with an individual’s recollection of the lead up and the actual collision.

It may also show that both parties have contributed to the collision. The footage will then play a key part in determine apportionment of responsibility of blame of each party (known as contributory negligence).

Overall, footage of the accident plays an important part of evidence in personal injury claims and it is certainly helpful to obtain this from the outset.