That Little Camera is the Best Witness After a Wreck
After a wreck, especially if there weren’t any witnesses, it can be a whole lot of he said/she said type of arguing. The other driver swears up and down that the motorcycle rider was speeding. The biker claims the driver turned left in front of him. Years ago, judges just had to go with their best judgment for the truth. Today, there’s a little black camera that easily affixes to a helmet that saw everything.
It sounds like a lifesaver. But that can turn around and bite the motorcycle rider in the behind too. A GoPro, Insta360, or other mounted cameras are becoming increasingly common among riders because they create and maintain a record of what actually happened. Many riders have them specifically for insurance purposes. Today the Car Crash Captain looks at what this means for riders, and how sometimes the video doesn’t prove your version; it proves what actually happened.
Your GoPro is the Best Witness at the Scene
Everyone has a different version of the wreck. Drivers will say that the motorcycle rider came out of nowhere, they might claim, “He was flying!” or, they’ll otherwise minimize their liability and attempt to maximize the other party’s involvement.
Your GoPro camera can turn those statements into something that can easily be tested.
In 2024 there was a rider in California who was struck by a minivan making an unsafe lane change. California Highway Patrol initially cited the rider as being at fault. However, his insurance looked through the camera footage and came back saying the minivan driver was 100% at fault.
The camera is a third-party unbiased witness to your wreck. It knows if the light truly was green. It can see where your lane position was, whether the other driver signaled or not, how close they were, and it can also record your speed.
GoPro cameras are built to record events. Most of the time, we only see the footage that comes as the result of that event, but inside everything is being recorded. Telemetry data is built into those files, and includes location, path, speed, and acceleration.
That Camera Recorded Your Bad Behavior, Too
That camera is an impartial witness that will tell the truth no matter what. It doesn’t care that you’ve hired Herbert Law Group to help with your Texas motorcycle case. It doesn’t care that the insurance company is trying to screw you over. And it doesn’t know that it was supposed to stop recording when you twisted the throttle.
The footage might show the wreck, but it can also show:
- Excessive speed
- Aggressive driving
- Lane splitting
- Running a stoplight
- Following too closely
- Racing
- Stunts
And a lot more that can contradict your statement.
Using a motorcyclists camera footage, Knott Labs reconstructed a crash between a sport bike and a sedan. The sedan turned onto the street in front of the motorcycle, who reacted and attempted to avoid the wreck by applying the brakes, but couldn’t slow down fast enough and crashed into the back of the sedan.
It looks like an open and shut case where the sedan didn’t watch out for the rider. But the footage was analyzed, and it showed the motorcycle rider had accelerated to 100 mph shortly before the wreck. When the rider reacted, the brakes were applied to their maximum, but were unable to slow the motorcycle (traveling at over double the speed limit) enough to avoid the crash.
The conclusion was that had the biker been going the speed limit, the wreck would have been avoided.
After a Crash, Don’t Screw with the GoPro Camera
What’s that even mean? Don’t delete footage? Don’t edit the footage? Yes, to both, but there’s even more.
After you get home from the hospital and you have time to watch the footage, you’re probably thinking, “Look at this bozo! I can’t believe him!” and you will want to trim it, upload it, and watch the online karma flow in. YouTube, Facebook, Reddit – they are all filled with these kinds of videos and people love to watch them.
Someday, long after lawsuits have been settled, then you might be able to upload the footage. But right now, you don’t want to mess with it. That footage has metadata that can help prove your innocence. Any editing will mess with that can make it more difficult to help you win your case.
Deleting footage is never going to look good. Even if you’re just deleting the boring stuff, like the hour of riding before the crash, it causes doubt and makes it appear that you’re trying to hide something.
Herbert Law Group is Your Texas Motorcycle Wreck Lawyer
What do you do with that footage? You make a copy and hand it over to your lawyer at Herbert Law Group. From our offices in Richardson, Texas, we’ll review the footage, determine a plan, and fight for your rights.
If you’ve been in a wreck, GoPro recording at the time or not, you need an experienced motorcycle wreck lawyer on your side. Fill out our contact form, or call our offices at 214-414-3808, and we’ll have a free conversation to determine how we can help you receive justice.