North Yorkshire Police are urging people to report incidents of poor driving online and is asking for dashcam videos to be submitted in support of claims.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-38306678
They've just gained their first dashcam prosecution with this.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-39706454/force-gains-first-dashcam-prosecution
Last edited by: VxFan on Thu 27 Apr 17 at 10:13
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Vauxhall drivers, tut ...
:-)
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One step too far IMHO.
In eastern Europe under soviet rule neighbours spied on each other, children were told to spy on their parents and of course the same thing is still happening in North Korea.
Thin end of the wedge.
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Won't be long before Insurance companies will insist on cams being fitted in their T&C's before providing cover.
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I agree, encouraging a network of informing on your neighbours. Settle a score with someone by filming him and sending it to the authorities.
Is dashcam footage just a step too far or worse; a sign of things to come?
And what sort of person *wants* to do this? Not anybody I'd like as a friend, i think.
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I take the point about citizens spying on each other but I think the line is fairly clear beween reporting very bad or dangerous driving conducted in public, with evidence, and reporting private conversations or personal associations, for example, to the Stasi.
There is also the point that East Germans or North Koreans were/are quite likely to be "offed" or locked up/tortured for years without trial, whereas the bad driver will get the same as he would had a traffic officer witnessed what he did.
I wouldn't dob somebody in for putting a wheel over a solid white line or accidentally driving the wrong way down a one way street, but the driver in the news report deserved to be done. That was dreadful.
Edit: NFM makes a fair point. Perhaps it's too much to hope that the police would make a distinction between being used in personal vendettas or nitpicking spite, and dleaing with seriously dangerous drivers.
Last edited by: Manatee on Thu 27 Apr 17 at 10:53
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How about if its a husband submitting a video of his wife driving badly the day after he's found out she's having an affair?
A child reporting his Father after a row?
A neighbour reporting someone they've argued over planning permission with?
Doesn't sound like anywhere I want law enforcement to go.
We could catch more of those bad drivers by simply having more police on the roads, rather than officially requesting that citizens report on each other. But that would cost money.
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Cameras, networks, and the software to detect transgressions will only get cheaper and more ubiquitous. I don't think it will make a whole lot of difference to the overall level of surveillance.
On the other hand, people can be amazingly spiteful. A lot of police time is taken up now I understand with people reporting "harassment" on social media - a large proportion turns out to be rows and the complaints are withdrawn when the parties make up. Dashcam reports could be another big time waster.
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As a general principle, this seems wrong.
Helping the police out with general enquiries in a known incident (e.g. your dashcam captured a crime) no problem.
Gets sticky in some situations though. What do you do if you record something totally reckless that didn't result in accident by sheer luck but could have killed several people a moment or two later like overtaking on a blind bend?
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>> As a general principle, this seems wrong.
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I think it is perfectly OK.
If you are a careful law abiding driver, you won't get caught by these dashcams.
Also, if the Police get swamped with videos of minor offences, they will soon give up - just as they have with most minor offences in other areas of public life.
"Offending drivers will face action ranging from a letter or a personal visit by a traffic officer to prosecution, the force said.
Officers stressed it wasn't a "witch hunt" where a single piece of information would necessarily lead to a prosecution, but repeat offenders could be identified.
David Warin, a road safety campaigner from Pickering, said: "At first I was a bit concerned that it was an opportunity for personal animosity to raise its head among people.
"But any help that will reduce the number of incidents on roads is acceptable and would be gratefully received."
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For the stuff in that video a 20 month ban, community service and a suspended sentence seems a lot, when nothing actually happened. He may not have even planned for it to work out that way when he started his manoeuvre but I suspect there's more to it.
OT, I was watching a police show the other night and they had some bloke from Darlington in the back of the police car, who they'd stopped after a chase, for apparent drink driving and he was incapable of most things. They realised he was getting rid of some of the evidence as he sat there - he was snorting a line of coke in the police car!!!. They scraped some off his nose as evidence. ISTR he got a £40 fine for possession of Class A and not much else...
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I think it's a matter of degree.
If you had a dash vid of a hit and run you'd take it to the police though if it was of a 45 in a 40 or a slightly aggressive overtake on an open road then you clearly wouldn't.
The problem is with the police soliciting dash vids, what criteria is being set so they don't get the benign, the theatrically staged or the malicious ...
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Perhaps they should just get out on patrol a bit more and use their own eyes.
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The Dibble put out a local request for any dashcam footage taken around the time and area of the dreadful murder of poor Michael Samwell the other night just round the corner from here. It was about 0300 hrs so I don't suppose there was much forthcoming but there will have been CCTV on some local shops, I guess. I would have been quite happy to provide, as I assume everyone else would.
I was asleep in bed at the time, though.
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>> Perhaps they should just get out on patrol a bit more and use their own
>> eyes.
>>
Insp Dave Barf said : "With liveried police vehicles being highly identifiable on the road, the opportunities for traffic officers to witness poor driving are somewhat reduced. However, I know that members of the public very often witness or experience behaviour such as tail-gating, inappropriate speed, aggressive driving and mobile phone use."
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>>However, I know that members of the public very often witness or experience behaviour
>>such as tail-gating, inappropriate speed, aggressive driving and mobile phone use.
Encouraging vigilante anti-mobile-phone use. I don't like it one bit. Welcome to 1930s (and 40s) Germany.
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>> Encouraging vigilante anti-mobile-phone use.
Except that the Police will soon find they don't have the resources to follow up such reports if the public begin submitting evidence and the Police then realise the true scale of the problem.
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The police should do the police job. Its a short step to vigilante punishment squads.
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"The police should do the police job. Its a short step to vigilante punishment squads."
So should reporters and camera crews, not newspapers' websites full of dire, peas-poor-quality phone-footage shank.
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>> >>However, I know that members of the public very often witness or experience behaviour
>> >>such as tail-gating, inappropriate speed, aggressive driving and mobile phone use.
>>
>> Encouraging vigilante anti-mobile-phone use. I don't like it one bit. Welcome to 1930s (and 40s)
>> Germany.
>>
Too many spy cameras in the UK already
I have a dashcam, but it's only for my own protection. May well get a rear facing one, too.
At our ages it's too easy to assume old age related incompetence.
Last edited by: Roger. on Thu 27 Apr 17 at 22:24
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>>Insp Dave Barf said : "With liveried police vehicles being highly identifiable on the road, the opportunities for traffic officers to witness poor driving are somewhat reduced<<
You really, really couldn't make it up, could you? Shouldn't somebody tell him that the presence of highly identifiable liveried police vehicles used to be aimed at discouraging poor driving and bad behaviour. Dear oh dear. Also, of course, it meant officers were nearby if needed, not sitting on their arrises in offices watching screens containing the spite of people they don't even know.
It's enough to make you barf.
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>> It's enough to make you barf.
Someone should also tell him that operating unmarked, disguised, fast BMWs on the M3 also does nothing to discourage poor driving. Specially the police driver, who have I come across twice now, goads and bullies other cars into driving fast.
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 28 Apr 17 at 12:58
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>>It's enough to make you barf.
Yes, it is cynical of them.
Remember it was only recently that the police would routinely bully / arrest someone that was videoing them.
Or accuse as being a pervert someone that was videoing crowds in a busy shopping street despite it being covered by CCTV (real double standards).
Last edited by: zippy on Fri 28 Apr 17 at 12:21
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Generally 'idiot drivers' do not 'perform' in the presence of marked Police vehicles. The issue is that no matter how many marked Police vehicles there are on the roads there will never ever be enough to provide a total Police presence.
So examples of particularly dangerous driving should be followed up.
There was a time when complaints of bad driving would be instantly dismissed unless there was independent corroborative evidence, which of course there seldom was. Film footage would tend to fill that gap.
What we don't want are wanabee cops with a misguided sense of public duty driving round filming every minor transgression and snitching to the Old Bill.
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>>What we don't want are wanabee cops with a misguided sense of public duty driving round filming every minor transgression and snitching to the Old Bill.
Given the mentality of some, that is bound to happen!
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There's nothing new in this, of course. From the 1920s until at least the 1960s Motor Sport magazine regularly reported cases where magistrates convicted in cases of careless or even dangerous driving on the uncorroborated evidence of another driver, with the approval of the police who, in those days were the ones who brought the cases anyway.
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>> The problem is with the police soliciting dash vids, what criteria is being set so they don't get the benign, the theatrically staged or the malicious ...
There lies the problem! On a very busy police force, a serious dashcam footage might be overlooked. On a not-so-busy police center, a plod with lots of time to kill, might decide to press charge following a not-so-serious footage.
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Decision is made by CPS not plod isn't it? But the principle remains..
Last edited by: smokie on Thu 27 Apr 17 at 13:05
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There will be CPS Charging Standards. North Wales Police have been running this scheme. In my constant search for boxes for moving house, ended up chatting with the Officer that deals with it. Seems a very sensible and worthwhile idea. I got the boxes as well - Old safety camera ones. Ideal.
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>>>For the stuff in that video a 20 month ban, community service and a suspended sentence seems a lot, when nothing actually happened. He may not have even planned for it to work out that way when he started his manoeuvre but I suspect there's more to it.<<<
I am with smokie on this - the video did not show what happened leading up to the wrong sided overtake.
eg It could be that the oncoming car pulled into the RH turning lane very late or
eg the lorry pulled out of a layby forcing the car out
It also looks as though he had an'escape route into the right turning - although he was probably a bit quick!
Not saying that he was not guilty of dangerous - just there is some element of doubt!
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I think its fair to assume that he wanted to pass the lorry trundling on at 50MPH and that seemed like an opportunity to do so, albeit a very poor one.
The driver would have had ample opportunity to defend themselves or offer mitigation had there been some causation factor.
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I guess he went to over take the lorry but didn't notice the turn.
Car appeared in the space he intended to use and going at that speed his only option was to use the lane on the right, otherwise he risked hitting the turning car, but as the video has been edited, we will never know.
Last edited by: zippy on Thu 27 Apr 17 at 19:52
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What about chain of evidence? It's ok for insurance companies, but not for prosecution.
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It is all a question of degree... I wouldn't like being dobbed in for cruising at 85/90 on a very lightly trafficked dual in good conditions.
OTOH people overtaking on Pelican crossings when a pedestrian is halfway across, people driving along pavements, running red lights at speed,, two cars racing at 75 in a 30, are, in my opinion, more dangerous than my occasional speeding on a rural road.
Operation Steerside in Bradford positively encourages such webcam footage
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There was was always that kid at school who spent their days finding stuff to snitch to the teacher about other kids. Presumably they grow up into the ones who buy dashcams.
To be honest, I couldn't give a fig who films me driving, I don't deliberately try to do it badly, but I do find it distasteful in truth. They can do what they like of course, I'll just get on with minding my own business for the most part.
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>>There was was always that kid at school who spent their days finding stuff to snitch to the teacher about other kids.
They were the ones who usually got a good pasting at breaktime. Just saying, not condoning it of course...
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Another driver who has been grassed to the police for jumping a red light.
tinyurl.com/keco84d - - www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news
Last edited by: VxFan on Fri 28 Apr 17 at 01:50
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I think dash cams can be useful. Roger had a thread recently re his daughter's accident and the dash cam could have been very useful.
If I were being accused for an incident here I would demand the full chain of evidence, e.g. did the video have GPS locations and GPS timestamps (otherwise it could have been anywhere and anytime) and if the timestamp wasn't GPS driven then they could have been altered.
Had the video been edited in any way - elements can be added - for example false times, GPS.
If the car was second hand then it could have been historic and referred to the previous owner of the vehicle.
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Missed the edit...
The low end dashcam devices use video compression that is "lossy". How does one know that something key hasn't been lost in the process of compressing the video?
An example could be someone stepping out of the shadows on a dark night that the camera didn't record because there isn't enough contrast but the driver saw and swerved say across double white lines to avoid hitting?
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I might be missing something but isn't camera footage, whether dash, phone or household CCTV just enhanced eyewitness evidence?
Sure there's room for whataboutery with family issues, malicious neighbour stuff or quality of recording but any of those can be used pre prosecution or in legal defence to counter what's seen.
Given reports in previous years of police finding reasons to not pursue privately shot camera evidence, plenty examples on cycling fora where helmet cams record truly egregious stuff, it's good news that they're now wiling to consider it to support prosecutions.
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Maybe a Yodok in this country could work alongside dashcam footage to deter drivers from breaking the rools.
"The camp guards make prisoners report on each other and designate specific ones as foremen to control a group"
"If one person does not work hard enough, the whole group is punished. This creates animosity among the detainees, destroys any solidarity, and forces them to create a system of self-surveillance".
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yodok_concentration_camp
Last edited by: Dog on Sun 30 Apr 17 at 11:50
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>> Maybe a Yodok in this country could work alongside dashcam footage to deter drivers from
>> breaking the rools.
>>
Standard procedure in the military for centuries. One man lets the side down, the whole squad/room/platoon etc cops for it.
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>>Standard procedure in the military for centuries. One man lets the side down, the whole squad/room/platoon etc cops for it.
Crap for morale.
Wonder why so many officers were "fragged" in Vietnam?
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>> Crap for morale.
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If applied properly and judiciously in basic training, helps encourage teamwork and the stronger help the weaker. Also weeds out those who simply "don't have what it takes". Rarely effective outside a training environment.
Yes, it's crude, but it works. And I speak as one who was on the receiving end of such punishments, not dishing them out.
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"In this case, despite the presence of dashcam video, the specialist prosecutor who reviewed the case concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to establish who was driving the vehicle involved in this incident and the original decision not to prosecute was upheld."
No surprise there then!
Most regulars on here will be aware of my previous occupation and I still work for the outfit as a trainer.
Year last October I went out on my motorbike along a very famous biking road, which is also subject to heavy enforcement in this part of the world during the biking season. As I left the built up area I was following a Discovery. Its markings and emergency lighting made me ponder what it was. Rounding a bend I could see it was emblazoned with 'Ambulance' down the side. Yet it was an old vehicle in comparison to what is normally in the public sector vehicle fleet. My assumption was that this vehicle and its occupants where one of those who provide first aid at events.
Anyway an overtaking opportunity arose of two vehicles, one being the Discovery infront of me. As I started the overtake the Discovery aggressively pulled out to conduct its overtake causing me to brake sharply. Due to a closing gap I had factored in this possibility. I eventually caught it up. Due to the speed it carried into a series of bends it crossed double whites twice to straighten out the bends. I saw the opportunity for another overtake and just as I was undertaking the manouvre once again it pulled into my path in the same manner but this time the driver must have used his mirror and darted back in allowing me to continue and pass.
I then arrived at a T junction with several vehicles, me being one, waiting to emerge onto a busy main road. Next thing I hear is the sound of an emergency siren. I look to my left and this clown is now squeezing down the nearside siren and blue lights on. Vehicles pull over, traffic slows and allows it to merge. It disappears over the horizon at well over the 30MPH speed limit.
The Discovery continues for quite some distance continuing to float over white lines, ignore a 40 limit and the 60 national speed limit. Emergency equipment were now off.
After about 8 miles it eventually pulls into a parking/toilet area. By the time of my arrival the driver was taking a leak and i spoke to the passenger, shortly joined by the driver. Both were dressed in Paramedic greens. I put it to him about the dodgy overtakes and that my particular concern was the misuse of emergency equipment. Not unexpectantly he asked who I was. I told him I was an employee of XXXXXXX XXXXXX. He just climbed into the vehicle and drove off. I informed him the facts would be reported.
So a protracted display of careless driving, crossing double whites on several occasions and then the misuse of emergency equipment. Clearly evidence of speed was not something I could prove. I normally live and let live but this one really needed following up. I spoke to our process unit and they were happy to pursue based on my backgound. I completed a full statement,map and description of the occupants for prosecution as I would have professionally done 'back in the day'.
Proceedings were commenced. I heard nothing. An idle inquiry one day revealed that the case was dropped by the CPS as the registered keeper wouldn't / couldn't name the driver. Really!!?
Got to have been wouldn't. Too difficult to do tray? Not really. Look at the effort put into speeders who suggest they didn't know who was driving.
So the CPS on the wriggle as in the previous post?
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>>So the CPS on the wriggle as in the previous post?
Not unless your wife has an affair and the husband dares to call out the other party...
wikispooks.com/wiki/Ian_Puddick
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I have a camera fitted. I could have really helped some guy a few months ago when he was involved in a damage only crash that was not his fault, but just prior to the incident I realised I had come out without something I needed and had filled the air with an expletive ridden rant, which came out loud and clear when I played it back later.
Since then I have made sure the sound recording is set to off.
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I'm sure you could have edited a copy without sound.
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If you upload to youtube you can edit to remove the sound, then send the person the link.
Last edited by: Manatee on Mon 1 May 17 at 15:37
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Whadda you two think I am, some sort of tehno geek? Ninety per cent of what my smart phone can do is a complete mystery to me.
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Police want your dashcam footage of bad drivers - Hard Cheese
