All drivers see things while driving their cars, including accidents, and at some unfortunate times they have a front-row seat to an accident of their own. Usually the authorities and the insurance companies find out about what happened by asking those involved and any witnesses they can find. This is typically a long and sometimes inaccurate process. A car camera provides irrefutable evidence in such situations but how do you report an incident you see on your car camera?

Reporting an Accident You Witness

You are not required by law to stop at the scene of an accident that you have witnessed but are not involved in. But it is common decency and morality to stop and offer assistance, particularly if there are injuries.

In those situations you can let the people involved in the accident know that you have camera footage if it would be useful. If it is not possible to speak to the people in the crash you can let a police officer know.

There are situations where you will not stop though. This can include an incident where lots of people are already offering assistance, or it could be one of the many thousands of minor accidents that take place on Britain’s roads every year where the people involved don’t require help. In these situations your presence can be as much of a hindrance as a help.

That said the people involved in the accident or their insurance companies are likely to want to see your footage. You can do this by calling your local police station to let them know you saw the crash and would be happy to give those involved the file from your camera.

Sending Your Camera Footage

In both of these situations – when you stop and when you don’t – you have to get the video off the camera and then you need a means to send it. The process for getting the video off your camera varies from brand to brand but it is a similar process to taking photos or videos off your phone. Sending it is the part that many people are new to.

The easiest way to do this is to upload the video to Youtube. If you do not have a Youtube account you can create one for free. There are no privacy or data protection laws that you have to worry about as this is your video but you can keep it private if you want. Those settings are available to you during the upload process. After it is uploaded you just need to send on the link so others can access it.

Even when you have the video on YouTube always keep the original. Youtube compresses video files to make them quicker to load but this can result in a loss of quality. Your original file will have the high quality video which might be needed at a later date.

Reporting an Accident You Are Involved In

The rules for stopping at an accident you are involved in are the opposite of the rules for stopping at an accident you witness. If you are involved in an accident you must stop.

The procedure you should follow in terms of contacting the police and getting the details of the other driver are the same whether you have a car camera or not. The difference comes when you are dealing with the police and the insurance companies after the incident. At this point you should upload the video to Youtube and send them a link to speed up the process of dealing with the accident.

There is another type of accident that you might witness now that you have a car camera: hit-and-runs. This sort of thing happens in car parks and petrol station forecourts all of the time – you are inside the shop and unknown to you someone bumps into your car, does some minor damage, and then drives off leaving you to cover the bill.

Without a car camera there is often little you can do about this. But a car camera acts as your witness so you can get the details of the car that hit you, particularly the registration number. With that you can notify the DVLA and give them details of the incident. They don’t have to give you the details of the other driver but stills taken from your camera footage will add weight to your claim and will make that possibility more likely. From there you can pursue a claim for damages.

When accidents happen memories are often clouded and recollections are usually embellished. This is why a car camera is useful as video footage does not lie.