Would you or have you ever sent dashcam footage to the police?

Soldato
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What would it take for you to send footage, unless it was extremely malicious I can't see me ever doing it but curious about others.
 
Soldato
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There are odd rules about what can be used as evidence afaik. You have to send them the whole memory card so that they have the original files and not "copies".
 
Man of Honour
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I'm curious, what's stopping people sending footage to the Police? I get it if it's minor, but it seems that some people here have a particularly high threshold for things that they'd assist with.
 
Soldato
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I'm curious, what's stopping people sending footage to the Police?

And your answer, in part:

There are odd rules about what can be used as evidence afaik. You have to send them the whole memory card so that they have the original files and not "copies".

I mean, do the police really need to see the dashcam's earlier recording of you shagging the missus on the bonnet?
 
Caporegime
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I'm curious, what's stopping people sending footage to the Police? I get it if it's minor, but it seems that some people here have a particularly high threshold for things that they'd assist with.

I actually did take footage into a police station when some idiot on their phone pulled out in front of me on a roundabout. I had to slam the brakes and I smashed the horn too to let them know that they shouldn't have pulled out in front of me asleep at the wheel.

Which woke them up. Two neds in a new white a class merc. The passenger proceeded to turn around and swear at me up until the next roundabout. I ignored it and said use your eyes next time.

They are in the left lane which is first turn off and has markings. I'm in the right lane which is to go around the second roundabout and there are clear road markings leading up to this second roundabout and signs. Basically they have to go left otherwise they will cross into my lane and into the side of me as my lane goes from being the inside lane to the outside lane after the first exit.

A gap opens up and I move off. They decide to slam the accelerator and pull across in front of me into my lane. Forcing me to brake again to keep a safe distance.

Even though they were in the wrong lane, driving aggressively. They knew the roundabouts in question as its probably the most well known roundabout in the area as its leaving the busiest supermarket in the area as well as a retail park.

So that's 2 incidents within a matter of 20 seconds the second worse than the first and they weren't interested at all.

The copper said its your word against there's and they will just say they didn't know that lane was left turn only. My argument was if that is the case then why did they accelerate full pace into the roundabout and cross lanes?

A normal person if they were in the wrong lane would indicate and wait for someone to let them in.

Throughout the whole footage they never indicated once. To say they needed to get into the other lane.

Basically at this point I realised the lazy **** wasn't going to do anything other than steal a wage. So I decided to get them to follow up on another incident in which involved some poor bloke who had his head panned in by 10 people and the police refused to come out to that too when I called them and they then turned up 3 hours later when they were all long gone. I gave them the cctv footage and they never caught any of them.

Basically the police seem to think they are above doing any work. They make up the law as they see fit too. I had to have several arguments and sight the law to them before they agreed to change an incident from x to vandalism.

The stupid bint even said yeah it says reasonable excuse. They had reasonable excuse as the law states. I then quoted the example underneath which talks about emergency services cutting a car open to save a person's life. That's reasonable excuse and therefore not vandalism as they are trying to save the person's life and to get access to them they have to damage the car.

How the **** does that mean you then have reasonable excuse to damage someone's property whilst having a street fight?

Seriously some coppers are lazy and should be sacked. They will back up a colleague in the wrong so not to show their incompetence until challenged at a higher level.

Funny how they they then made a second incident report and this time it was classified as vandalism as it should have been in the first instance. So I now have 3 incident numbers.

One for accidental damage. One for vandalism and then another for the street fight / assault.

Also the main guy involved in the attack is best mates with a guy who lives around the corner. The police question him and even though the guy stayed overnight at his house and was drinking with him all night. He pretends he doesn't know him or anything other than his nickname. So they never follow it up when his parents are back from holiday. Basically a house party whilst parents were away and got out of hand, spilled out into the street and then onto my driveway and property.

Next time I'm just going to go out with a baseball bat.
 
Associate
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Basically the police seem to think they are above doing any work. They make up the law as they see fit too. I had to have several arguments and sight the law to them before they agreed to change an incident from x to vandalism.

You say this now, but their may be a day when you go running to the police for something serious. I know its "cool" to bash the police online now, but be honest with your self.
Also lol @ the baseball bat line. No you won't.
 
Man of Honour
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Екатеринбург
I'm curious, what's stopping people sending footage to the Police? I get it if it's minor, but it seems that some people here have a particularly high threshold for things that they'd assist with.
I have had a recent experience which, if representative, would explain why a lot of people don’t bother. There is a guy dealing drugs outside my house on a regular basis. I know as a matter of fact that he is dealing drugs. I have footage of him in the act, clearly identifiable. Also in the footage are his associates and customers, all clearly identifiable with car registrations.

Reporting this through 101 gets it nowhere. The default response is to report it online. I can’t even get someone to acknowledge it, never mind look at the footage.

If others have a similar experience, I can imagine why the majority don’t bother, especially with dashcam footage. I wouldn't be surprised if the police get swamped with footage of innocuous events from the dashcam warriors.
 
Associate
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Somerset
Yes I have done it before.

Some loon in an Audi overtook me on double whites pulled in front of me and slammed the brakes on, received a nice email from the police informing me they would be prosecuting.

Your probably thinking I must have done something terrible to upset him so much....well I was on the A303 doing 80 on the outside lane overtaking cars lorries ect when he came steaming up behind me and proceeded to flash his lights for me to pull over. I carried on in the outside lane ( overtaking ) when we came up to a roundabout which joined a single track road with double whites on. This is where the incident happened
 
Man of Honour
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There are odd rules about what can be used as evidence afaik. You have to send them the whole memory card so that they have the original files and not "copies".

Unless a serious crime is involved no. You usually need to send them the unedited footage from around 2 minutes either side of the incident - ideally the raw file but they will accept repacked/recompressed footage usually as long as there is no editing. You will be asked to hold onto the original file and/or media until they tell you otherwise however.

I have had a recent experience which, if representative, would explain why a lot of people don’t bother. There is a guy dealing drugs outside my house on a regular basis. I know as a matter of fact that he is dealing drugs. I have footage of him in the act, clearly identifiable. Also in the footage are his associates and customers, all clearly identifiable with car registrations.

Reporting this through 101 gets it nowhere. The default response is to report it online. I can’t even get someone to acknowledge it, never mind look at the footage.

If others have a similar experience, I can imagine why the majority don’t bother, especially with dashcam footage. I wouldn't be surprised if the police get swamped with footage of innocuous events from the dashcam warriors.

I've had the opposite experience - most regions have a scheme in place for dash cam footage and things like overtaking on double white lines, driving on the wrong side, etc. they take very seriously and will interview the driver if footage clearly identifies the vehicle involved.
 
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Associate
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When it comes to dash cam footage, I would only share this with the police, if I was a witness to accident or if someone was driving so dangerously that I think they where a risk to public lives.
Home CCTV footage, I considered this before at one of our previous homes a flat, when we had some girl move in next door and the her front door being opposite ours. Then she starting having male visitors all hours of the day coming and going. Dealing out her flat etc. As we had peep hole, I looked at buying a camera to replace it, but all it would captured was the amount of people coming and going. The policeman who we dealt with said it would be handy, advice us not to go down this road as could make it worse for us. We soon moved out after dealing with this for a year.
The police will ask you for footage if they feel it will help a case. My parents have cctv and the police have asked them on many occasions for the footage. Once due to car accidents on the road, where one of their neighbours fitted NOS to the car and then decided to test on 30mph limits crashing into several parked cars. Another time there was a street fight, where people got injured and Property got damaged. So I see as its only worth sharing the footage if they can make good use of the footage.
 
Soldato
Joined
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3,159
I have once, due to an accident I witnessed and the guy drove off. The victim was not in a state to take my email/phone, so I just contacted the local police force who used it with another dash cam to prosecute the person.
 
Caporegime
Joined
11 Mar 2005
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Location
Leafy Cheshire
I have had a recent experience which, if representative, would explain why a lot of people don’t bother. There is a guy dealing drugs outside my house on a regular basis. I know as a matter of fact that he is dealing drugs. I have footage of him in the act, clearly identifiable. Also in the footage are his associates and customers, all clearly identifiable with car registrations.

Reporting this through 101 gets it nowhere. The default response is to report it online. I can’t even get someone to acknowledge it, never mind look at the footage.

If others have a similar experience, I can imagine why the majority don’t bother, especially with dashcam footage. I wouldn't be surprised if the police get swamped with footage of innocuous events from the dashcam warriors.

Take it up with your MP.
 
Associate
Joined
23 Oct 2013
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1,206
I have once:

busy morning commute to work. 2 lanes at traffic lights where the left lane is left turn only, right lane is straight on and right. I was in the left lane, about 3 cars back from the lights. They turn green and we all start moving forwards - then, without a indicating a small white van from the right lane swings infront of me and I have to anchor on. I sound my horn for a second or 2 and we all move through the lights. It opens to 2 lanes and the van in front starts slowing down to walking pace, so I change lanes and he then pulls across in front of me again, I have to anchor on and he's effectively blocked me in. He gets out of the van and walks towards me pointing me out of the car for a fight. Before he gets close enough to kick my car, I slam it into reverse and swing around his van and luckily never see him again. Footage shows a clear numberplate and full face/frontal of the guy.

Went to the police asking if it's worth reporting and said to the receptionist that I don't want to waste their or my time - ended up asked her if she would bother reporting it. She said that if I've been forced to stop and threatened then yes - so I hung around and had a meeting with a police officer. They watch the footage and seem to agree it's not on, and said I've got 2 options: they can pop round the guy's house and speak with him about the incident and that's it, or I can prosecute and it could end up in court. I said nothing's damaged, so I'm happy with them popping around and speaking with the driver.

I left thinking it was worth it. Then I realised they hadn't taken the footage or noted anything down while watching it, so unless the police officer could remember the numberplate and face then I felt it was a waste of time and they were just placating me...

That was about 6 years ago, so I think it was before a lot of people have dashcam footage, so I would like to think they'd be more receptive these days. Who knows... Either way, I've not had a dashcam on my present car for over a year and not sure I'm missing it (famous last words)
 
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