If both drivers say they had a green light, the police report may leave the central question unresolved. The next step is to find records that can test each account: the signal settings in effect, any retained controller history, video from the approaches, and the timing of the emergency response.
Start by finding out what the camera actually does. LADOTD says its traffic-camera feeds are live and are never recorded by DOTD. A camera above the road therefore does not necessarily mean there is a crash recording to request. Other government systems, businesses, homes, buses, and vehicles may hold separate footage.
Find the signal custodian before requesting its records
The police agency that investigated the collision may not maintain the traffic light. Shreveport Traffic Engineering designs, installs, and maintains city traffic signs and signals. LADOTD’s contact guidance directs city-street questions to local government and state-route questions to the appropriate DOTD district.
Where a city street meets a state route, confirm who controlled the signal on the crash date. Ask for records identifying the owner, operator, maintenance contractor, and controller cabinet. The street name alone may not resolve that question.
The City’s public-records page identifies its request portal. DOTD has a separate process. DOTD asks for identifiable records, rather than questions that require staff to create an answer or a new record.
Give the exact intersection, date, time window, travel direction, lane, and police report number. A request for the timing plan in effect on that approach at that hour is more useful than a request for everything about the crash.
A timing plan answers only part of the green-light question
The plan shows how the signal was programmed. It does not necessarily show the light displayed at the instant of impact. A signal may respond to detected traffic, operate under different schedules during the day, or lack a retained history of individual changes.
The Federal Highway Administration’s timing guidance explains the roles of phasing, detectors, controllers, pedestrian intervals, and coordinated timing. Those details help distinguish a programmed sequence from proof of a particular crash cycle.
Scroll horizontally to see all columns. Use the arrow keys when the table is focused.
| Record to identify | Question it may help answer |
|---|---|
| Active timing plan, phase sequence, protected or permitted turn settings | Which movements could occur, and in what order? |
| Green, yellow, all-red, and pedestrian intervals | What intervals were programmed for vehicles and pedestrians? |
| Detector layout, settings, and call-memory settings | How could traffic detection affect the sequence? |
| Coordination plans and time-of-day schedules | Which plan should have been operating at the crash time? |
| Retained controller downloads, event logs, conflict-monitor records, and fault reports | Did the system record a relevant event, fault, reset, or interruption? |
| Work orders, complaints, outage reports, repairs, and nearby timing or software changes | Was a problem reported or work performed before or after the crash? |
| As-built plans and cabinet or contractor identification | Which equipment and responsible entities should be investigated? |
These are possible records, not a promise that the intersection generated or retained each one. Ask for the records that exist within the defined period. An agency cannot supply a past cycle history its equipment never saved.
Look beyond the camera facing the intersection
LADOTD’s video-distribution page expressly says DOTD does not record its feeds. Its 511 system provides traveler information, but should not be assumed to supply an archive of a collision.
A police camera, license-plate reader, school-zone enforcement camera, or other city system may operate differently. Identify the system and custodian, then ask whether it created a record for the relevant time and whether a department or vendor holds it. Availability and disclosure restrictions depend on the actual system. This is an evidence inquiry, not a guide to contesting an automated citation.
Nearby private footage may help even when the impact is out of frame. It can show an approaching vehicle’s lane, turn signal, headlights, or movement through surrounding traffic. Look along each approach, including businesses and homes, and ask witnesses whether they had dash cameras. A bus or delivery vehicle may also have passed through the area.
Request the original file. A phone recording of a playback screen can lose image detail, audio, timestamps, and metadata. Preserve your own photographs and video in their original form with a backup. Our broader guide to Louisiana car-accident evidence explains how these files fit with vehicle, injury, and loss records.
The crash report is a starting point for police and 911 records
The Shreveport Police services page links to accident-report purchases. The standard report may not include supplements, scene photographs, measurements, diagrams, evidence logs, witness statements, or footage officers collected elsewhere.
Use the report number to identify those materials separately. Requests for 911 audio, dispatch entries, radio traffic, body-camera video, and police vehicle-camera video should identify the relevant time window and responding agency. The records may have different custodians.
An active investigation, privacy restriction, exemption, redaction requirement, or missing record can affect production. Ask the custodian to explain a delay or identify the legal basis for withholding records where the law permits. Do not assume that buying the accident report means every associated recording has been requested or preserved.
Request preservation while you work out access
A public-records request seeks an existing government record. A preservation request asks its holder not to erase, overwrite, alter, discard, repair, or destroy specified evidence. Do not assume one request automatically does both jobs.
Identify the collision, time range, approaches, report number, and material to preserve. Depending on the crash, the holders may include the signal agency, investigating officers’ department, private camera owners, a transit provider, a vehicle owner, an insurer, or a commercial carrier. Follow up with each relevant holder rather than relying on one general request.
Retention periods vary, and a request cannot create missing footage or guarantee voluntary production. Contact likely video owners as soon as practical. Photograph the intersection, signals, markings, and obstructions only when safe, and keep involved vehicles available for inspection before repair, sale, or destruction if their condition or electronic data matters.
Compare the records before deciding what the light showed
A video clock may be wrong. A witness may remember a vehicle’s movement accurately but misremember the light. A timing plan may describe the programmed intervals without proving the phase at impact. Those limits are reasons to compare sources, not discard them.
A reconstruction can align available controller information with video, 911 and dispatch times, vehicle speed or braking data, witness viewpoints, debris, damage, and final positions. A qualified investigator or engineer can test whether those sources agree. Our explanation of proving fault after a Louisiana collision addresses the connection between that evidence and the civil claim.
R.S. 32:232 defines duties associated with green, yellow, red, and flashing-yellow-arrow indications. Applying it still requires evidence of the displayed signal, the movement, the stop line, pedestrians, and other traffic. Under Civil Code article 2315, the claim must connect fault to injury and damage.
The crash date also matters. Article 2323 changed effective January 1, 2026. For a crash governed by that version, negligence of 51 percent or more generally bars recovery; below that threshold, damages generally fall by the injured person’s percentage of negligence. The applicable version must be determined from the incident date.
Article 3493.1 generally provides a two-year period for delictual actions, running from the day injury or damage is sustained. Other claims, parties, and facts can change the deadline. Even when two years applies, it does not preserve a camera file or controller record for that long.
Our Shreveport car-accident practice helps injured people investigate disputed collisions. If you need help identifying the signal custodian or preserving crash evidence, contact Babcock Injury Lawyers at (318) 777-5000 or (225) 500-5000.
This article provides general information, not legal advice. Record availability, retention, disclosure, fault, and deadlines depend on the agency, system, crash date, and facts.