[Closed] Commuters with cameras, have you used the footage?

Nope.

I have got a couple of videos of deer running away in Richmond park though 🙂

I've posted interesting things on facebook, but not bothered reporting anyone yet.

I did try once but the police weren't interested. Although I think I was asking the wrong people.

[img] :large[/img]

I once reported a dangerous overtake, but the police (Surrey) forgot to ask me for the footage until a few months later. They said they'd already been round and had a word based on the written description, so I left it there.

I've had a bunch of stuff that would be a shoo-in for tickets if I lived in the West Midlands, but much of my riding is in Hampshire and Sussex so I may as well be filming leaves falling off the trees for all the good it does there. No point bothering to send it in.

Mostly I just like to know that if the worst happens, which is my main concern on rural roads even if it's low probability, then the cameras should mean the family should be able to claim the insurance more easily and the police might be marginally less able to balls up a prosecution.

I'm in Birmingham and I tweeted that picture above to the police, heard nothing. Even though the guy said he squeezed me deliberately and I said as much in the tweet.

I tend to save all of mine in my google pics, I watched some of them back recently as they came up on time hop and they seem fairly tame now. There's a couple of nasty one though, that being one of them.

I passed a video of one of the Co-ops trucks ignoring the red lights on apedestrian crossing to them. Never heard anything concrete.

When was it, prawny? The good stuff in WMP has been done by a couple of guys in the roads unit (RPU), but reports go in via the processing unit (TPU). The RPU guys started handling the TPU's close pass stuff for a while before gradually handing it back, so if it was before they started doing that (which was… er, first half of 2016? Or was it 2015? I'm losing it) then that might explain it.

Edit: oh, did you just tweet it or actually report it? Tweets are easily missed…

Yes. Twice.

Been knocked off twice (once deliberately, the other unintentional) and in both cases my camera footage was taken by the police as evidence. There were other witness statements in both cases so the resulting convictions may have happened without my footage, I don’t know for sure.

The incident would have been less than a year agoI think, it was just a tweet asking how to go about reporting. I’d calmed down later in the day and when they didn’t come back I couldn’t be bothered to go chasing around.

Plus the fact I ‘had a word’ with the driver about it at the time and he hasn’t done it again meant I haven’t been that concerned about following it up.

I think people here may be aware that footage from my Fly 6 was used in evidence at the inquest of a fatal accident, when one of our club hit a pothole in Weybridge.

I turned the bike around before tending to the rider and administering CPR (didn't want to capture that), and it shut down as designed. On top of that I was called to identify the rider in the video at the inquest from the earlier 5 minutes leading up to and including the crash, having never seen the footage previously (was seized as evidence at the scene).

I am pleased to say that the footage exonerated Twickenham Cycle Club of any blame.

I couldn't ask for more from the camera. Fly 12's are on offer at SportPursuit at the moment.

I put a report into Sussex police’s operation crackdown website about once a month, generally close passes. Only one notice of intended prosecution for running a red light so far, the others get a letter according to the website.

I used WMP new portal to try and report a close pass a month or two ago which was caught on camera. I emailed them but have had no reply.
Last week I signed up for Twitter after another incident. Tweeted WMP and have had no reply.
I think the close pass initiative would be fantastic if it was clear how to make a complaint. Atm it seems to me it's all about good publicity for WMP, nothing else.

That’s my experience too naffa, lots of talk, but no actual info of how to go about reporting these to WMP. Over the last 2 years there’s loads I could have reported but haven’t because I don’t know how to, and it’s proved too difficult to find out.

I feel a bit guilty because chances are these drivers aren’t just buzzing me.

I also reported a guy that decided to get out of his van to have a go at me, and another that threw a bottle at me. Met Police. Heard little about the follow-up in either.

[b]prawny[/b], [b]naffa[/b], if you're tweeting make sure it's to @trafficwmp , not the main WMP account.

PCs Hudson and Hodson who use the trafficwMP account are leading the close pass thing. I've had emails directly from them after making contact with the twitter account*. I had a couple of really nasty close passes a while ago and asked by email how best to report them and Hudson/Hodson took my report by email (filled out the form in Word) and used my uploaded vid on youtube as evidence to send out a couple of NIPs.

*The reason I had to speak to them in the first place was a report to the TPU that was dismissed just like in the 'bad old days', basically, "he didn't hit you, what's the problem". I gathered that they went and gave some frank advice to the guy in the TPU, came back to me apologising for his "incompetence" (their word, not mine) and said they'd make sure any future ones would be dealt with properly.

I reported a close pass by a coach driver to the police and his employer. There was no prosecution, but the police had a word with him and his employer. The same driver hung back for a very long time the next time he overtook me...

I reported a postie that kept driving the wrong way down a one way street too.

Latest one, I sent a few snapshots to the employer of this-

[img] [/img]

And got this back:

[i]Hi Mr DezB
Firstly I would like to apologise for the delay in replying to your email, I have been on annual leave and so has my Managing Director.

We would like to apologise for the incident that happened on the 12th April, The Managing Director has personally spoken to the driver and we would like to assure you that this will not happen again.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention and again we apologise.

[/i]

Which was pretty good I thought.

I've only had to report one to the police (another van, interestingly) and they tried to follow up, but the van was unregistered.

Just realised - in exactly the same spot a few weeks ago, a van overtook me, wide enough to give me enough room, but there was a coach coming the other way who had to drive into the bushes on the verge! Was gonna send the vid to the coach co. but couldn't be bothered in the end. It's a point where the road narrows and people seem to think they can still fit past. (Huh seem to "think": probably not.)

Both Cheshire and North Wales police have websites for submitting video footage of dangerous driving. If they do, a lot of others probably have too, I guess it's just a matter of how well they can raise awareness of the service.

My fave -

I tweeted a link to Hants Police and was ignored. 🙂

(Blimey, just noticed - 3.5K views on YT for that!)

If you like being ignored then making any form of criticism of Hampshire's approach to roads policing is a pretty surefire way of achieving it IME.

@bails thanks very much for that useful information.
I've tweeted (new to all this), so hopefully we can move forward with it now.
Also just seen that PC Hudson and Hudson have received an award for their work in this area from Birmingham City Council.

A colleague of mine was showing me footage of a ridiculous overtake by a van and trailer this morning. The company in question won a Safe Vehicle Award only a month ago 😆

Mate has a fly6 ans 12 and swears by them. Nothing to the Police but he has used it in insurance wrangles. One driver apologised at the scene and said she would pay for stuff but once her boyfriend found out you could get helmets for £15 and not the £80 my mate was claiming for (genuine) they started being awkward. He said fine, will go to insurance, their insurance co. was initially awkward too until he said he had footage. They asked for it, he sent them it, and 45 minutes later they accepted full responsibility and offered a sum he was very pleased with.

I bought one of the Aldi rear light cameras a couple of wqeeks ago and after doing a firmware upgrade (to eliminate a bug that kept shutting the camera down) it has been amazing. The quality is pretty good and they are reduced to £29.99 if your local store still has them.

It gives me an odd sense of reassurance riding with it.

Dezb if that road is where I think it is, it has a shocking standard of driving on it generally.

Hard road to overtake on due to traffic volumes, narrowness and soft verges but people are such impatient douche bags they do it anyway. The "accepted" ways of doing it are I believe.

1) as per the van in your pic or
2) pull out properly but without waiting for a gap in the oncoming traffic causing them to either slam on the brakes or the overtaker to revert to option 1 or ideally both

Got a camera in my work vehicle, reported a bus driver that blasted through a red light a good couple of seconds after it had changed, with peds about to cross.

I said I had footage but would only provide it if they gave the driver a rollocking rather than sacking them. They then asked for the time and direction and afterwards I realise they would have got the footage off the bus cameras!

Then again, who needs boy racer double decker drivers in town...

I was out riding with one of my sons on Sunday when we experienced an incredibly close pass on a wide A road with no on-coming traffic. The Aldi camera footage shows the car accelerating towards the back of us before pulling out at the last minute and then swerving back towards us. You can clearly see his face looking directly at us when he passes.

I submitted it to my local police force last night and have just had an email to say they are going to pursue a prosecution.

Hopefully that will be one bell-end who may think twice about doing it in the future.

Good stuff. Which police force, if you don't mind saying?

Avon & Somerset. They have an online form specifically for uploading dashcam type footage for review.

I hope he gets more than a slap on the wrist. What a knob chops.

Slightly OT but I don't know if you've noticed but there's a lot of aggressive drivers who seem to have dash cams fitted and are filming their own bad behaviour for the benefit of other peoples insurers and the police. How thoughtful.

It's an interesting thing that it doesn't occur to people that they're filming their own lawbreaking...says a bit about how much thought goes into their driving.

spooky_b329 -

I said I had footage but would only provide it if they gave the driver a rollocking rather than sacking them.

Very kind of you. Personally I would want him disciplined and sacked if this was not his only transgression

I had one a few months back with a closely following car, who when I started slowing down for a light turning red (over 30m ahead), floored it (which scared the life out of me, as it was a big Porsche 4x4), close passed me and then flew through a red light.

The main issue with reporting it for me was not the Police lack of interest, as they were fantastic, but that they were quite behind the times in terms of IT. They certainly didn't have any website for uploading video files, and couldn't even accept a USB stick, so in the end I had to hunt down a USB DVD-writer to plug into my computer at home and burn a DVD.

[i]They certainly didn't have any website for uploading video files[/i]

And they didn't know how to get to Youtube on a web browser/phone/tablet? Bizarre!

If you live within the West Midlands then email a copy of the footage (1 minute either side) to TPO_enquiry@west-midlands.pnn.police.uk and ask for an electronic copy of form WT898A. I found this out at the second attempt of asking on Twitter. TBH they are busy given the standard of driving in Birmingham!

Dez is that Portsdown Hill ?

DezB - I tried all of that with them, gave them a few ways that I could upload and then share a private link with them etc, but their eyes just glazed over.

3 times:

Once with a repeatedly aggressive driver - Police game him a talking to and no subsequent problems (his repeated close passing, tailgating etc.) stopped and he started giving me a wide berth...

Second time a near miss. Driver was done for careless driving, fixed penalty.

Third time a close pass. Police came out, nothing done.

plus I think the visible camera makes a massive difference to how drivers behave.

they were quite behind the times in terms of IT. They certainly didn't have any website for uploading video files, and couldn't even accept a USB stick

Being behind the times is common but not a bad thing per se: accepting USB sticks, for instance, can be a significant security risk, and it's better that they don't exceed the curve of their own security expertise (though that could be improved).

Where the issue comes is when they don't accept things like YouTube videos as at least preliminary evidence (pending the original files) because if you have to have a conversation about media, then burn a DVD, then post it, it eats significantly into the 14 day window:

https://beyondthekerb.org.uk/guest-post-nipping-it-in-the-bud/

allthepies -
Dez is that Portsdown Hill ?

Yup, both my posts were. Been riding along that hill for well over 15 years now! (Have made it to the end a few times 😉 )

Thought I recognised the outlook, years ago I spent a year working in one of the buildings with various antennae on the roof 🙂

When they used my Fly 6 as primary evidence, they dropped the light in an evidence bag whole at the scene, and I received the light back without memory card a couple of weeks later. This was for a fatality. Evidence chain is very important, it's not strictly absence of technology, more knowledge that evidence has not been tampered with.

For a "talking to" response, it might be ok to upload to their own website. For something more serious, it will not be.

I appreciate that. Although the reason I was told I had to burn it onto a DVD was that they didn't have any way of viewing a Youtube, Vimeo, iCloud or other format. Slightly in desperation I suggested a USB pen drive, as I have a few kicking around that I never use (as Bez points out they are pretty toxic).

Anyway, I was particularly impressed at how quickly I was contacted, they came around to my house, took a statement, looked at the video and having seen it were happy to pursue it. Without the cameras, there is no way I'd have bothered.

Any views on which is more effective - front or rear camera? And is a helmet mounted camera a more visible deterrent than bar/seatpost mounted?

Daughter bought me a faux-pro for xmas, thinking of starting commuting by bike so may as well get best use of it.

Depends 🙂

For me the main purpose of the camera is for evidence in the event of a serious incident. Most of my riding is rural where the main risk of such an incident, by a long way, is that of being hit from behind. So the rear camera is more often the priority for me.

In an urban environment that priority can often be different: one of the main risks is someone turning across you, for instance. And if you're interested in recording less eventful things then a front camera may make more sense as broadly speaking it'll capture what you see and remember.

Bike vs helmet mounted has pros and cons. Helmet mounted means you can aim it. It's the better option if you want to cover the risk of someone getting out of their car and assaulting you. But it makes it hard to estimate distances and speeds, and of course it's tricky if you don't wear a helmet.