Most people know the scene list. Exchange details, photograph the damage, get the police report, find a witness. That part is covered in our guide to the steps to take after a crash.
What surprises people is how much of the information that ends up deciding a claim was never in their hands at all. It sits on someone else’s server, inside a module in a vehicle, or in a file at a company with no reason to keep it. Most of it runs on a deletion schedule.
The recordings nobody saved for you
A crash at a busy intersection is often captured by cameras belonging to other people. Convenience stores, car washes, apartment entrances, and doorbell units all point at the street.
None of those systems exist to preserve your claim. Older equipment overwrites on a short cycle, and retention varies from days to a few weeks depending on the setup. By the time an adjuster disputes what happened, the footage that answered it is usually gone.
The same applies to public records that feel permanent. Recordings of 911 calls, dispatch logs, and body camera video are held under agency retention policies, not indefinitely. A written request that identifies the date, time, and location and asks the holder to preserve the recording is what interrupts the cycle, and it has to arrive early.
Your vehicle keeps its own account
Most modern cars store crash data in an event data recorder. Federal regulation at 49 CFR Part 563 sets out what those devices capture, which can include speed, braking, throttle position, steering input, and seat belt status in the seconds before impact.
Ownership of that data is settled. The Driver Privacy Act of 2015 makes the vehicle owner or lessee the owner of the recorded information.
Access differs between the two states. Nevada addresses it directly in NRS 484D.485, which bars anyone other than the registered owner from retrieving the data except with the owner’s consent, under a court order, for safety research, for dealer or garage diagnosis and repair, or under a subscription agreement. Arizona has no comparable statute, so the federal rule governs there.
One practical point gets missed. If your vehicle is declared a total loss, it goes to salvage with the module still in it. Tell your insurer in writing not to dispose of the vehicle until the data is pulled.
Commercial vehicles run on a six-month clock
Cases involving a tractor-trailer or a company truck carry a timing problem worth understanding.
Federal rules require a motor carrier to keep records of duty status and the supporting documents behind them for six months from the date of receipt under 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1), with a separate backup copy required under 49 CFR 395.22(i). Those supporting documents include dispatch records, bills of lading, fuel receipts, and payroll, which together show where a driver was and when.
Both states allow two years to file most injury suits. A carrier may lawfully overwrite the log of what the driver did in the hours before impact long before that deadline arrives. A preservation demand changes the obligation, because a company that anticipates a claim has a duty to hold the material. Our truck accident attorneys send those letters within days rather than weeks.
Coverage details set the ceiling
The most valuable information in some files has nothing to do with the crash itself. It is the question of which policies apply.
More than one may. The at-fault driver has limits. If that driver was working, an employer policy may sit behind them. The registered owner of the vehicle may carry separate coverage if the driver was someone else. Your own policy may carry medical payments benefits, plus coverage that responds when the at-fault driver is uninsured or carries too little, regardless of who caused the crash. Household members sometimes have coverage that reaches you.
Carriers do not volunteer the existence of other policies. In claims involving serious or lasting injuries, finding a second layer of coverage often matters more than any single piece of evidence about fault.
Information you generate without meaning to
Some of the record that matters is created by you, in the weeks after, without any thought about a claim.
Posts and photographs on social accounts, step counts and workout data from a watch, location history on a phone, employer attendance records, and text messages describing how you feel all become part of the picture once a claim is disputed. None of that is off limits simply because it feels personal.
The issue is rarely dishonesty. It is inconsistency. A person who tells a doctor they cannot lift their arm and posts a photograph from a hike the same weekend has created a problem that takes far more effort to explain than to avoid. Describe your symptoms the same way to every person who writes them down, including on intake forms, and expect delayed symptoms to be questioned if you reported feeling fine at the scene.
What a medical authorization actually opens
At some point, an insurer will ask you to sign a medical authorization. Read the scope before signing.
A form drafted broadly can reach your entire medical history rather than treatment connected to this crash, which gives an adjuster material to argue that your injury predates the collision. A narrower authorization, limited by provider and date range, supplies what the claim requires without opening a decade of unrelated records. Our car accident attorneys review these before anything is signed.
A record worth starting today
Medical bills and wage loss are documented by somebody else. The rest of the harm is not, and memory fades faster than people expect.
A few lines a week is enough. Note what you could not do, what sleep looks like, what you missed, what someone else had to take over. Twelve months later, that record is the difference between a specific account of how an injury changed your life and a vague one.
Frequently asked questions
1) How quickly does surveillance footage disappear?
It varies by system, and some overwrite within days. Treat it as urgent rather than assuming a business keeps months of video, and make the preservation request in writing.
2) Can I get the event data from the other driver’s car?
Not on your own. The other vehicle’s owner controls that data, and access ordinarily comes through consent or a court order, which in practice means through the claim or a lawsuit.
3) Do I have to give the insurance company my social media?
Not simply because an adjuster asks. Once a lawsuit is underway, relevant material can be requested through discovery, and deleting posts after a claim begins causes far worse problems than the posts themselves.
4) Should I report the crash to my own insurer if I was not at fault?
Usually yes. Policies generally require prompt notice, and your own coverage may include benefits that apply no matter who was responsible.
5) Is a police report enough on its own?
It is useful but not decisive. Officers reconstruct events after the fact, reports contain errors, and the fault conclusion in a report does not bind an insurer or a court.
Conclusion
The information that decides a claim is usually scattered across parties who have no stake in your recovery, and much of it has an expiration date that nobody announces. Early attention is about reaching records while they still exist.
Ace Lakhani Law Firm opens files in Las Vegas and Phoenix, and preservation requests go out before anything else happens. A conversation costs nothing, and fees come only from a recovery.
Call 702.814.4000 for the Nevada office or 602.444.2222 for the Arizona office. You can also send us the details and we will tell you what is worth chasing.
