To the White Haired E55 Driver in the Chalfonts...

[E55BOF]

E55BOF after getting back into the 55K Motor and feeling all excited about it?

I don't drive that stupidly, but apart from that, I wish it were...

 

[E55BOF]

I'm not sure I would want all my driving captured on film.

Nor I... We all - well, most of us - drive like, say, 9 karat clots occasionally, and a dashcam is also evidence for the prosecution.

 

[Deleted member 37751]

I'm not sure I would want all my driving captured on film.

AA calls for crackdown on sharing dashcam video - BBC News

 

[brucemillar]

Interesting.

Does that also mean that "vigilante" dashcam users can implicate themselves by posting video showing themselves driving without due care and attention? - I suppose their number plate isn't visible so it's a low risk.

Yes they can and they have. Their have been several successful prosecutions after the Police were made aware of Youtube Video(s) posted by the "offenders".

There is an entire world out there of "fake" dash cam tales relating to what you can and cannot do.

"you film me without my permission and I will sue" being one of the funniest and least factual.

"Invasion of privacy" Again not true.

It is not an invasion of anybody's privacy if they are not doing anything that is, well - errr, private. As driving on a PUBLIC highway in full view of the PUBLIC is not considered private, then being filmed by, either the millions of legal CCTV camera's that are legally present or the xxxxxx dash cams that are in use, will not constitute any legal grounds for evidence not being allowed in a court.

What I found somewhat amusing when researching getting a dashcam. In almost every case where some obscure legal argument was presented against having one. It was done so by somebody who was dead set against the idea of having one.

I have now had mine installed just over a week and have looked at the footage once. This was to check it was actually working correctly and producing what it said it would (it is). I hope that it will remain like this and never be required in evidence. But I want that additional security that is now available to us all at a relatively low cost.

The fact is, they are here and here to stay. In some vehicles/professions they are fitted at source. Some insurers offer discounts.... But if you get hit and have a third party denying their role? What could possibly be the argument against demonstrating what "actually" happened, in plain sight?

 

[baxlin]

Too much to quote, but I completely agree with Brucemillar's post #24.

Similarly, I only check mine occasionally to see it's recording OK, although the screen's on all the time, it's positioned on the passenger side of and behind the rear view mirror, so as not to be visible and distracting to the driver

Re implicating oneself, while my (essential IMO) dashcam records date and time, I chose not to have it also record GPS position and other info, such as speed.....

 

[Rory]

Nor I... We all - well, most of us - drive like, say, 9 karat clots occasionally, and a dashcam is also evidence for the prosecution.

It was interesting to see a dashcam video on Pistonheads a while ago that someone had put up complaining about another driver. Yet the guy who posted it had started the problem in a not dissimilar way to the incident the OP here described - he'd forced past the other driver by creating another lane on the entry to a roundabout.

The other driver then overtook him (which was the point of the complaint) so dashcam boy drove in a very forceful manner all the time pointing and yelling "dashcam" at the other driver.

OK, this is just one guy, but it's incredible that someone could be so totally convinced they hadn't done anything wrong that they'd post the video up on a motoring forum.

 

[brucemillar]

It was interesting to see a dashcam video on Pistonheads a while ago that someone had put up complaining about another driver. Yet the guy who posted it had started the problem in a not dissimilar way to the incident the OP here described - he'd forced past the other driver by creating another lane on the entry to a roundabout.

The other driver then overtook him (which was the point of the complaint) so dashcam boy drove in a very forceful manner all the time pointing and yelling "dashcam" at the other driver.

OK, this is just one guy, but it's incredible that someone could be so totally convinced they hadn't done anything wrong that they'd post the video up on a motoring forum.

Youtube is full of this stuff where people instantly see past their own failings in order to prosecute failings in others. The usual funnies come from cyclists who omit the bit where they transgress then publish the results of their transgression.

That said. In a court of law: Evidence is evidence and if the prosecution is for "dangerous driving" and the evidence demonstrates "dangerous driving" then - slam dunk. If the prosecution is concerned with 'what led up to the dangerous driving' (that would be staggering) then further video evidence 'may' be requested. However where does that end?

My client was driving in this manner as only last week, he had a bad argument with his wife at this very spot in the road - not on video. No. The act is what is prosecuted and not the grey stuff that surrounds it.

Equally you could not argue. It was legal for me to crash into him as he upset me earlier in the day :^)

 

[Deleted member 6183]

It was interesting to see a dashcam video on Pistonheads a while ago that someone had put up complaining about another driver. Yet the guy who posted it had started the problem in a not dissimilar way to the incident the OP here described - he'd forced past the other driver by creating another lane on the entry to a roundabout.

The other driver then overtook him (which was the point of the complaint) so dashcam boy drove in a very forceful manner all the time pointing and yelling "dashcam" at the other driver.

OK, this is just one guy, but it's incredible that someone could be so totally convinced they hadn't done anything wrong that they'd post the video up on a motoring forum.

This might be one of the reasons for my distrust of dashcams and cycle/motorcycle camera wearers.

I've a suspicion that the early adopters would be the kind of person that feels so incensed at those around him (it's always a bloke) that he feels the need to capture it on film and show others what he has to put up with. In most other walks of life these blokes are known as *****.

 

[E55BOF]

Equally you could not argue: It was legal for me to crash into him as he upset me earlier in the day :^)

There are times when it should be, though...

 

[PobodY]

Is this the point where I admit to having had and removed a dashcam because it was just another thing obscuring my vision and not doing anything useful?

It's actually an HKS DMR (that I won in a competition in Banzai magazine), so it records from two video sources and embeds the GPS, and G-sensor data in to the video.

Maybe it will go back in next time I do something interesting in the car, but for now I'm happy for it to sit in a box in my shed.

 

[Simon_M]

Banzai? Now there was a TV programme!

E55 driver sounds like a Bellus Endus Maximus.

S