Faaast....

I ran a red light myself a few days ago,
I can't see a red light, not even stepping through frame by frame, from the dashcam footage, it looks like you ran an orange light :unsure:
 
At about 14 secs you can see those green lights, plus the woman's gesture implies she has right to cross at that point, which I'm guessing is why it may have been better to stop on the orange? It's a big junction though and even the car in front doesn't seem clear? Must be awfully fast changing lights.
 
At about 14 secs you can see those green lights, plus the woman's gesture implies she has right to cross at that point, which I'm guessing is why it may have been better to stop on the orange? It's a big junction though and even the car in front doesn't seem clear? Must be awfully fast changing lights.
Yes, if Kamkar had been going fast enough to justify not stopping on the orange then he would have got across the junction before the lady started gesturing, it does seem a bit tight to put a green for the pedestrians though. In UK, going through a late orange that slowly, we would have had to drive through a red on the far side of the junction, thus the lady would clearly have had right of way, but in this case it seems there was no way of knowing that she had a green.
 
Aye, when you see some of the junction timings here you really do have to wonder who on earth gets to program it!
 
I have been put off uploading videos to my regions police dashcam footage scheme.

They seem to have an extremely long form and you must provide 1 minute of unedited footage before and after the incident.
You also must upload within 24 hours of the incident or something silly like that.

Also the worst offenders typically have no numberplate, a false/cloned one or they have covered it up.
I think that is to put off people who have minor issues, if you have film of something serious then you will upload it anyway, and if it is serious then they won't care if you don't have the full minutes before and after. Having unedited footage is sensible though, there are probably quite a few forensic techniques that are not possible with edited footage, and I imagine quite a lot of edited footage has the wrong frame rate, making all measurements between frames invalid! Plus there is the loss of detail on recompression, for both video and audio.
 
Aye, when you see some of the junction timings here you really do have to wonder who on earth gets to program it!
That's easy - council workers, they are not the most intelligent of people, otherwise they would not be in that job!
 
Is it guaranteed that dashcams are accurate and that footage has not been tampered with?

Also wondering, if the equipment police use has to be Home Office approved, calibrated etc then why does the same diligence not apply to dashcams and the footage being submitted?
 
Is it guaranteed that dashcams are accurate and that footage has not been tampered with?
Yes, the person submitting the dashcam evidence makes a witness statement, either by ticking the box on the submission form, or in court if necessary!

Also wondering, if the equipment police use has to be Home Office approved, calibrated etc then why does the same diligence not apply to dashcams and the footage being submitted?

If we are being scientific about it, the witness statement is definitely not proof of dashcam accuracy, really the witness is stating what they saw and verifying that the dashcam recording is evidence of the incident they witnessed and that the evidence has not been tampered with/edited, which is good enough for the court to view the video. For any speed measurement I think the prosecution is relying on the "expert witness" in the forensics department, which you might have noticed is not actually a police department but a department of an independent organisation, and thus beyond doubt!

Until somebody properly challenges the expert witness, this system will work well!
If they do get challenged, I hope they can present decent scientific proof of their calculations being accurate, to 0.1MPH if that is what they are stating in their evidence - I am a little doubtful.
 
Yes, the person submitting the dashcam evidence makes a witness statement, either by ticking the box on the submission form, or in court if necessary!



If we are being scientific about it, the witness statement is definitely not proof of dashcam accuracy, really the witness is stating what they saw and verifying that the dashcam recording is evidence of the incident they witnessed and that the evidence has not been tampered with/edited, which is good enough for the court to view the video. For any speed measurement I think the prosecution is relying on the "expert witness" in the forensics department, which you might have noticed is not actually a police department but a department of an independent organisation, and thus beyond doubt!

Until somebody properly challenges the expert witness, this system will work well!
If they do get challenged, I hope they can present decent scientific proof of their calculations being accurate, to 0.1MPH if that is what they are stating in their evidence - I am a little doubtful.

I don't doubt that the "expert witness" will calculate correctly, but does this not still rely on the hardware being accurate in the first instance? How do they know that the dashcam is correctly recording the time rate and that say one second recorded is precisely one second in reality or precisely 1 second in the time line? Is the GPS precisely accurate? I'm sure there must be other variables as well?

For offences where there evidence only requires a visual representation, such as jumping a red light, then no problem. But it just seems bizarre to me that uncalibrated consumer dashcams can be used to prosecute people for an offence where precision calculations are required - especially when the police equipment has to be calibrated and HO approved. Maybe in cases like the BMW where it is beyond reasonable doubt that he was speeding then fair enough, but I think if it were something like 10 mph over the limit, perhaps there's room for dispute?
 
Maybe in cases like the BMW where it is beyond reasonable doubt that he was speeding then fair enough, but I think if it were something like 10 mph over the limit, perhaps there's room for dispute?
Yes, I would say that the BMW is beyond reasonable doubt, but we are told that he was doing 140.8 MPH, so I expect that to be accurate to 0.1 MPH, which I very much doubt. It is the job of the expert witness to explain the evidence to the jury, so he should be saying 140.8 ± 0.3 MPH, or whatever the error margin is, and if the error margin is actually ±3 MPH, well that would drastically change the penalty since there would no longer be any certainty of him being at over double the speed limit. I assume that it is the reporting that has left us without the error margin information and that was actually presented in court, but I don't know.

How do they know that the dashcam is correctly recording the time rate and that say one second recorded is precisely one second in reality or precisely 1 second in the time line? Is the GPS precisely accurate? I'm sure there must be other variables as well?
Good question. They could test the dashcam to find the accuracy, but I've not heard of them ever doing so. I assume that they have tested numerous dashcams and have a figure for the error margin of dashcams in general, maybe they even have a figure for each dashcam brand or dashcam model.

I don't think the GPS accuracy is actually relevant, I doubt they use it, and the accuracy of the time displayed isn't dependent on the GPS, that is typically only used to correct the internal clock on startup. The important figure is the accuracy of the 30 fps, which is always much better than necessary, it is as accurate as a quartz clock/watch, which typically drift by ± a few seconds per day.

For me, the difficult bit is judging how far a vehicle has moved, reasonably easy when it is close, but after a few seconds I can't tell which white line that BMW is alongside; you need to measure over many seconds to get accuracy of ±0.1 MPH, so they must have used another measurement method, such as the sound.

The main point to note is that none of these speeding convictions are convictions for speeding, they are convictions for dangerous driving, so the speed is presumably only a small part of the judgement. However for the Lambo, I don't see anything dangerous other than the speed, and he did have a car designed to go at that speed. For the BMW you could argue the same, or maybe we can judge his stopping distance, and say that he was going fast enough that if he had encountered a queue of stopped traffic on that corner then he would not have been able to stop in the distance he could see. Personally I don't think we can make that judgement, so I'm a little puzzled at the harsh penalty, I think it has to be seen as a speeding conviction based on uncalibrated and untested recording equipment, where the punishment is based on an accuracy of ±0.1 MPH!

Maybe there is a good explanation...
 
Yellow here is the same as red light, and as traffic was so slow you can see the light are green for pedestrians on the other side, and i get a slightly miffed wave by the lady standing there waiting for me to clear out..
The rule say you must always stop for yellow unless stopping mean loosing control of your car or endangering / being a nuisance to other people for instance by stopping in the middle of the intersection, and here the was plenty of time for me to stop.
Law also say you can only enter a lit intersection if you can get out of it while it is still green, a thing many Danes are not aware off, and is seen daily in a few intersections in this area of town.
It do not matter if the light is green, you cant just pile into the intersection, but many do, and so traffic in the other direction having green light have to sit there and wait for the selfish idiots to clear out.
This is practically right in front of the police station, yet i have never seen or heard about them doing anything, even if it is a well established fact that traffic in town are a mess during rush hour.

I think it was the car changing lane in front of me that got my attention, a few M past the intersection the car changed again to the right as there you have another intersection with 2 L turn lanes and 1 strait lane.
 
Yellow here is the same as red light, and as traffic was so slow you can see the light are green for pedestrians on the other side, and i get a slightly miffed wave by the lady standing there waiting for me to clear out..
The rule say you must always stop for yellow unless stopping mean loosing control of your car or endangering / being a nuisance to other people for instance by stopping in the middle of the intersection, and here the was plenty of time for me to stop.
Law also say you can only enter a lit intersection if you can get out of it while it is still green, a thing many Danes are not aware off, and is seen daily in a few intersections in this area of town.
It do not matter if the light is green, you cant just pile into the intersection, but many do, and so traffic in the other direction having green light have to sit there and wait for the selfish idiots to clear out.
This is practically right in front of the police station, yet i have never seen or heard about them doing anything, even if it is a well established fact that traffic in town are a mess during rush hour.

I think it was the car changing lane in front of me that got my attention, a few M past the intersection the car changed again to the right as there you have another intersection with 2 L turn lanes and 1 strait lane.
So why didn't they just make it 2 lights then? What is the purpose of having 3 lights if 2 of them serve the same function?
 
Yeah it also bother me a little, not least since pretty much everyone else, including myself when i was younger read yellow as "floor it you can make it"
You also some times see a car running a yellow light briefly flash its brake light, not to stop just to fake it if anyone in charge have seen it, that way they can claim i tried to but judged it too dangerous to stop.

Police will also cut you some slack on the yellow light, but i think if like here you are still in the intersection when it get red, you are in trouble,,,,,, problem in my book is, thats is not mentioned anywhere in the traffic code / law.
The offense of running a red light is a fine + 1 of 3 marks on your license if you are a experienced, kids with a fresh license only have 2 marks,,,, i think until they are 20 YO.
A mark on your license expire after a couple of years as i recall.
3 marks on your license,,,,,, for not serious stuff, and you have to retake your license, so both theoretical exam and driving test, anything bigger and it are also accompanied by a ban from driving for a period.

The past 2 days have seen quite a few doing severe DUI with a BAC over 2, this mean a long ban from driving and your car or in these two guys case the rest of your car will get confiscated, CUZ they both banged up their cars, the guy from yesterday ended up driving a mile or two on 3 wheels before he finally crashed out permanent ( Polish guy in a Polish car )

I think there are something in the code that say the yellow light are a period to vacate / empty the intersection, something that get very hard if people keep piling in under yellow light, so if you are first in line to make L turn and you have inched forward into the intersection so you are ready to execute that turn when possible, well as oncoming traffic keep on going with yellow, you sit there when it get red, and look like a dumb ass.

 
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I think that is to put off people who have minor issues, if you have film of something serious then you will upload it anyway, and if it is serious then they won't care if you don't have the full minutes before and after. Having unedited footage is sensible though, there are probably quite a few forensic techniques that are not possible with edited footage, and I imagine quite a lot of edited footage has the wrong frame rate, making all measurements between frames invalid! Plus there is the loss of detail on recompression, for both video and audio.

They seemed to have taken off the requirement to report within 24/48 hours, at least I can't see it now anyway.

Had a car pass me on Sunday doing well above 30mph in my town's high street, maybe I will upload that one.

Have a lot of kids on dirt bikes / mopeds / motorbikes going round my town with no numberplates visible, not sure it's worth submitting these, maybe best to collect them all and mention it to the local councillor. What is really needed is more police on patrol to catch these.
 
Have a lot of kids on dirt bikes / mopeds / motorbikes going round my town with no numberplates visible, not sure it's worth submitting these, maybe best to collect them all and mention it to the local councillor. What is really needed is more police on patrol to catch these.
Generally, dashcam reports need a number plate to be readable, otherwise the police will not bother.

Of course if it is really serious then they can always go searching for plates in other records, but they like to complete an Operation Snap report in a few minutes, including sending out the automated fixed penalty fine.

For the dirt bikes, they really need a cop on a dirt bike to go and chase them down, easily dealt with then.
 
Generally, dashcam reports need a number plate to be readable, otherwise the police will not bother.

Of course if it is really serious then they can always go searching for plates in other records, but they like to complete an Operation Snap report in a few minutes, including sending out the automated fixed penalty fine.

For the dirt bikes, they really need a cop on a dirt bike to go and chase them down, easily dealt with then.

Looks like some police forces do still have motorcyle officers:


Not seen any in essex for years though, would certainly be nice to have some patrols.

Seems like the best way is to report it as anti-social behaviour:

 
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