Witnessed a bad highway crash and turned over my dashcam footage — what happens next?

I was on the other side of this once — someone's dashcam footage basically saved my case after a hit and run. The witness had to hold onto it for months before my attorney could get it properly. Please back that footage up in multiple places right now. Like, tonight. Cloud storage, a USB drive, whatever. You do NOT want it to get corrupted or accidentally overwritten.

You're asking the right questions. As a witness, you're not typically under a formal legal hold unless you receive a subpoena or a preservation letter — but ethically and practically, keeping that footage intact is huge. If any of the injured parties end up in litigation, their attorneys can absolutely subpoena you as a third-party witness and request the footage. It's not super common but it happens, especially when liability is disputed. I'd recommend keeping at least three copies of the original file with the original timestamps intact — don't edit or trim anything. And if anyone contacts you claiming to be an insurance adjuster asking you to just 'email them the clip,' be cautious about how you respond.

If an adjuster from any of the involved insurance companies reaches out to you directly, just... slow down before you say anything. They might try to get a recorded statement or a quick copy of the footage in a way that benefits their side. You're a neutral witness but that doesn't mean they'll treat you like one.

Not legal advice, but: witnesses who hold relevant evidence like dashcam video can sometimes receive a subpoena duces tecum — basically a court order to produce the footage. Depending on your state, there may also be informal ways an injured party's counsel can reach you to request it voluntarily. Preserving the original file with metadata untouched matters a lot if this goes to court. You're doing the right thing by thinking about this proactively.

Honestly it says a lot about you that you stopped and stayed and are still thinking about how to help people you don't even know. A lot of people would have just driven past. I hope the folks who were hurt are okay.

Speaking from experience on the other side of the desk — that footage is genuinely valuable, especially if liability ends up being messy between multiple vehicles. Police don't always follow up quickly on witness tip lines, so don't assume no news means they got what they need. If you want to make sure it reaches the right people, you could proactively contact the investigating officer's department and ask for a case number so you have a paper trail showing you offered to cooperate.

Back up the footage, write down everything you remember while it's fresh — time, road conditions, what you saw before the crash started, all of it — and wait. You did your part by calling it in. If no one follows up within another week or two, call the non-emergency line and ask for the case number yourself. Don't let it fall through the cracks.

What kind of dashcam setup do you have? Some of the cheaper ones overwrite footage on a loop after a day or two unless you manually lock the file. Just want to make sure the footage you think you have is actually still there and readable before anything else matters.