Operation Snap to be extended

[TonyM]

Dashcam footage from public scheme to go Wales-wide

All four police forces in Wales are to start using dashcam footage recorded by the public to investigate driving offences following a successful pilot scheme by North Wales Police.

Operation Snap started last October in north Wales, encouraging drivers to upload evidence to the police website.

Insp Dave Cust, of North Wales Police Roads Policing Unit, said Operation Snap had saved police about 12 hours' work per case, as investigating an allegation of bad driving could take up a lot of resources.

Footage has to be unedited and include the whole journey, not just the incident. Members of the public are also told not to post it on social media, or to remove it if it has already been posted.

Police forces from other parts of the UK, Australia and Hong Kong have been in touch about the scheme.

 

[kamkar]

Nice but funny they would want the whole driving session, sure i get it if its a case of road-rage.

But what if it was my 9 hour drive some weeks ago, so they would want me to upload 40 Gb to their site ???
Or even just a regular little 1 hour drive, that's still a lot of Gb
And what if it is a dual channel camera, would they want all the footage from the rear camera too ??

But nice indeed you have this digital avenue of turning in traffic offenders, the Danish "model" are a lot more complicated, and to be honest i am a little embarrassed we are also not in this operation snap.

I said "model" cuz really we have no such thing here, the guy i turned in i did so via e-mail and in there including links to private youtube videos just to underline the case, i was fully aware i would have to turn in the original footage, but was i little surprised it took so long and i had to get media involved before the police reacted and asked for footage.
And i do not like i have not been told what the outcome was of my rapport, i think this are needed to let people know what right they did had this and this consequence to the offender.

 

[2000rpm]

Nice but funny they would want the whole driving session, sure i get it if its a case of road-rage.

To show that there wasn't something earlier in the journey that provoked the bad driving. I think that's a good idea because a few people in the UK do seem to have been going around provoking other drivers with the intention of filming the aftermath or reaction.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah i can see that, and off course i would add that too if i got in a situation like that as it would show intent on the part of the other guy.

The guy i turned in did his stunts within 30 seconds or less, but i added the 7-8 minutes leading up to that as he rung my bell when he passed me and was also driving irregular way before his stunts.
Any cop would have tuned into that car too in seconds, and they have a far better tuned nose for such things than i have.

But the previous 30 minutes of that drive and the following 5 minutes before i was home there was nothing in of interest.

I fully get the out of context videos and you have to be careful with those for sure, but even if 2 cars rubbed shoulders for 5 minutes before the final event, the previous 2 hour of the drive home from Brighton Beach should matter little.

So what i am getting at is it will be hard to ask people to upload XX Gb of video either on their smartphone data connection, or on the fairly slow internet connection many still suffer from at home.
Off course that you could bypass by burning video to DVD and then hand that in, but that necessitate a lot of work on the behalf of the good guy, and good guy are also lazy bastards like so many of us so he might just say "fawk it its not worth the effort", and so the wrongdoer will go free again.

Maybe they should ask " hand in what you think are relevant" but for the sake of the case please save the whole drive in case there are counter arguments or claims of tampering with evidence.

 

[kamkar]

Also lets say its a case of road rage, if the guy turning in evidence only have a front camera and the offender car are mostly behind the camera, then leading up to the final event all you will see is the good guy with the camera just driving normally, and the offender guy you may or may not see in front of camera car could be doing all kinds of stuff off camera.

Off course it will be prudent to document that the camera car just did what he is supposed to do and did not attempt in any way to escalate the event.

I dont know its a tricky topic for sure, i just feel asking people to upload what may be a lot of Gb might prompt many to think its not worth it and so not do it, in which case we are back to square 1.

I wouldn't mind i can upload at 4-5 MB/s so uploading 5-6 Gb will be no problem for me or 32 Gb for that matter, but some poor guy out in the country that have 5 mbit in upload on his DSL line doing that will be a full day upload.

 

[Nigel]

To show that there wasn't something earlier in the journey that provoked the bad driving. I think that's a good idea because a few people in the UK do seem to have been going around provoking other drivers with the intention of filming the aftermath or reaction.

I think they must have added that rule from experience, I didn't notice it when I looked at this some time ago. I did find the number of successful convictions they had achieved rather worrying, the news report earlier this year suggested that most reports resulted in a conviction when I know from looking at videos on this forum that a lot of them are more the fault of the person reporting the incident and a fair number of people don't know the law anyway!

 

[Deleted member 46308]

Just remember that the wall of tyranny is built a block at a time. Every right that people give up no matter how insignificant it appears at the time, is never returned.

 

[TonyM]

I did find the number of successful convictions they had achieved rather worrying

Worryingly high or low? I'm not sure I get what you're saying. Are you saying it's a surprisingly high rate, given that so much video 'evidence' we see posted here is inconclusive?

 

[Nigel]

Worryingly high or low? I'm not sure I get what you're saying. Are you saying it's a surprisingly high rate, given that so much video 'evidence' we see posted here is inconclusive?

Around an 80% conviction rate is what I remember, although I don't know if that was a true figure or bad journalism, this makes an interesting read:


North Wales Police became the first force in the UK to create a system for the public to send video footage of appalling driving caught on camera by dashcams, helmet cameras and mobile phones.

North Wales Police calculated that it takes up to 15 hours of police time to charge offenders under old rules that meant they had to treat footage in a similar way to eye-witness accounts, including interviews and masses of paperwork - time it doesn't have with fewer staff members on its books than seven years ago.

But after finding a loophole in how speed camera clips are used as the only evidence needed to catch limit-breaking motorists, it decided to apply the same process to the footage captured of dangerous drivers on dashcams to reduce charge times.

As a result, the process takes closer to 15 minutes, with clips being uploaded by members of the public with a short description on North Wales Police's website.

Officers can then review each video case and - as with speeding fines - send a driving penalty notice to the guilty party who can choose to accept it or dispute it in court.

All public-generated video footage can now be used by North Wales Police to target offences including dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention, contravening solid white lines, mobile phone use, improper control of vehicle and contravening red traffic lights.

The force is also calling on vulnerable road users, including horse riders and cyclists, to send in their footage of motorists driving too close to them.

According to AutoExpress, just two attempts have been made to appeal penalties that have been awarded through Operation Snap, both of which failed, over 100 clips have been uploaded to the new database and 80 penalties have been issued in the first six months of Operation Snap.

Read more: http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/cars/article-4558360/Dashcam-footage-used-catch-dangerous-drivers.html#ixzz4qQ70VIco

 

[TonyM]

But after finding a loophole in how speed camera clips are used as the only evidence needed to catch limit-breaking motorists, it decided to apply the same process to the footage captured of dangerous drivers on dashcams to reduce charge times.

As a result, the process takes closer to 15 minutes, with clips being uploaded by members of the public with a short description on North Wales Police's website.

Officers can then review each video case and - as with speeding fines - send a driving penalty notice to the guilty party who can choose to accept it or dispute it in court.

All public-generated video footage can now be used by North Wales Police to target offences including dangerous driving, driving without due care and attention, contravening solid white lines, mobile phone use, improper control of vehicle and contravening red traffic lights.

I see what you're saying now. I'm not sure I like the idea of the police using a loophole to send out driving penalty notices within just 15 minutes. Obviously they're not using the footage of the whole journey to reach that conclusion and process the computer/paperwork in such a short time. As has been pointed out earlier, it will take the conscientious dashcam owner much longer than that to upload the video clips and write the description about what they witnessed.

 

[Module 79L]

I'm ok with sending footage of the whole drive, as long as the footage sent is only after-the fact, to help investigations in certain cases, but I think many drivers will misinterpret the purpose of Operation Snap and start sending footage of everything bad driving-related for the Police to investigate.

 

[sludgeguts]

Just remember that the wall of tyranny is built a block at a time. Every right that people give up no matter how insignificant it appears at the time, is never returned.

By the same token, the walls of decency are also being torn down. certainly in the last decade, myself and colleagues have noted a marked decrease in the number of police walking & driving - and a very marked increase in the number of moronic drivers.

 

[kamkar]

Same here, dont seem to see the police that often, and i dont think it is cuz they are moved over in unmarked cars.
Our moronic overpaid overlords must have some plan,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, for them self,,,, surely we cant be included.

 

[Deleted member 46308]

By the same token, the walls of decency are also being torn down. certainly in the last decade, myself and colleagues have noted a marked decrease in the number of police walking & driving - and a very marked increase in the number of moronic drivers.

I agree with you. Even in a perfect world the morons will still be in the majority.

 

[Lola]

Any way you look at it, Wales should be getting a resounding "Hoo Ra" for stepping out of the box so to speak and doing what this forum knows should have been done long ago! There will be a lot of questions at first just like there is being asked here, but slowly they will derive answers that will facilitate the endeavors of the public to get the jerks off the roads.
In the meantime it will certainly start a lot of people to hopefully think (I did say hopefully), before they become a ward of the nearest prison, with a fine that will cut heavily into their beer fund!

If Wales turns this into an example for the rest of the world, you can bet the rest of the world will be implementing plans of similar types. That my friends will make it an astounding success story for everyone.

 

[Aph]

Before giving video in to the Police, I'd double-check that I was driving perfectly for the whole of that journey. I'd hate to show that 20 minutes before or after the incident I was driving down an empty motorway at 120 mph! Not that I do......ever

 

[Nigel]

Before giving video in to the Police, I'd double-check that I was driving perfectly for the whole of that journey. I'd hate to show that 20 minutes before or after the incident I was driving down an empty motorway at 120 mph! Not that I do......ever

If you did that in Wales then the Police would already know

They only have 1 real motorway and that has cameras all the way along including average speed cameras that catch 10s of 1000s of people a year.