UK Law, does a police officer have the right to enter your car and take your SD card; or does he need your permission or a search warrant?

Submariner Gold

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Purely hyperthetical.

I, like I suspect many others, buy dashcams to give us concrete evidence; in the unfortunate event of a crash.

Hence, I wondered does a road traffic officer actually have the right to just take it! Especially if you refuse to give it to him?

Personally before supplying any footage, I would want to review it, and show it to my solicitor if there was a contested view, as to whom any blame should fall on. I’d probably also want to just supply “copy”, footage of the actual incident, i.e. not my driving style recorded on days before.

I am particularly interested in the views of any UK solicitors, and barristers. Are there any on here?
And No, I am not looking for free binding, legal advice, more information from those, who actually know the law.

I suspect if the accident was serious and or someone was hurt, they could argue that they had reasonable grounds to believe a road traffic act violation had taken place; and that this was evidence thereof, and therefore they had reasonable grounds to believe this footage could prove it.

I do recall someone saying there was a difference between ones home, and open public spaces regarding search warrants?
If that is true, where would the inside of my car stand?

No particular rush on this as its just an interesting point.

And slightly amused by the irony, that ones own dashcam could end up shooting oneself in the foot! (Which I guess is fair if you were the guilty party)
I am also aware of just how fast these wide angle lenses make your speed look, and as I dont have GPS to verify my speed it could work against you. ( admittedly one can time from A to B and therefore calculate speed, even without GPS data) but yet again that old walnut “perception” rears its head.
 
It will depend on the situation. If there has been a death then they can collect any evidence they think may be relevant, doesn't matter if they think you were involved or not. If there have been no serious injuries then they would probably need a warrant which they would be unlikely to be able to get in most circumstances.

In reality, they will normally ask nicely, ask you to provide the video at a convenient time and if there is anything illegal on the video that was not relevant to the original investigation then it will be ignored. In most cases the video will be useless to them unless you provide a witness statement, so they will want your cooperation. The only time they are likely to seize it against your will is if there has been a death and they think you may destroy the evidence.

Unless you are a suspected terrorist or drug dealer, and then you will be treated very differently!
 
It will depend on the situation. If there has been a death then they can collect any evidence they think may be relevant, doesn't matter if they think you were involved or not. If there have been no serious injuries then they would probably need a warrant which they would be unlikely to be able to get in most circumstances.

In reality, they will normally ask nicely, ask you to provide the video at a convenient time and if there is anything illegal on the video that was not relevant to the original investigation then it will be ignored. In most cases the video will be useless to them unless you provide a witness statement, so they will want your cooperation. The only time they are likely to seize it against your will is if there has been a death and they think you may destroy the evidence.

Unless you are a suspected terrorist or drug dealer, and then you will be treated very differently!

All sounds pretty fair to me.
What concerned me was the scenario, where say you are involved in a minor crash, that was proved beyond all doubt, not to be your fault, in any way. And this incident was just some minor bodywork damage, albeit costly today. And the Police take your dashcam and the other parties’ solicitor requests it; and goes through and finds over a month you exceeded the speed limit by 1mph on 4 occaisions.

Net result you win the current case, but end up being banned for 4 ultra minor speeding offences.
 
The police are not interested in minor crashes, they are for insurance or solicitors to deal with, so there is no possibility of video being seized in that case. The police only get involved if there is an injury, normally only for serious injuries. Of course if you refuse to provide some evidence in a court case that may have been relevant then that could affect the result, but minor crashes almost never end up in court and insurers only look at the evidence they are given.
 
What he ( Nigel ) said, its the same over here.
No injuries and no blockage of the road = no police, leave to insurance companies to duke it out.

In general police are pretty clueless as to dashcams, but they do appreciate the footage as it are a tremendous help for them.
That little old lady i filmed falling out of her 2 floor apartment not long ago, the police was like " OMG you have it on video ? can we have a copy" i said sure i will even throw in footage from my illegal CCTV cameras if they have captured anything interesting.
But nothing interesting on my CCTV but i had a cop right here in my living room seeing the recorded footage ( you are not allowed to record with CCTV if you have public areas in the footage )
But the cops dont bother about such things unless some one complain i figure, most CCTV cameras here i think are actual illegal private ones, and often those that help police with some cases.

My eyes are highly tuned to dashcams and i often see one in other cars :) but the police are not there yet with this kind of awareness, so if you dont tell they will probably not know.
 
What he ( Nigel ) said, its the same over here.
No injuries and no blockage of the road = no police, leave to insurance companies to duke it out.

In general police are pretty clueless as to dashcams, but they do appreciate the footage as it are a tremendous help for them.
That little old lady i filmed falling out of her 2 floor apartment not long ago, the police was like " OMG you have it on video ? can we have a copy" i said sure i will even throw in footage from my illegal CCTV cameras if they have captured anything interesting.
But nothing interesting on my CCTV but i had a cop right here in my living room seeing the recorded footage ( you are not allowed to record with CCTV if you have public areas in the footage )
But the cops dont bother about such things unless some one complain i figure, most CCTV cameras here i think are actual illegal private ones, and often those that help police with some cases.

My eyes are highly tuned to dashcams and i often see one in other cars :) but the police are not there yet with this kind of awareness, so if you dont tell they will probably not know.
And even with a road blockage, the police are not there to investigate the accident, their job is only to clear the blockage and get the traffic moving again. It still has to be dealt with by the insurance companies.

I wonder why we don't have any police officers posting on this forum?
Other motoring related forums seem to have friendly police officers happy to give their views, but I don't remember any on here!
 
Yes. i think the saying goes "strait from the horses mouth"
 
And even with a road blockage, the police are not there to investigate the accident, their job is only to clear the blockage and get the traffic moving again. It still has to be dealt with by the insurance companies.

I wonder why we don't have any police officers posting on this forum?
Other motoring related forums seem to have friendly police officers happy to give their views, but I don't remember any on here!

Hmmm I don't think they like being filmed .......
A friend of mine saw a loutish Policeman being very intimidating towards, lets say a not very well off person.
The recipient of the abusive tone hadn't committed a crime, as far as my friend could tell.
So being him (a tad arrogant, very wealthy, Old Etonian type but a very nice chap ) he started to film it on his mobile.
Wow the policeman really kicked off.

So maybe they dont relish the advent of everything they do being under such finite and irrefutable scrutiny.
But with Dashcams, Bodycams, Mobile phones and social media its here to stay, and will only get worse.

I say worse because they do have a very difficult job.
I.e if they react too soon or robustly then they are splatterred all over the news and twitter.
But, React too slowly, and some toe-rag has knifed them or thrown acid in their face.
Tough call!
 
I agree, being a policeman are a hard job, this is also why i expect those to be extremely stand up and decent people.
But they are just as prone to shortcomings as the rest of us, so i have taken with and sold drugs to cops, and i have seen cops haul off with nice big B&O televisions at a fraction of the price.
And no the place was not raided the next day or ever for that matter ;)

Its damn hard to be anything but mediocre, some never manage to turn the ship around and so are parasites their whole life.

Lets just say my first Submariner in gold, well it was quite cheap for such a nice watch, the ICW i have in long time storage was more expensive but still a fraction of its shop price.
Watches, the only jewelry for men if you ask me, though i have not worn a watch since my cheap ( shop price got it in Lissabon in 1990 ) TAG Heur gave up in the late 90ties.
 
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