Dash Cams banned in Austria

[DashCamMan]

Just was reading this item indicating dash cams have been banned in Austria. See this Google translated article.

 

[Sweguy]

Then they should bann all mobilephones with cams, DSLR, compactcams, helmet cams. What about FPV flying. Never read such BS, sorry for my language.

 

[FSC830]

Well, the Austrian government is well known - especially by tourists - that they always find a trick to press money out of you :evil: .

Examples:
In the past austrian police set penalties to drivers which only took one warning jacket in the car. The penalty was given because other people in the car "could possibly" leaving the car without a warning jacket in case of any evidence.
No matter if they have left the car, just for the possibility
According to the law only ONE jacket must be in the car for the driver.

Note: of course you should take one jacket for every person inside the car, but a penalty for a possible and not really happened situation???

The last trick was when comparing the car documents and the license plates. The so called "EU" plates (at left side a blue square with the nations sign (i.e. A for Austria, D for Deutschland (Germany), at the rest the individual license).
German EU license plates for i.e.: ABC DE 1234. ABC is the city or region the car was licensed for large cities one letter, minor cities with larger regions in neighbourhood 2 letters and larger regions 3 letters. Then 1 to 2 letters are following and up to 4 figures.
Some combinations are not possible, i.e. mostleft 3 letters followed by 2 letters and 4 figures.
Examples for valid combinations:
F A 123
MTK ZW 481
DD XY 780
OH J 1368

In the documents there is mostly printed a "dash" (-) between the first group of letters and the second group of letters. For the examples this would be
F-A 123
MTK-ZW 481
DD-XY 780
OH-J 1368

Austrian police now said documents and license plates are not identical and give drivers a penalty! They really claimed the missing dash at the license plate. That was more than crazy :twisted: .
After some german officials claimed for this kind of penalty the Austrians ended this annoying practice.
In Italy this can happen too.
Some newspapers printed the dash-story was only a rumor, nobody has really blamed for this, but some others report that there are really a few number of persons to which this happened.


Be aware: Austria is the one and only country in Western-Europe where a policeman is allowed to "estimate" your driving speed, that means police needs not to set up a radar control or other "technical" item to give you a penalty!!!
Even if there very narrow margins for that it is basically allowed!

So I guess that the main reason of this foolish decision is to get more money out from stupid tourists that are not aware of this.
Avoid driving in Austria :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: !

Regards

 

[Sweguy]

Wow here the police arent like that. They only check if the car is stolen, and you have a driving licens. and about speed, they cant shoot the lazer than 400m away and if they take you in for speeding, you can refuse to admit and say you need to see the calibration paperwork for the lazergun, if it not calibrated latley or they cant show it, they cant give you a ticket. Same with speed cameras, if isnt the owner of the car that get cought on picture, they will send a letter home to the owner and ask the owner to tell who did drive that car, and the owner dont need to send it back, they can just throw it in the basket.

 

[Milamber]

Surely it's a human right to be able to provide video evidence through the use of a dashcamera.

 

[Sabe]

Just was reading this item indicating dash cams have been banned in Austria. See this Google translated article.

I can see what i'm reading, but i can't believe it :shock:
I'm speechless.
Is it april fools day already?
Should we go underground, make some secret way to say hello to a fellow criminal

 

[fremder]

Plan to drive to Vienna this summer. Either cancel my plan or remove my dash cam after this news.

 

[FSC830]

...
Same with speed cameras, if isnt the owner of the car that get cought on picture, they will send a letter home to the owner and ask the owner to tell who did drive that car, and the owner dont need to send it back, they can just throw it in the basket.

Same here in Germany, but if owner does not provide who was driven the car they (government) can advise the car owner that he must record all(!) drivings done at public streets. This can be a very annoying and boaring issue to record every meter you drive. And if there is a checkpoint or you will be checked by chance and the recordings are not complete or most current the penalty can be expensive :shock: .

Back to Austria: I wonder if they really will succeed with this. Video surveillance of public places is usually a fixed place or in case of pan&tilt cams an aera. But with a dashcam you are driving, so the place changed every second. Is this a video surveillance!?
This could be only matching the "parking mode" of dashcams. But thats my oppinion, I would not rely that an austrian court wil follow this point of view :evil: .

Seems to be that the map of banana republics needs to be extendend (or likeG.W. Bush jr. said: the axis of evil)

Regards

 

[niko]

Need to see and understand a correct translation of that legislation (not Google translated), because at the moment we can play with words.

@ "Surveillance video FROM the car by private individuals is not permitted",
- does word "from the car" means from inside the car? Another word, if dash cam will be mounted outside the car, - in this case does not violate that legislation, same way as helmet cameras: @ "therefore, comparisons with recordings of tourists or helmet cameras are not aplicable". Just mount dash cam to the helmet, helmet to the car bonnet and this will not be a violation. Of course this is silly solution, but I just want to make a point playing with legislation words.

Also @ " ... by private individuals is not permitted ", - if I am some company manager, owner, worker etc. and driving company car for example to meet some business partner or customer in business related issues, where I am representing a company, then at that time am considered as not private individual. So, in this case I can use dash cam ?

Of course we can play with words and if even there are some gaps in law, - they will be fixed sooner or later.

 

[Cardigan]

Madness - the world (correction Europe) has gone mad, barking mad; I despair!

 

[V8Rocks]

I seems the law only covers video equipment with display. As long as your camera has no display it appears to be ok. I could see were they coming from, but it is right of every individual to obtain and use evidence to defend themselves and yes, including protection from government official(s) who break the law. Of course some folks could misuse video of other people and may even profit from it, I have no issue with preventing this activities.

 

[Hillbilly]

I seems the law only covers video equipment with display. As long as your camera has no display it appears to be ok. I could see were they coming from, but it is right of every individual to obtain and use evidence to defend themselves and yes, including protection from government official(s) who break the law. Of course some folks could misuse video of other people and may even profit from it, I have no issue with preventing this activities.

Dont think so If you read this bit it bans ALL cameras in cars

The Privacy Commission stated: Permanent records of the car is video surveillance. The real purpose is not personal or family (such as a wedding or holiday), but the evidence in the case of an accident. Therefore, comparisons with recordings of tourists or helmet cameras are not applicable. Individuals, the data consortium must only monitor those areas that are attributable to its sphere of influence - that is their home, their home or their premises. The monitoring of public space are solely responsible security authorities.

Quite plainly says NO

 

[V8Rocks]

I seems the law only covers video equipment with display. As long as your camera has no display it appears to be ok. I could see were they coming from, but it is right of every individual to obtain and use evidence to defend themselves and yes, including protection from government official(s) who break the law. Of course some folks could misuse video of other people and may even profit from it, I have no issue with preventing this activities.

Dont think so If you read this bit it bans ALL cameras in cars

The Privacy Commission stated: Permanent records of the car is video surveillance. The real purpose is not personal or family (such as a wedding or holiday), but the evidence in the case of an accident. Therefore, comparisons with recordings of tourists or helmet cameras are not applicable. Individuals, the data consortium must only monitor those areas that are attributable to its sphere of influence - that is their home, their home or their premises. The monitoring of public space are solely responsible security authorities.

Quite plainly says NO

In this case, cudos to USA - this would not fly here, not even by long shot.

Anyway, I would not mind to have 100% coverage of every public place and road I could drive my car (be in proximity with potential morons) or accidents are impossible to happen (they should really concentrate on legislation to take care of this once and for all). But if it is not 100% (really hard to achieve and easy to disprove), anyone should be able to challenge this BS in court successfully. Would not it be awesome? When accident happens police just look at the video recording of the cameras covering the place of the accident. They do not even need to listen to drivers stories. I would remove all dash cams from all my cars that day and never look back.

Few things though, I am not sure of: Is Austria a democracy? Do they have something called Constitution? if it is so, I am not aware of any constitution that would explicitly declare to deny people right to defend themselves.

Besides, I am pretty sure one can sue Austria if they would fail to provide video surveillance evidence of the accident that occurred on their territory. It works both ways, always. Those dummies in the privacy commission just opened door to the law suites with this dumbest reasoning: "The monitoring of public space are solely responsible security authorities." - Well, fail to meet your due responsibilities and off you go to court, suckers.

 

[oddpoo]

In Sweden unattended video surveillance in public areas is illegal (without a permit). This means that parking mode is illegal in public places. So principally the only place you can use parking mode is in your own garage, or maybe in your own driveway (as long as no public areas are visible).

But as long as you yourself are present you can basically record whatever you want. Am I wrong is guessing that this might apply to more countries?

 

[germany]

Thank you for this article I haven't heard of that

I'm pretty shocked because at least twice a week I drive in Austria with my dashcam. I'm not sure if it helps when I tell the officer who stopped me that I'm only recording 30 minutes, then I make a break.... so that isn't continuous recording

 

[dA_RoB]

I'm from Austria and i have to tell You that I really don't give a f about this "law".
One of my friends hast it mounted in his car for a year now and went to the court several times because of asholles hitting his car and driving away and every time he was right and got his money!
The police reacts pleasant as well if You tell them You have the cam in the car and they should wave

The government is affraid that there will be no more privacy in the streets and that everybody will feel "watched" so that not even the mother with it's baby wouldn't be able to go to the streets without beeing filmed! The should look over to England, where they have a cctv on every corner of the street and the people are thankful about it! And obviously, the government thinks that we don't have any other problems in the country! Come on, they wanted to vote for schools to start later in the morning just because the kids should be able to sleep longer!

Personally I don't care, and as long as i dont put those videos on the web, there is no privacy breach!

And anyway, I'm using the cam for my own protection and this is something that noone can forbid me! Here in Austria it's getting more and more wild on the streets so you always have to be prepaired that so,eone will hit you and in this case, I want to have a proof!

 

[germany]

As an austrian I would probably say the same but as a visitor to the country you should be very careful.

The penalitys for speeding are not so high in austria expect you're not from austria then the penality is very high.

Fom three personal situations I can say that the cops are told to take uncompromissed action to visitors maybe it's just like it in regions near the border.

 

[mituc]

This is insane. And if I park the car in a parking lot and take a nap will they say I'm stalking someone?
I understand and I agree that the public space surveillance is the responsibility of the public authorities, but since it's a public space it means we all share it and as long as we do not disturb the others or intervene in their lives I can't see what the problem is.
There may be cases when making public some video footage taken in public spaces can be prohibited in some specific situations (say, filming cops making an arrest, or publishing video clips that contain violent and/or disgusting scenes) but keeping my own goods safe by permanently watching them is just natural unlike their demands.

 

[Mikk36]

It seems that it's not only Austria, where you might be prosecuted for this.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=F8ARwO7VqNQ
Judging by that video, if your camera is recording audio and a police officer stops you, you're already commiting a felony (in certain states in the USA).

 

[Mr-H]

The should look over to England, where they have a cctv on every corner of the street and the people are thankful about it!

That may be the way the media portrays it, but the ordinary bloke on the street hates the creeping surveillance society we have at the minute.

Thankful we're not!