Police to use dash cams

I have one for my own use only. I won’t post up footage and I won’t snitch unless there is an accident. I only got one due to the amount of people cutting corners on our local roads which would usually result in 50/50 unless proven otherwise.

You can be guaranteed that all dashcam warriors drive like twats and accelerate into hazard situations to produce footage. Hazard perception and defensive driving are not part of their makeup.

Can you imagine the 1000 of hours of absolute dross they will have to sift through to get anything half decent.

Did you see the story yesterday suggesting an insurance discount for drivers who take a 'cyclist aware' course and the proposal that councils be allowed to install CCTV cameras to police cars parking cycle lanes?

I'm sure it had come from a Government dept.

I'm not particularly in favour unless this approach is even handed, i.e. use the CCTV to take action against cyclists who don't use the cycle lane, require them to have insurance and, most importantly, force them to take a 'road aware' course that would teach them the basics such as what a red light means and why its important to have lights on your bike when its dark.

That last stuff is never going to happen of course.

I have thought a bout a dashcam, because I encounter many, many idiots on my way home. Ultimately, I speed far too much so I don't want to incriminate myself.

"...especially the ones that accelerate towards round about so that those entering from their left with plenty of space can receive a good blast of the horn".

Happens here a lot, almost T boned on a couple of occasions. I have no idea what it's for but on some days driving becomes a sequence of junctions treated like dodgems or ignore the red light events, even bus drivers sometimes.

This.

The number of retards on motorbikes I see with cameras attached to their helmets. Where's the first place to look when you have an accident? I won't have one but I can see the benefit when you're wronged.

Also what if you happen to have an accident and the other party caused it and THEY have a dash cam that recorded all their shiteness? What are your rights to demand that footage?

Unlikely, Bob. Professional Standards love stuff like that these days.

I don't see a problem with asking for dashcam footage. It's simply an extension of a CCTV trawl that is routinely done in a crime investigation. I have a dashcam but I make sure the speed display and audio are both off. Speed because sometimes I might do "71" on the motorway and audio because it would be a ranty swearfest. I also bear in mind that if a collision might be my fault the SD card might have been "left at home"!

On that last point, in the case of a serious or fatal collision things like dashcams, mobile phone records and car telemetry data would be investigated. So one benefit could be a more detailed investigation but the flip side is more intrusion. 

This x eleventy million.

How would the CPS view your case if you only had an unverified dashcam video as evidence of a crime worth prosecuting? Surely they’d chuck out most of the stuff being uploaded to YouTube. If it’s obvious dangerous driving such as running red lights or clearly overtaking at significant speed in a 30 zone then maybe but you’d still be on dodgy ground and would struggle to prove who the driver was (it still amazes me that we have to legally say who was driving a car caught by a speed camera, I thought we had a right not to incriminate ourselves?)

Don't you just have to claim it was some Russian bloke and then conveniently forget that your employer was closed for the summer recess and anyway, as a new employee, you were overwhelned with everything anyway so it was all just a big mistake. And no, it wasn't me driving anyway. Oh sorry, that's just MPs.

Alex, I presume it depends on the quality of the footage and what it proves or doesn't prove.