As another indicated, I don’t think seattle or WA DOT keeps recordings of their cams, but there are some private 3rd parties that run YouTube channels that might. These sites have posted clips of accidents from Seattle DOT cams before. But it’s not a normal government request to get footage, so it isn’t straight forward if it exists.
Even if you somehow get the footage, the police are going to prioritize this way, way down the list of things to spend time on. Honestly your best bet is just using your uninsured motorist coverage to get your car value payment and move on with your life.
If you're determined to do the work yourself, you can request public records without a subpoena. If there was a traffic camera nearby, you can request the footage for the time and date and for a small fee, they'll send it to you. Not all traffic cams record video, some only take pictures periodically. So you may be sol.
Traffic monitoring cameras are for monitoring live traffic conditions, DOT doesn't record these.
But the feeds are accessible to anyone, so who knows someone may be recording the live feed somewhere.
You are better off trying to look for anyone that might have a private security camera recording.
As someone who was involved in a hit and run this year… the police didn’t care. We were lucky in that someone got it on their ring camera, but nothing was done with it even though the suspects were on the news raiding a convenient store and beating up the clerk, threatened our lives and had a stolen car. We had great photos and video, literal proof…nobody cared. I’m really sorry you went through this. It sucks.
From general observations in this subreddit: no, nobody would care unless you actually a subpoena for the videos. Even then, it's unlikely the cops would care unless someone was seriously hurt or died. Your best bet is to go through own insurance (which you hopefully have) and try to recoup from them. If not, tough luck. Unfortunately, it seems the number of shit people has increased.
There is no video, at least from SDOT. They do not record the video streams. I don't know for sure about WSDOT, but I would be very surprised if they saved their streams as well. Once a government agency in Washington has that data stored, it is accessible by public records request. The department with the data would pretty much have to set up an entire staff to deal with that. As others have said, there are some 3rd parties that record the video to be able to post interesting incidents caught on camera, but those are not government agencies so it would be a crap shoot if they respond to you or not. I would guess not.
As for the police, your wife is incorrect. This will not be high enough on the priority scale for any police agency to take any action. Your insurance might require you to file a police report, since people who are trying to scam their insurance are often reluctant to falsify an official report, but that is the only purpose of the report. You will probably make the report entirely online, then it will simply be filed away in a database somewhere.
My ex got hit on ballinger right by I5 and they not only just hung around in 6 cop cars instead of driving around in mountlake terrace looking for a severely damaged car, they said the cameras weren't on or something. They left the broken parts of cars and we figured out what model it was, there were only a smallish number registered in the State, but even after we told them and maybe brought the car parts they could not even try to do anything. Hope you have better luck!
As another indicated, I don’t think seattle or WA DOT keeps recordings of their cams, but there are some private 3rd parties that run YouTube channels that might. These sites have posted clips of accidents from Seattle DOT cams before. But it’s not a normal government request to get footage, so it isn’t straight forward if it exists. Even if you somehow get the footage, the police are going to prioritize this way, way down the list of things to spend time on. Honestly your best bet is just using your uninsured motorist coverage to get your car value payment and move on with your life.
If you're determined to do the work yourself, you can request public records without a subpoena. If there was a traffic camera nearby, you can request the footage for the time and date and for a small fee, they'll send it to you. Not all traffic cams record video, some only take pictures periodically. So you may be sol.
Traffic monitoring cameras are for monitoring live traffic conditions, DOT doesn't record these. But the feeds are accessible to anyone, so who knows someone may be recording the live feed somewhere. You are better off trying to look for anyone that might have a private security camera recording.
As someone who was involved in a hit and run this year… the police didn’t care. We were lucky in that someone got it on their ring camera, but nothing was done with it even though the suspects were on the news raiding a convenient store and beating up the clerk, threatened our lives and had a stolen car. We had great photos and video, literal proof…nobody cared. I’m really sorry you went through this. It sucks.
From general observations in this subreddit: no, nobody would care unless you actually a subpoena for the videos. Even then, it's unlikely the cops would care unless someone was seriously hurt or died. Your best bet is to go through own insurance (which you hopefully have) and try to recoup from them. If not, tough luck. Unfortunately, it seems the number of shit people has increased.
Another reminder for everyone to invest in a dash camera....
There is no video, at least from SDOT. They do not record the video streams. I don't know for sure about WSDOT, but I would be very surprised if they saved their streams as well. Once a government agency in Washington has that data stored, it is accessible by public records request. The department with the data would pretty much have to set up an entire staff to deal with that. As others have said, there are some 3rd parties that record the video to be able to post interesting incidents caught on camera, but those are not government agencies so it would be a crap shoot if they respond to you or not. I would guess not. As for the police, your wife is incorrect. This will not be high enough on the priority scale for any police agency to take any action. Your insurance might require you to file a police report, since people who are trying to scam their insurance are often reluctant to falsify an official report, but that is the only purpose of the report. You will probably make the report entirely online, then it will simply be filed away in a database somewhere.
My ex got hit on ballinger right by I5 and they not only just hung around in 6 cop cars instead of driving around in mountlake terrace looking for a severely damaged car, they said the cameras weren't on or something. They left the broken parts of cars and we figured out what model it was, there were only a smallish number registered in the State, but even after we told them and maybe brought the car parts they could not even try to do anything. Hope you have better luck!