Idiot drivers be warned: ACT police are finally offering a place online where your fellow road users can upload your antics which potentially may land you a traffic infringement.
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As the newly formed ACT law reform advisory council closed public submissions to its inquiry into dangerous driving, local police have opened an online portal making it easier for people to report it.
From this week, instead of uploading dashcam or mobile phone vision of dangerous driving to social media for little other purpose than public excitement and commentary, the same vision can now be uploaded into an ACT police portal for potential investigation.
The range of offences police define as dangerous include reckless driving, road rage, careless driving, people using a mobile phone while driving, vehicles running a red light, and seatbelt offences.
Before the online portal was activated, members of the public would need to physically attend a police station with a memory card or stick and offer it up.
Dangerous and reckless driving remains an offence which is difficult to investigate and prosecute without hard evidence but the proliferation of dashcams in private vehicles is now making it somewhat easier by automatically capturing time-code-stamped vision on a rolling time loop basis.
Online sites revealing silly and dangerous antics on the public road have proliferated in recent years. The Dashcam Australia site has a large following and fresh posts drop onto the site every day. But it plays no role as an law enforcement tool unless the offence committed by the driver and captured on video is so heinous that it is considered crucial evidence.
Police in the ACT believe there was a potential for as many as 100 short videos a months to be uploaded into their portal, where staff will "triage" the material for further investigation.
The team expects to be very busy at Summernats time, when typically multiple cars are seized for burnout offences on the public road
Since 2018 in the UK, a dashcam retailer called Nextbase cleverly worked a commercially-based road safety affiliation with various police services around that country to create the National Dash Cam Safety Portal. It both aids police by gathering potential evidence and hosts the material, but also helps Nextbase sell more dashcams.
The portal also states that "on average only 1 to 2 per cent of all reported offences result in a trial actually being run in court".
ACT Superintendent Brian Diplock said that vision supplied to police may result in a traffic infringement being issued to an offending motorist.
But the reality is that given ACT sworn police numbers are the lowest in the country and the force is already strapped to investigate far more serious crimes, only the most heinous of recorded road incidents - such as a road rage assault or a person struck by a car - is likely to be investigated.
If the veracity and authenticity of the dashcam vision is in dispute, then prosecution has the potential to become time-consuming and complicated, with the person who "owns" the vision almost certain to be called to give a statement, or appear in court.
The dangerous driving upload capability on the ACT portal is a new addition to other offences which can reported this way including historic sexual assaults, petrol drive-offs, and property damage or vandalism.
You can upload the footage here.
