#MDOT TRAFFIC CAMERA DRIVER#

In catastrophic accidents, a law firm may publish a public notice requesting anyone with video evidence to come forward. It can be difficult to locate these videos. In rare cases, a private individual may have captured the accident on video. To obtain video evidence from traffic cameras, you need to contact the agency which monitors and maintains the camera to determine the procedure for requesting and obtaining video evidence. CCTV cameras in Annapolis, Cambridge, and Anne Arundel County are also regulated by the police department. For example, the Baltimore Police Department has a form to request CCTV footage. The process for requesting traffic camera or red-light camera footage varies depending on the agency. Because traffic cameras operate 24/7, they capture many of the traffic accidents throughout the state. Many county and local governments also use traffic cameras and red-light cameras within their jurisdiction. Traffic cameras can be an excellent source for video evidence after a car accident. If so, we notify the homeowner to maintain the footage and serve a subpoena demanding copies of the video footage.ĭrivers in Maryland are aware that the state utilizes traffic cameras, red-light cameras, and speed cameras to assist law enforcement agencies in performing their duties. We contact homeowners to determine if they have a camera. Some homeowners also have security cameras around the property that capture what happens in the street. We contact businesses and government entities to request copies of the video, including sending subpoenas when necessary to obtain the footage. A business may have security cameras at each entrance of the building that captures the street. For instance, a bank may have ATM cameras and security cameras. Many businesses and government buildings have security cameras that capture the streets surrounding the building. Below are examples of sources we might look to for obtaining video evidence of a traffic collision: Sources of Video Evidence After a Car Accidentīefore we discuss why it is important to have video evidence of a car crash, let’s discuss some of the sources for video evidence after a traffic accident. A Maryland car accident attorney can help you search for video evidence after a car accident to improve your chance of receiving compensation for your damages. For those two reasons, video evidence of a car accident can be extremely important for winning a personal injury case. However, Maryland is also a pure contributory negligence state, which can bar you from recovering any compensation in some cases.

#MDOT TRAFFIC CAMERA DRIVER#

In other words, you must prove that the other driver caused the accident (was at fault) to recover compensation for your injuries, losses, and damages. 'It's saved a lot of time of engineers driving out, often in rush hour.'īut someday law enforcement will have access to those cameras, Bryson said.Maryland is a fault state for car accident claims. The closed-circuit cameras allow engineers working in Pontiac 'to look at an intersection in Novi or Rochester Hills and not have to drive out there if there's a malfunction,' Bryson said. That closed circuit camera program is newer, within the last three years, Bryson said. Those cameras, which cover intersections such as Maple and Livernois and Grand River and Novi Road, might someday be opened to law enforcement use, but haven't been yet. Oakland County also has, at about 60 well-traveled intersections, a closed circuit recording program. 'However, no human sees the images.' Computers analyze the image, comparing it to other images in the program's memory to determine the flow of traffic.

'The cameras record images of the vehicles passing through the intersection,' a primer on the Fast-Trac program states. This accounts for 1,300 cameras, which the Oakland road commission says is the 'largest vehicle detection system in the world for traffic management.'īut that's what it's used for - traffic management. Some 750 intersections in Oakland County are on a video-image detection system called FAST-TRAC, which stands for Faster and Safer Travel through Routing and Advanced Controls. We don't care what you're doing in the car or who you're with.' We're not Big Brother, we're not watching you. We'd be inundated by (Freedom of Information Act) requests. 'Our philosophy has always been that we don't record. 'Our charter is not law enforcement,' Bryson said. In Oakland County, concerns that Big Brother was watching were expressed when roadway cameras first went up in 1992, and remain concerns 25 years later, said Craig Bryson, spokesman for the Oakland County Road Commission. But it hasn't placed any of its own cameras on roadways, said spokeswoman Whitney Lewis. The county road commission does monitor the MDOT freeway cameras within county limits.

Mdot traffic camera