read this if you want to avoid the insurance runaround after an accident

If you’re involved in a motor vehicle accident, the very first thing you should do is look out for your safety (and the safety of those around you). If possible, and if safe to do so, pull your vehicle over. Call an ambulance if you or someone else is injured.

Additionally, start taking notes of what you remember happening. You might think this can wait, but the longer you leave it the blurrier your memories will get.

If police attend, make sure you provide them with your full recount of what happened.

You might not be capable of gathering evidence at the time of the accident. You might have been badly injured, taken to hospital, or the police might have asked everyone to clear the scene.

No need to worry if you didn’t get evidence at the time of the accident. There is plenty of evidence you can gather afterwards… but it is still best to act fast (you’ll see why).

Surveillance, or CCTV, footage can show exactly how an accident happened. Luckily, if you have an accident or injure yourself in a public place, there is a good chance that it was captured on video.

Tracking down, accessing, and protecting surveillance footage can be difficult.

To add to the challenge, public surveillance footage is often erased after a very short time, meaning action needs to be taken quickly.

Surveillance and CCTV footage often records over itself after a certain period.

Sometimes footage is recorded over in just 20 or 30 days (or even less). This means that you need to act quickly to get the footage before it is erased.

There are multiple persons who might hold surveillance footage. These include:

The way you request surveillance footage depends on who holds the footage.

For businesses, a simple letter asking for footage is sufficient.

It is best to include a brief explanation of why you want the footage, and the time and place that you want the footage to capture.

Some local council websites will tell you how to request footage (such as Brisbane City Council). For example, in Brisbane there is an online request form for “CitySafe” footage of certain areas.

Sometimes, you will need to complete a “Right to Information and Information Privacy Access Application” form (such as this Queensland form). In this form, you should state that you believe the footage is held by the council. A fee is often payable to submit the form, and extra fees might apply for copying the footage.

For State government, you will likely need to complete a “Right to Information and Information Privacy Access Application” form (such as this Queensland form). A fee is often payable to submit the form, and extra fees might apply for copying the footage.

If you can act quickly and obtain a copy of surveillance footage, then it is up to you to protect that evidence. 

Some bodies (especially Local and State governments) are hesitant to hand over footage that might affect someone else’s privacy. For example, if someone else’s face is clearly shown in the footage, the government wants to protect that person’s privacy and might not allow you to see the footage.

Some bodies might be slow to answer your request for footage, creating the risk of the footage being erased.

If you are denied access to surveillance footage, or you don't think your request is being looked at in time, the next step is to ask the holder of the footage to protect the footage. This is best done with a telephone call as it's fastest.

If you contact the business owner or government department, explain that you have made a request for footage, and explain that it may be important evidence in an incident causing injuries; they may agree to protect a copy of that footage. They might not provide that footage to you (especially if they previously denied you access to it), but it stops the footage from being permanently deleted.

This gives the holder time to process your request, or gives you time to rebut denied access.

Firstly… witnesses, surveillance footage and dash-cam footage can all help you find out what happened.

If you aren’t able to get an answer from any of those sources, then a traffic light sequence report might be the answer.

A traffic light sequence report is a record of what a set of traffic lights was doing at a particular time.

We must firstly point out that what is in a traffic light sequence report depends on a few things, such as:

A traffic light sequence report can potentially tell you:

A good place to start is with the State government: the Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR).

TMR controls many sets of traffic lights. Traffic lights on main roads are usually controlled by TMR.

If TMR doesn’t control the set of traffic lights you are interested in, they can usually point you in the right direction of who does. If it’s not TMR, it’s probably the local council.

You can contact TMR on 13 19 14 and ask whether TMR control the lights on the intersection where your accident happened.

Before you go and request any traffic light sequence report, it is a good idea to try to find out what will be in the report. As we mentioned earlier, not every traffic light sequence report is the same.

After you find out who controls the set of traffic lights, call them to find out what sort of information they can offer.

There is often a fee for traffic light sequence reports. You don’t want to pay the fee and then realise the report doesn’t give you any useful information.

If the controlling body has told you what is in the report, and you believe that is the information you need, then you should request the report.

Each controlling body has a different process for requesting traffic light sequence reports. You might be asked to send an email, fill out a form, or send a letter. For example, Brisbane City Council requires you to fill out a form, available here.

Ask the relevant body how to request the report, and follow their instructions. If you are required to provide information or pay a fee, do so as soon as possible to make sure your request is not delayed.

...as soon as possible.

As mentioned above, look at what other evidence you have access to (like witnesses and surveillance footage). If none of those sources give you the evidence you need, then look into getting a traffic light sequence report as soon as possible.

Traffic light sequence data is sometimes deleted after a certain period of time. To make sure you don’t miss out, act fast.

Witnesses can sometimes be your knights in shining armour in a personal injury claim.

In situations of “he said, she said”, where both parties think the other party was at fault, an independent witness can help to figure out what happened.

Courts value the opinions of independent third parties, because they know that independent third parties are unlikely to be biased.

For this reason, witness statements hold a lot of weight, and can be the piece of evidence that proves the other party was at fault.

The easiest and fastest way to track down any witnesses to an accident is to ask for their details at the time of the accident.

If you are able to, ask them for their name and contact details (ideally, you should ask for a few contact details in case you can’t reach them one way).

What if you couldn’t speak to the witnesses at the time of the accident? What if you were injured and taken immediately to hospital?

There’s still hope…

There are many ways to track down witnesses, including:

For an example of what to include in a flier/advertisement/letter drop, see the notice at the end of
this section.

Once you have found a witness, contact them.

This is best done with a telephone call, so that you can explain your situation and ask them questions. We’ve provided you with a guide on what to say.

Once the witness has told you what they know, type it up and take it out to the witness to sign.

Under section 47 of the Motor Accident Insurance Act 1994 (QLD), a CTP insurer must do the
following when a claimant asks:

It means that you can ask the insurer for information about the accident, and the insurer must
provide the information they can.

This gives the claimant an opportunity to ask the insured driver for details of the accident, such as:

Even better, the insured driver must verify the information by statutory declaration if you ask them
to.

A statutory declaration has the same effect and consequences as swearing evidence in court. So,
the insured theoretically should tell the truth (or risk facing charges of fraud).

You can ask the questions by sending a list of questions to the CTP insurer. The CTP insurer will then gather whatever information it needs from the insured driver.