Chance for payback on drivers who break the law?

Do you think this is a good idea or will lead to even more fines landing on your door step?


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    6

PeterS50

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Long time lurker here on this site and I thought you guys would like to know about something I saw on kickstarter......

Someone has invented a dashcam which can send footage to police from your car. Anyway here is the link for anyone who is interested....

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/541384498/rogue-report-social-safety-dash-cam?ref=category

I`m not sure if it is a good idea or not as I`m already terrified to breathe on the roads and wonder if me not indicating one time will lead to more points or fines! What do you think?
 
The wording of your poll loads it heavily towards the second option. More options with a balanced view would be better.

Several bullet points:

- We all make mistakes from time to time, especially when driving on unfamiliar roads.
- A lot of drivers - even those with cams - don't know the rules of the road, so there would be lots of complaints made when the vehicle concerned didn't do anything significantly wrong.
- Police won't have time to look at every piece of grainy video.
- As I understand it, if you submit video as evidence you must be prepared to be present in court for the accused to challenge your account of events.
- I run two cams - front and rear - because sometimes one cam doesn't tell the full story.
- Dash cams need to be close to the offending vehicle in order to capture the registration plate.
- The person submitting footage of the alleged offence may find their driving brought into question, or, worse, the tables turned on them.

My opinion is that it is only worth reporting particularly serious offences which put others in serious danger, and where excellent details of the alleged offending vehicle are captured.

Use dash cams as a defensive measure to demonstrate your driving prior to an event, not an offensive measure to nit pick at minor mistakes of others. Sooner or later, you will be the one making a minor mistake and a tell-tale will be reporting you.
 
Consider this clip, from my cam, of me overtaking another car:


The other car hits the brakes as I pass. I expect they thought I was 'driving like a loon' and would report me. Maybe you think I'm a loon too.

But let me put things into context.
I had been making a 120-mile journey. I was about 30 miles from home at the time. I had an important time schedule to stick to, and had allowed half an hour extra for my journey as a margin of safety (plus my car has satnav which picks up traffic-flow updates, congestion, accidents and plots them for me to see and consider re-routing my journey) but my margin of safety had already been eroded by people driving very slowly and having to wait for a chance to pass.

The car who probably thought I was a loon, had been dawdling along at 35-40mph in a 60mph limit for the last several miles or more.
There is no law to prevent people driving too slowly, which can be as dangerous as driving too fast because of the way it causes other people to behave. Passing places were few - notice the solid white line in the last seconds of the video.

In the previous ten minutes the car's dawdling had already caused two other vehicles to nearly have accidents as they tried to get past (I was third in line behind the dawdler).

As for my speed: my other front cam (I have two front, one rear; one front has GPS/speed the other doesn't) says it started around 35-40mph and ended around 60-65mph, so no speeding offence worth trying to prosecute was committed. I haven't shown video from the cam which states my speed because I can't turn the video into a short clip due to its file type. Uploading a three-minute clip would take a couple of hours from my poor internet connection.
 
picture of a generic Chinese mirror cam and very light on detail, even if by some miracle they get funded I can't see it happening

Not only that, but it's going to be very hard to upload videos at 3G/4G whilst driving as data will vary massively. So the other option is to wait until you get back to your home and upload via wifi, but then the 'real-time' aspect is kind of irrelevant. I do like the concept, though a bit skeptical on how this companies officers are going to liase with the police in a way the public cannot already, but I think the hardware and technology just aren't going to be up to scratch in any shape or form. The concept is good but I think it needs to be re-worked. Also you'll run into a whole load of privacy issues such as retaining data and personal information.

Just my 2 cents, if you can pull it off, fair play, but it's going to be one huge mountain to climb.

Cheers,

Dan
 
Much the same here. First I don't like the idea of "Big Brother" having cams watching me everywhere even though I am a pretty good driver and citizen. I do intentionally break road laws sometimes where safety isn't compromised for various reasons and I'd rather not have those rare times recorded. Where I live they've lowered speed limits and eliminated passing zones in several places where there have been no other changes happening which might cause that, and I am far from being alone in more or less ignoring the changes which very few actually obey completely. When the law is stupid or less safe, I reserve the right to ignore it (at my own peril should I get caught of course).

I'm also quite aware of the types of people who hold government jobs are like here, including Law Enforcement and the Judiciary, and I do not want those idiots involved with my life any further than is absolutely necessary. A ten year old child can make better decisions than they do. I am against giving them any more powers or work to handle as they can't properly deal with what they've got on their plate now. Then there's the practicality angle here; how are you going to send the stuff in rural areas where there's no wifi for miles, and what happens to those limited networks when suddenly there is a full million times increase in the data being sent? Your phone will cease working because the government will seize the bandwidth because it 'officially needs it'. No mobile computer use either. And there's not enough radio frequency spectrum available to do this even if it was all dedicated to this purpose, and that can never be changed.

Specific cam aside, this is just a plainly stupid impractical idea proposed by people who believe that we can create a "Utopia" here on Earth. It cannot and will not ever happen and there is no point in considering something which is this impossible when there are many more possible things we can do right now to improve life for all of us.

Phil
 
I really feel pity about these "reporting people" without any life or just don’t know, how to use their time other than to nagging other people.

What gonna be the next. Volunteer there watch all the security camera there is in the town, watching if people breaking the law. Another local volunteer team, which keep people back until police come to give a ticket. And after that, even more. It's like a cancer there slowly spread.

So NO THANKS to any kind of assistant moral police.
 
Not a good idea to hand unviewed footage to the police as they have already informed the public they will look for ANY infringement of the law and you might just have auto handed them the evidence to do so !!

DOH !!!

2000 rpms video above is a classic case...

The camera is on the left of his mirror with a view above the drivers eye height so we can assume the driver has a worse view than the camera...

you can clearly see his start to finish overtake was 5 seconds on a slight rise of the road and kink to the right that could hide some hidden danger travelling the opposite direction at speed...

The manoeuvre was ill prepared for and started too far back and took too long and was dangerous with a limited view ahead as clearly seen and was born out of frustration..
Scary and worse still, to this day the justification for it seems reasonable to the driver..

They say a cat has nine lives, but I ve used up thousands over the years travelling
towards someone performing a lousy manoeuvre like that ...
 
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Consider this clip, from my cam, of me overtaking another car:

The other car hits the brakes as I pass. I expect they thought I was 'driving like a loon' and would report me. Maybe you think I'm a loon too.

I remember a driving test question. What to do if you're being overtaken. Do you keep speed while they pass. Do you speed up to prevent passing. Do you slow down to allow the pass.

Correct answer is to slow. Them hitting their breaks in my eyes is them following the law. If they were to send their own video off I would hope that whoever is on the other end deciding what videos are worthy and which aren't would be reasonable. Plus the only thing that makes you seem like an outlaw would be your speed, but they wouldn't be able to clock that. You're investing just as much into the actual product as you are the people they hire to view the footage.
 
2000 rpms video above is a classic case...

The camera is on the left of his mirror with a view above the drivers eye height so we can assume the driver has a worse view than the camera...

you can clearly see his start to finish overtake was 5 seconds on a slight rise of the road and kink to the right that could hide some hidden danger travelling the opposite direction at speed...

The manoeuvre was ill prepared for and started too far back and took too long and was dangerous with a limited view ahead as clearly seen and was born out of frustration..
Scary and worse still, to this day the justification for it seems reasonable to the driver..

They say a cat has nine lives, but I ve used up thousands over the years travelling
towards someone performing a lousy manoeuvre like that ...

I disagree that the overtake was dangerous.
From my start position I could see all the way up the hill - it's a long hill, but looks shorter once the overtake begins due to perspective. I am tall and I have a higher viewpoint than the cam. I am also familiar with the road - there's no hidden dip, oncoming vehicles would also be approaching at a lower speed limit, having just exited a sharp bend out of a much lower speed limit (village).
The manoeuvre wasn't started as far back as it looks - the wide-angle cam makes it appear so. I was exactly two seconds behind the car, which is a recommended stopping distance. Count the time it takes for me to pass the same point as the car.

It took 12-13 seconds for me to reach the peak of the hill after the overtake began. It took five seconds to pass the car, but that's because, after the first few seconds of the overtake I held a steady speed once into the low-60s so as to remain legal - I could have gone faster or pulled back in behind the car I was passing.
That still leaves 7-8 seconds before I reach the crest of the hill; oncoming cars would have to be seriously speeding - around 90mph - to cover that distance in that time, which is even less likely due to the sharp bend and lower speed limit at the top of the hill.
 
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....Correct answer is to slow....

Here, my understanding is the correct answer is not to speed up. Slowing is optional. 99% of drivers don't slow. About 25% will speed up and try to 'pin' you alongside them.
 
Here's a screenshot capture from my narrower angle cam in the moments prior to the overtake:

 
......Plus the only thing that makes you seem like an outlaw would be your speed, but they wouldn't be able to clock that......

Does the video give the impression I'm speeding? I just re-checked my GPS cam and it said my maximum speed briefly touched 63mph during the overtake.
 
Here, my understanding is the correct answer is not to speed up. Slowing is optional. 99% of drivers don't slow. About 25% will speed up and try to 'pin' you alongside them.

According to the rules back in the day, the correct answer was to slow. Haven't taken a driving test in many moons, but I imagine the rule of "pick the safest answer" still applies these days. The safest thing to do would be to let off the gas (not brake) and allow them to pass.

People here in SC didn't get that memo. They are the most inconsistent drivers. I drive a **** ton every year and I have certain speeds I'll drive in certain areas. There will be times I'm passing the same person 4x because they speed up when I go to pass, or slow down and I pass and then they speed up. It drives me mad.
 
.
According to the rules back in the day, the correct answer was to slow. Haven't taken a driving test in many moons, but I imagine the rule of "pick the safest answer" still applies these days. The safest thing to do would be to let off the gas (not brake) and allow them to pass.

People here in SC didn't get that memo. They are the most inconsistent drivers. I drive a **** ton every year and I have certain speeds I'll drive in certain areas. There will be times I'm passing the same person 4x because they speed up when I go to pass, or slow down and I pass and then they speed up. It drives me mad.

The law in the UK....
Highway Code, section 168:
If a driver is trying to overtake you, maintain a steady course and speed, slowing down if necessary to let the vehicle pass. Never obstruct drivers who wish to pass.


Highway Code, section 169, was ignored by the vehicle in front (35-40mph in a 60mph limit in good conditions, with numerous vehicles stuck behind them as a result):
Do not hold up a long queue of traffic......pull in where it is safe and let traffic pass.


Those arguing that my driving was dangerous are referring to section 166:
DO NOT overtake if there is any doubt, or where you cannot see far enough ahead to be sure it is safe. For example, when you are approaching

a corner or bend
a hump bridge
the brow of a hill.

My opinion is that when I decided to overtake I could see far enough ahead to be sure it was safe, considering the distance, conditions, vehicle speed, road speed limit, etc; I had the option to brake and abort the overtake in the first couple of seconds (sometimes - perhaps a quarter of the time - I do abort an overtake), and I also had the option to accelerate to a higher speed to get past quicker but as nothing was oncoming I stayed within a speed which would not be easy to prove as illegal (63mph maximum according to GPS - and there would need to be at least a couple of mph margin of error allowed for equipment).

As has been said: five seconds at an average 50mph to complete the overtake (approx. 125yds), eight seconds at 63mph to reach the furthest point top of the hill (approx. 250yds) which is where a car would be approaching from.
For an oncoming car to be 'on top of me' at the late stage of my overtake, it would have to be doing approximately 100mph (in a 60mph limit) and starting just a few yards beyond my view, and not brake as it approached, and have astounding cornering and/or acceleration due to the sharp bend just over the top of the hill and the lower speed limit up there.

I also feel that the wide-angle camera is not helping and if I could create a short clip from my narrower angle camera it would look very different.
 
It s worrying you abort a quarter of the times you make a decision to overtake ....

worrying you don't accept the possibility motorbikes and cars do 100mph on 60mph roads...

worrying you don't realise average speed camera cables are cut in mine and no doubt other areas so cars and bikes can do 120mph plus on dubious 60 mph twisty bendy roads...


Deep down all drivers know a manoeuvre without 100 % clear line of vision is not a safe manoeuvre and is a calculated gamble based on things like "they would have to be doing 100mph" etc and the really funny thing is....


Its called an ACCIDENT when someone miscalculates !!

Strange thing to call it when 99.9% of the time blame can be apportioned !!!!!!!
 
It s worrying you abort a quarter of the times you make a decision to overtake ....

There are so many people crawling along and not pulling in to let the queues pass. It's sometimes safer to decline an overtake than to press ahead with it. It's those people who press ahead that end up causing oncoming traffic to have to brake hard.
There are a lot of very busy people around who really don't want to spend an extra half an hour a day stuck behind dawdlers.


worrying you don't accept the possibility motorbikes and cars do 100mph on 60mph roads...

Given the sharp bend at the top of the hill and the lower speed limit there, it would require a supercar or superbike to be accelerating at 100% to reach 100mph down that hill.


....worrying you don't realise average speed camera cables are cut in mine and no doubt other areas so cars and bikes can do 120mph plus on dubious 60 mph twisty bendy roads...

There is zero chance of taking the bend at the top of the hill at high speed. It's far too tight - any vehicle attempting it would fail to turn; cars would understeer and motorbikes would slide off or veer off into the hedge on the other side of the road.

...Deep down all drivers know a manoeuvre without 100 % clear line of vision is not a safe manoeuvre....
My line of sight was 100% clear when I made the decision. I was satisfied that the manoeuvre was safe.


and is a calculated gamble based on things like "they would have to be doing 100mph" etc and the really funny thing is....Its called an ACCIDENT when someone miscalculates !!

Simply getting in a vehicle is a gamble. There are plenty of ways an accident can happen, most of which are out of your control.

Strange thing to call it when 99.9% of the time blame can be apportioned !!!!!!!

OK, let's suppose an extraordinarily fast vehicle had somehow managed to maintain high speed through the sharp bend at the top of the hill (plus the other sharp bends just beyond - about three narrow S-bends in quick succession).
So does that make me the villain, when someone else is travelling at almost twice the speed limit and everything was safe when I began the manoeuvre?
What if there had been a long straight, but once I begin the overtake that proverbial Ferrari or superbike approaches me at 200mph?
Should I apply the same logic when trying to pull out of a side road in a 30mph limit, just in case someone is zooming along at 60 or 100mph?
Should I not go around country bends just in case a biker is doing 100mph and strays onto my side of the road because he can't hold the line?
Should I stop at the entry of a dual-carriageway, just in case some Ferrari is doing 150+ mph on the inside lane? (My wife once nearly got rear-ended by a Ferrari doing estimated 180mph on the inside lane when she was joining a dual-carriageway)

My view is that the overtake was safe (and it was completed at legal speed within a reasonable timeframe without impairing any other road user, and with plenty of time to spare before meeting oncoming traffic).
You disagree and think it wasn't safe.
That alone shows that submissions to police would be very variable due to different people's interpretations of what's safe and what's legal.
 
@petepete

Bear in mind that I posted the short clip intentionally to prompt debate regarding different interpretations of the law and road etiquette.

1. The driver being overtaken was in breach of section 169 and had been for many miles and many minutes, despite numerous opportunities to pull over and let the line of vehicles behind pass.
That's fact, not subjective.

2. My overtake - and those of others who were in front of me behind that car - would not have been necessary if the car had adhered to section 169. If you feel that I should be punished, then so should the car in front for creating the circumstances and not anticipating the consequences of their actions (two vehicles in front of me had near-misses while trying to overtake).

3. My overtake might be viewed as unsafe by some cautious drivers - such as yourself - but not seen as unsafe by others considering all factors.

4. My overtake was completed without affecting other road users, which is more than can be said for the actions of the vehicle which was holding up everyone else.

5. I have no intention of reporting dawdlers, nor much inclination to be a tell-tale. My cams are for defensive purposes, especially the crash-for-cash and if they capture someone else's accident.

6. I will continue to overtake dawdlers in future, although I would not make an overtake with less margin of error than in the video posted.
 
@petepete

I expect the clip below has you clenching your butt-cheeks too, especially the oncoming car mid-way through the clip.
But, again, all completed without interfering with other road users and within legal speed limits (the 402G seems to under-state speed by 1-2mph, so actual peak speed was 61-62mph).
Interestingly, those lorries breached section 168 because they continued accelerating as I was passing. Not that it bothers me, but just pointing it out. Plus breaching section 169 for holding up a long queue of traffic behind them and not pulling over to let the queue pass.

 
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No butt cheek clenching here...

its just important that drivers REALISE the gamble they decide on with others lives, recognise the lack of skills they possess, and not be oblivious and in denial to it believing it cant happen to them as you do....it can ;)

owned cars that "bikers" tail and are desperate to pass for a notch on their belt and in the process of attempting that manoeuvre ,seen them way beyond their riding skills limit gambling everything as a very slight undulation in a road before a bend has very nearly cost them dearly .... Been driven by ex professional drivers with far more skill than myself and I have to say having had the opportunity to own an ultima gtr 720hp, (still do) its no longer something I want to own and I am happy to waft around with the traffic flow in a pre heated 1.5dci family cabrio :)

( I never liked bikers in front as they ride down the middle of the lane where small stones gather and flick them up from their tyre tread damaging vehicles behind )
 
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