How to get police and traffic camera video of a crash in Ohio

The public records law that gets you the video

Ohio Public Records Act, Ohio Rev. Code §149.43

Promptly; no fixed day count

Any person may request public records from any Ohio public office, including the State Highway Patrol, city police, sheriffs and ODOT. The office must promptly prepare responsive records for inspection at reasonable times during regular business hours, and must provide copies at cost within a reasonable period of time (Ohio Rev. Code §149.43(B)(1)). The statute sets no number of days; the Attorney General’s 2026 Sunshine Laws Manual says courts decide “promptly” and “reasonable period of time” case by case, considering the type of record, the need for redaction or legal review, and volume. For police video specifically, a court weighing timeliness must consider the time needed to retrieve, download, review, redact, seek legal advice about and produce it (§149.43(B)(1)). You do not have to put the request in writing or say who you are or why you want the record; an office may ask, but only after telling you that you may decline, and requiring it counts as a denial (§149.43(B)(4), (5)). Even so, a written request delivered by hand, electronically or by certified mail is what makes you eligible for statutory damages later (§149.43(C)(3)). The office must release the non-exempt parts of a record and tell you about or visibly mark any redaction, and a redaction counts as a denial (§149.43(B)(1)); an overly broad request may be denied but you must be given a chance to revise it (§149.43(B)(2)); and any denial must explain the legal authority, in writing if you asked in writing (§149.43(B)(3)). You may choose paper, the medium the office keeps the record on, or another medium it can reasonably use, and the office may require payment in advance (§149.43(B)(6)). Copies are “at cost,” and the manual says the cost of employee time generally cannot be included, except for law enforcement video (see the police video section). Requests to the State Highway Patrol go through the Ohio Department of Public Safety’s online Public Records Center, which says requests are handled in the order received and timing depends on size, redactions and volume (OSHP Central Records, (614) 466-3536). ODOT takes public records requests through its Chief Legal Counsel ((614) 466-3664) and an online request link.

Police body camera and dashcam video

Public, minus 17 restricted categories

Ohio has no separate body camera release law: the Public Records Act governs, and the Attorney General’s 2026 manual says footage from body-worn and dashboard cameras is a public record that law enforcement must review for exempt portions. The Act defines a body-worn camera and a dashboard camera (§149.43(A)(15), (16)) and excludes from public records only the “restricted portions” of those recordings (§149.43(A)(1)(jj)), defined in §149.43(A)(17)(a) to (q). For a crash, the most relevant are: the image or identity of a child who is a primary subject; a death or a dead body (unless caused by an officer); grievous bodily harm or an act of severe violence causing serious physical harm (unless caused by an officer); a nude body; protected health information or the identity of a person in a health care facility who is not the subject of the encounter; personal information (such as an ID number, date of birth, address or financial information) of a person who is not arrested, cited, charged or given a written warning; conversations unrelated to law enforcement; and the inside of a home or a non-public part of a business unless an adversarial encounter or use of force happened there. Several of those categories, including death, grievous bodily harm and nudity, may be released with the consent of the injured person, guardian or executor, but only if the recording will not be used in a probable or pending criminal case, or the criminal case is over (§149.43(H)(1)). The Supreme Court of Ohio, reviewing Highway Patrol dashcam recordings, held that decisions about exemptions must be made case by case and that the Patrol could redact only the investigatory work product from one recording and had to release the rest (State ex rel. Cincinnati Enquirer v. Ohio Dept. of Pub. Safety, 2016-Ohio-7987). Fees: a state or local law enforcement agency or prosecutor may charge the actual cost of preparing video, including staff time, up to $75 per hour of video produced and $750 in total; if it requires prepayment it must give you an estimate within five business days, and the final bill may exceed the estimate by no more than 20% and only if you were warned (§149.43(B)(1)). No fee may be charged to a victim as defined in Ohio’s constitution (Article I, Section 10a), or to a victim who suffered loss and could bring a tort claim, who reasonably asserts that the video relates to the act or omission that caused the harm or loss, or to the victim’s lawyer or insurer; the waiver requires an affidavit by the victim or the victim’s counsel saying the video will be used to investigate harm or damages it may show, and a lawyer must show a signed retention agreement or letter of representation (§149.43(B)(11)). Retention is not set by the Act; each office must keep its records retention schedule available to the public (§149.43(B)(2)). Example, State Highway Patrol only: ODPS says Patrol body-worn camera recordings are kept 180 days, that body cameras were rolled out between November 2021 and June 2022, and lists in-car video with the same 180-day retention.

When police can hold video back

CLEIR exemption; ends with the case

Ohio exempts confidential law enforcement investigatory records (CLEIRs) (§149.43(A)(1)(h)): records about a criminal, quasi-criminal, civil or administrative law enforcement matter, but only to the extent release would create a high probability of disclosing an uncharged suspect’s identity, a confidential source or witness, specific confidential investigatory techniques or specific investigatory work product, or information that would endanger the life or safety of officers, a crime victim, a witness or a source (§149.43(A)(2)(a)). Specific investigatory work product is information assembled in connection with a probable or pending criminal or civil proceeding, not routine incident reports, and it stays non-public only until all direct appeals end, the appeal time runs out, the case ends without appeal, or the responsible officials decide not to proceed (§149.43(A)(2)(b)). The Attorney General’s manual says the work product exemption ends when the law enforcement matter ends, but protection for an uncharged suspect, a confidential source or technique, or safety information continues despite the passage of time; that routine offense and incident reports and “incident information,” such as an officer’s initial observations and witness interviews, are not covered; and that giving a defendant discovery does not waive the exemption. In the dashcam case above, only about 90 seconds of more than two hours of recordings (the trooper taking the driver to her patrol car, reading Miranda rights and questioning him) qualified as work product; the rest was routine recording and had to be released. Trial preparation records are separately exempt until the case and any appeal end (§149.43(A)(1)(g)). For crash reports, the Highway Patrol may withhold its reports, statements and photographs until all criminal prosecution has concluded (Ohio Rev. Code §5502.12(A)). If a crash leads to charges, such as OVI or a hit-and-run, expect parts of the video to be withheld until the case ends, and ask again then.

Do traffic cameras in Ohio record?

ODOT keeps video 72 hours, free copy

ODOT’s traffic camera page says it provides traffic camera footage free of charge and that footage is kept on a rolling 72-hour retention schedule. ODOT’s records retention schedule for recorded video from highway cameras says video for each camera is saved for three consecutive days on a moving three-day period (on the fourth day, day one is overwritten), and a companion schedule says copies pulled from the server to fulfill public records requests are kept for the current year plus three years. That means you have about three days from the crash to ask: use the Request Traffic Camera Footage link on ODOT’s Traffic Cameras and Real-Time Monitoring page, give the camera location and the exact time window, and ask ODOT to save the clip. The live feeds are on OHGO. We could not read the request form itself (it requires JavaScript), so we did not confirm its fields or which cameras it covers. Cameras run by a city or county are separate: ask that government’s public records office just as quickly, because ODOT’s schedule does not apply to them.

Red-light and speed cameras

Cities only; no confidentiality rule

Ohio Rev. Code §§4511.092 to 4511.0914 govern “traffic law photo-monitoring devices” used to enforce red-light and speed violations. Only a municipal corporation may use them; counties and townships may not (§4511.092(C), §4511.093(A)). The statute still says a city may use them only if a law enforcement officer is present at the device at all times (§4511.093(B)(1)) and must do a safety study and public information campaign first (§4511.095), and limits speed tickets to 6 mph over in school and park zones and 10 mph over elsewhere (§4511.0912), but the Supreme Court of Ohio held all three of those provisions unconstitutional under municipal home rule (Dayton v. State, 2017-Ohio-6909). A camera ticket is a civil violation mailed to the registered owner within 30 days, and it must include a copy of the recorded images (§4511.096(C), §4511.097(B)(6), (C)); the owner may contest it in municipal or county court within 30 days (§4511.098(A)(5)). We found no Ohio statute making camera images confidential or limiting them to the ticketed owner, so a request to the city under §149.43 is the route, but the images usually show only a violation and the system may not keep footage that did not trigger a ticket; ask the city right away. We did not confirm which Ohio cities currently run cameras. School bus stop-arm cameras: the photo-monitoring rules do not apply to a camera on a school bus used to detect illegal passing (§4511.0913), and current law relies on the bus driver reporting the plate to police (§4511.751). House Bill 3 of the 136th General Assembly (the School Bus Safety Act) would set up school bus violation detection monitoring systems; the General Assembly’s bill page shows it passed the House and then passed the Senate in an amended version that adds those sections, with no step past Senate passage shown (no concurrence or governor’s signature recorded), so it is not law as of October 2026 and its new sections are not in the Revised Code.

If your request is denied

Serve notice, 3 days, then $25 filing

The Public Records Act provides no administrative appeal; it is enforced in court. Before any lawsuit, you must serve a complaint on the public office, on the form prescribed by the clerk of the Court of Claims and under Civil Rule 4; the office then has three business days to cure or otherwise address the problem, and you may not sue during that period (Ohio Rev. Code §149.43(C)(1)). After that you must choose one route, not both (§149.43(C)(1); §2743.75(C)(1)). Route one: file a complaint in the Court of Claims, either with its clerk or with the clerk of the common pleas court of the county where the office is located, attaching your original request and every written response, with a $25 filing fee (§2743.75(D)(1)). On either route you must file a written affirmation that you served the notice at least three business days earlier and the problem was not resolved; without it the case is dismissed (§149.43(C)(2)). The Court of Claims says the same form serves as the notice and the complaint, that you can file online through e-FileOH, by mail (check or money order payable to the Ohio Court of Claims) or in person at 65 South Front Street, 3rd Floor, Columbus, Ohio 43215, and that skipping the notice may lead to dismissal without a refund of the fee. Cases go first to mediation unless the special master decides not to refer them (§2743.75(E)(1)); if mediation fails or is skipped, the office has ten business days to respond (§2743.75(E)(2)), a special master issues a report and recommendation within seven business days after that (extendable by seven) (§2743.75(F)(1)), and either side has seven business days to object (§2743.75(F)(2)). If you win and there is no appeal, you recover the $25 fee and costs but not attorney fees (§2743.75(F)(3)). Route two: a mandamus action in the common pleas court, the court of appeals or the Supreme Court of Ohio (§149.43(C)(1)(b)), where a court may award costs, attorney fees in some cases, and, if your request was written and sent by hand delivery, electronic submission or certified mail, statutory damages of $100 for each business day of noncompliance starting when you file, up to $1,000 (§149.43(C)(3), (4)). For a restricted portion of a body camera or dashcam recording, any person may ask either court to order release, and it must do so if you show by clear and convincing evidence that the public interest substantially outweighs the privacy and other interests (§149.43(H)(2)). We found no filing deadline in §149.43 or §2743.75, but video retention is short, so act quickly. You may want to ask a lawyer before choosing a route.

What to do now

1. 1

   Request ODOT camera footage today

   ODOT keeps traffic camera video only 72 hours on a rolling basis. Use its Request Traffic Camera Footage link with the camera location and exact time window. Copies are free.

2. 2

   Send a written records request to the police

   Email or hand-deliver a request to the agency that worked the crash for all body camera and dashcam video, with the date, time, location and crash number. For the Highway Patrol, use the ODPS Public Records Center.

3. 3

   Attach a victim affidavit to avoid video fees

   Police may charge up to $75 per hour of video and $750 in total, but not a crash victim or the victim’s lawyer or insurer. The victim or the lawyer must give an affidavit that the video will be used to investigate the harm.

4. 4

   If refused, serve the Court of Claims form

   Serve the complaint form on the office, wait three business days, then file it with the $25 fee and copies of your request and the responses.

5. 5

   Look beyond public cameras

   Public video is kept briefly and may be withheld while charges are pending. Ask nearby businesses, buses and other drivers, and post the crash on the bounty board.

Frequently asked questions