Fast. Electronic logging data, dashcam footage, and driver logs can be overwritten or lost within days to weeks. One of our first moves is a preservation letter putting the trucking company on legal notice not to destroy evidence.
Jimmy personally reviews every submission — most people hear back the same day.
People reasonably assume evidence sits somewhere until someone asks for it. In trucking that is not how it works. Most of the material that proves these cases is on a retention schedule, and some of it is on a very short one.
Video. Forward-facing and driver-facing cameras typically record on a loop. Unless an event is flagged and preserved, footage can be overwritten within days. The same is true of nearby business surveillance that happened to catch the crash — those systems commonly recycle in one to four weeks, and nobody preserves anything unless asked.
Telematics. Fleet systems track speed, location, braking and following distance, but the granular data often ages out quickly even where summaries persist.
The engine control module. ECM data can be overwritten by continued driving or lost entirely when the tractor is repaired, parted out or sold. Once that vehicle is released, control of the evidence is gone.
The scene. Skid marks, gouges, fluid and debris last days. Sightlines change with the seasons. A signal gets retimed, a sign gets replaced, vegetation gets cut back.
Records of duty status and supporting documents must be kept for at least six months under 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1). Driver qualification files and maintenance records have their own retention periods. "At least" is the operative phrase — these are floors, not promises, and a carrier that has passed the floor may lawfully destroy records in the ordinary course.
The tool that changes this is a preservation demand — a letter that identifies specific categories of evidence and puts the carrier on notice of a duty to preserve them. Once received, destroying that material carries consequences: a court can instruct a jury that it may presume the missing evidence was unfavorable to the company.
The letter only works if it arrives while the evidence exists. That is the entire argument for contacting a lawyer in days rather than months, even if you are still in treatment and have no idea yet what your case is worth.
Photograph everything you still can, keep the crash report number, write down every witness you remember, and get a preservation letter out. The rest of the case can be built later. This part cannot be recreated.
Authority: 49 CFR 395.8(k)(1)
Naming ECM data, ELD records, dashcam, telematics, dispatch and maintenance records.
Nearby businesses often recycle footage in one to four weeks. Someone has to ask before then.
Once it is repaired or sold, the ECM data and the physical evidence go with it.
Witnesses, sequence, conditions. Memory degrades and nobody else is recording your version.
Rear-endings, intersection crashes, uninsured drivers, hit-and-runs — in Houston, El Paso, and everywhere in between.
Federal regulations, black-box data, driver logs, multiple insurers. We move fast to preserve evidence before it disappears.
Hurt on the job for a non-subscriber employer, or injured by a third party at a job site? Texas gives you real options.
When the worst happens, we pursue accountability for surviving families with the care and seriousness it deserves.
La consulta es gratis y confidencial. No paga nada a menos que ganemos su caso. Jimmy contesta personalmente, hoy mismo.
Every day you wait, evidence disappears and the insurer gets ahead. One free call. Straight answers about your case — in English or Spanish. If you need a fighter, you'll have one. If you don't, I'll tell you that too.
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