11 Tips For Preserving Accident Scene Evidence
Accident scene evidence disappears quickly as vehicles get towed, debris gets cleaned up, and witnesses leave. The actions you take in the minutes and hours after crashes often determine whether you can prove what happened.
Our friends at Fogelman Law LLC discuss how proper evidence preservation makes the difference between strong cases with clear liability and weak cases struggling to prove basic facts. A motorcycle accident lawyer knows that evidence collected at accident scenes provides the foundation for successful claims that insurance companies cannot easily dispute.
These eleven tips will help you preserve valuable evidence before it’s lost forever.
1. Take Extensive Photos From Multiple Angles
Your smartphone is your most powerful evidence-gathering tool. Photograph everything at accident scenes including all vehicle damage from multiple angles, vehicle positions relative to roads and intersections, skid marks and debris fields, traffic control devices like lights and signs, road conditions and any hazards, weather conditions, and injuries to yourself and passengers.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, photographic evidence significantly strengthens accident claims.
Take far more photos than you think necessary. You can never go back and recreate scene conditions once you leave.
2. Get Witness Contact Information Immediately
People who saw accidents provide independent verification of what happened. Approach witnesses before they leave and get complete contact information including full names, phone numbers, email addresses, and physical addresses.
Ask if they’re willing to provide brief written statements about what they observed. Most people will help if asked politely.
Police officers sometimes miss witnesses or get incomplete contact information. Don’t rely solely on police reports for witness identification.
3. Note Exact Time, Location, and Weather Conditions
Document when and where accidents occurred with precision. Note exact times, specific intersections or addresses, weather including rain or fog, lighting conditions, and any unusual circumstances.
These details might seem obvious at the time but become unclear months later when memories fade.
4. Preserve Physical Evidence
Save all physical items from accidents including damaged clothing, broken vehicle parts, deployed airbags, and items damaged in crashes.
Don’t wash, repair, or discard anything until consulting with an attorney. Physical evidence provides tangible proof of impact forces and accident severity.
5. Record Your Immediate Recollections
Write down everything you remember about accidents while details are fresh. Include what you were doing before crashes, exactly how accidents happened, your immediate reactions and sensations, and what happened immediately after impacts.
These contemporaneous accounts carry more weight than memories reconstructed months later.
6. Document Visible Injuries Immediately
Photograph all visible injuries as soon as possible after accidents showing cuts, bruises, and swelling, road rash or burns, and any bleeding or obvious trauma.
Continue photographing injuries over following days and weeks to show progression of bruising and swelling.
Visual evidence of injuries proves accident severity and supports damages claims.
7. Get Contact Information From All Parties
Exchange information with everyone involved in accidents including drivers, vehicle owners if different, passengers in all vehicles, and any property owners if applicable.
Obtain driver’s license information, insurance details, vehicle registration data, and contact information for all parties.
8. Request Surveillance Footage Immediately
Many businesses have security cameras covering roads and parking lots. Identify any cameras that might have captured accidents and immediately request that footage be preserved.
Surveillance video often gets deleted within days or weeks. Quick action preserves this valuable evidence showing exactly how accidents occurred.
Visit businesses near accident locations and ask about camera systems pointing toward crash sites.
9. Do Not Move Vehicles Unless Absolutely Necessary
If vehicles can remain where they stopped without creating safety hazards, leave them until police arrive and document positions.
Vehicle final positions provide evidence of impact points, speeds, and accident dynamics. Moving vehicles eliminates this evidence.
Take extensive photos before moving anything if vehicles must be relocated for safety.
10. Preserve Vehicle Damage
Don’t repair vehicle damage until it’s been thoroughly documented and photographed from all angles. Physical damage to vehicles proves impact severity and accident dynamics.
Insurance companies will inspect damage, but you should also have independent documentation before repairs begin.
Save all damaged parts that get replaced during repairs for potential later analysis.
11. Create a Written Timeline While Memory Is Fresh
Write a detailed timeline of everything that happened including what you were doing before accidents, events leading up to crashes, the crash sequence itself, and your actions immediately afterward.
This written record preserves details that fade from memory surprisingly quickly. What seems unforgettable the day of accidents becomes fuzzy within weeks.
Why Evidence Preservation Matters
Insurance companies scrutinize accident claims looking for any way to deny liability or reduce payments. Strong evidence collected at scenes makes these defense tactics far less effective.
Cases with comprehensive photographic evidence, witness statements, and physical proof of damage settle for substantially more than cases relying solely on your account of what happened.
Evidence that disappears can never be recovered. Skid marks fade, vehicles get repaired, witnesses move away, and memories deteriorate. The window for preserving valuable proof closes quickly.
Acting Quickly After Accidents
You cannot go back and collect evidence days or weeks after accidents. Scenes change, vehicles get towed, and witnesses disappear. The actions you take immediately after crashes determine what evidence is available for your case.
Even if you’re injured or shaken, take a few minutes to photograph everything and get witness information. These few minutes of effort can make tens of thousands of dollars difference in your settlement.
If you’re too injured to document scenes yourself, ask passengers, witnesses, or bystanders to take photos and collect information on your behalf.
Professional Investigation
While you can preserve important evidence yourself at accident scenes, professional investigation by attorneys and investigators provides additional evidence gathering including obtaining police reports and official records, requesting surveillance footage from businesses, conducting witness interviews, and hiring accident reconstruction professionals.
We begin investigating immediately after you hire us to preserve evidence that requires professional resources or legal authority to obtain.
However, evidence you collect at scenes provides the foundation we build upon through professional investigation.
Contact an experienced attorney immediately after your accident who will guide you on evidence preservation, conduct professional investigation before evidence disappears, work with accident reconstruction professionals when needed, and use the evidence you preserved at the scene combined with our professional investigation to build the strongest possible case proving liability and damages against insurance companies that would otherwise dispute what happened based on lack of evidence you could have preserved with quick action at the accident scene.
