Car dash cams

[|2 /-\ | /|/]

I'm still interested in hearing from a lawyer who has hand-on experience with automotive related law.

Lots of people have opinions, but not a lot of facts. I went ahead and called my two car insurance companies (personal and work) and I talked to two police officers. I would encourage others to do the same thing to see if they get the similar answers.

Both car insurance companies stated current policy is that they (their adjusters) would NOT officially look at the dash cam footage. They follow the fault-determination rules as negotiated between the insurance companies. Even if someone stopped in front of you, then backed their car into you and it was all caught on your cam - doesn't matter, your insurance company pays for your car and their insurance company pars for theirs. Further stated that; dash cams have for the most part been ignored in court and the whole technology has been untested from a legal standpoint.

Both officers (independently) said basically the same thing. When they investigate an automobile accident they focus on physical evidence, written statements and interviews with the drivers and eye-witnesses. Evidence is given a "reliability weighting". Police know that people lie, witnesses are unreliable and the physical evidence could have changed. They base their decisions on their training and experience and ultimately the judge has the final decision. In summary:
1) They would only look at the dash cam evidence if there was a compelling reason to. If all other evidence pointed reliably at a conclusion, that's what they would go with.
2) Dash cams are unproven/untested from a legal standpoint. It is hard to use from an evidence point of view because they are untrained, the quality isn't always good (i.e. rain, snow or at night), it's hard to judge speed and depth of view for distances.
3) Most dash cam evidence can't be examined at the scene and only if the accident is serious enough or there is evidence of fraud will they ask for the flash cards for expert examination.
4) If necessary, they would look at dash cam footage and use it to collaborate/support other more reliable evidence when investigating. They indicated they are aware that the dash cam could have been tampered with.
One cop stated there are scams in the US where the bad guys cause an accident, pretend to call the cops to buy a few minutes, modify the cam evidence on their PC and try to extort money from the victim. The modifications were apparently good enough to pass non-expert review.

So, IMHO dash cams evidence is not yet reliable or proven. It could likely be used to shut down a scammer so for that reason people might find the expense justifiable. Me - no-one I know has ever had this issue, so I'll wait till the technology and legal issues mature.

They are still good to have as a back pocket backup to pull out if needed. Some of these dash cams are really good and record GPS with map overlay, acceleration levels, speed, time stamp, and all this other data that faking them could prove challenging. The benifits outweigh the what ifs. Combine this with your cars diagnostic ports and devices that plug in connect to your phone and corelate the data thus making it difficult to forge.

Here is a good device that plugs into your cars diagnostics port and notifies you of engine problems, improves your driving habits, records GPS, and has an emergency collision feature to name a few.
www.automatic.com

I hope they make a system that somehow combines the two.

 

[Promo]

I got rear ended once, and I had a dash cam. Showed the car lurch forward. The other guy was honest, but another person could have claimed that I backed up into him. The more important issue is not the matter of getting a ticket by police, but to prevent your insurance co. raising your premiums as a result of an at-fault or partially at fault accident.

If both of you are partially at fault, then both your rates increase. But if you can prove that it was the other guy, then obviously you won't be blamed and declared partially at fault. If someone sideswipes out on the road, and you have no evidence that it was him who crossedover into your lane, then you are both at fault. So the dash cam can potentially save you a lot of money in the future.

I agree with you and based on my conversation with the insurance companies they will examine the evidence and use it in their negotiations with the other insurance company. I wonder what would happen if the other guy claims you modified the video (assuming the evidence wasn't back and white)?

 

[Promo]

They are still good to have as a back pocket backup to pull out if needed. Some of these dash cams are really good and record GPS with map overlay, acceleration levels, speed, time stamp, and all this other data that faking them could prove challenging. The benifits outweigh the what ifs. Combine this with your cars diagnostic ports and devices that plug in connect to your phone and corelate the data thus making it difficult to forge.

Here is a good device that plugs into your cars diagnostics port and notifies you of engine problems, improves your driving habits, records GPS, and has an emergency collision feature to name a few.
www.automatic.com

I modified my original post while you were responding - I agree in principal with you, but I think the technology TODAY is still a bit on the immature side, but is advancing very quickly to the point where it may be court viable by the end of this year. Until the courts accept the dash cam as evidence, it may only prove useful in particular situations i.e. used by the insurance companies to assign fault and thus prevent your rates from going up and be used to shut down a scammer.

Today, I believe there is still abuse going on. For example that woman in the video I provided or yahoos on the road causing problems and trying to use the cam video on the Internet or with the police.

Tying the cam to your phone and car's diagnostic port is a bit on the extreme side. Insurance companies have been considering for years to make use of the diagnostic port to reward safe drivers and that idea is pretty much dead.

 

[GPIDEAL]

I'm interested in hearing from the lawyer members. A dash cam will produce a video stored on a flash card. At the time of the accident, will the police officer take the card and view it and/or use it for evidence? Is it admissible in court? Will the insurance companies want to see it?

Since it can often take 20 ... 30 ... 40+ minutes for the police to show up, what stops the dash cam owner from inserting the flash card into a PC and deleting select seconds or otherwise modifying the file to better suit his needs? Security and integrity of evidence is key and I don't see how dash cam evidence can be trusted. Best it can accomplish is to support eyewitness claims.

My point; If the cam video can't be legally used for evidence, what's the point?



The woman in the video in my original post said the exact same thing. She lied and got caught. YouTube is FULL of video from dash cams ........

Dash cam might prevent a scam artist from getting away with blackmail, or validate the guilt of another party. I can't see why it wouldn't be used in court, in the absence of other evidence, and if it properly date/time stamps the incident with a full view of the other party's I.D. or license plate.

 

[GPIDEAL]

I'm still interested in hearing from a lawyer who has hand-on experience with automotive related law.

Lots of people have opinions, but not a lot of facts. I went ahead and called my two car insurance companies (personal and work) and I talked to two police officers. I would encourage others to do the same thing to see if they get the similar answers.

Both car insurance companies stated current policy is that they (their adjusters) would not look at the dash cam footage for the purposes of repairing the car, but WOULD look at it for the purpose of assigning driver fault between the insurance companies (unless one the the drivers was police charged which makes them at-fault). For repairs, they follow the fault-determination rules as negotiated between the insurance companies. Even if someone stopped in front of you, then backed their car into you and it was all caught on your cam - doesn't matter, your insurance company pays for your car and their insurance company pars for theirs - however the cam evidence could be used for assigning fault for determining who's rates go up. Further stated that; dash cams have for the most part been ignored in court and the whole technology has been untested from a legal standpoint.

Both officers said basically the same thing. When they investigate an automobile accident they focus on physical evidence, written statements and interviews with the drivers and eye-witnesses. Evidence is given a "reliability weighting". Police know that people lie, witnesses are unreliable and the physical evidence could have changed. They base their decisions on their training and experience and ultimately the judge has the final decision. In summary:
1) They would only look at the dash cam evidence if there was a compelling reason to. If all other evidence pointed reliably at a conclusion, that's what they would go with.
2) Dash cams are unproven/untested from a legal standpoint. It is hard to use from an evidence point of view because they are untrained, the quality isn't always good (i.e. rain, snow or at night), it's hard to judge speed and depth of view for distances.
3) Most dash cam evidence can't be examined at the scene and only if the accident is serious enough or there is evidence of fraud will they ask for the flash cards for expert examination.
4) If necessary, they would look at dash cam footage and use it to collaborate/support other more reliable evidence when investigating. They indicated they are aware that the dash cam could have been tampered with.
One cop stated there are scams in the US where the bad guys cause an accident, pretend to call the cops to buy a few minutes, modify the cam evidence on their PC and try to extort money from the victim. The modifications were apparently good enough to pass non-expert review.

So, IMHO dash cams evidence is not yet reliable or proven, but still could be a useful purchase. It could be used by the insurance companies to assign fault and thus prevent your rates from going up and could likely be used to shut down a scammer so for that reason people might find the expense justifiable. Me - no-one I know has ever had this issue, so I'll wait till the technology and legal issues mature.

The police use dash cams and even body cams. Doesn't that corroborate their validity as evidence in a court of law or for insurance purposes?

 

[GPIDEAL]

I got one a few weeks ago for my car, only 30 bucks at Canada Computers. It took a day to figure out, getting the right angle on the dash board.

Things happen on the road, too many distracted drivers out there, I am very happy with my dash cam.

How good is a 30 buck one vs. the other more expensive ones posted elsewhere in this thread?

What is your experience with the 30 dollar one?

 

[Promo]

Dash cam might prevent a scam artist from getting away with blackmail, or validate the guilt of another party. I can't see why it wouldn't be used in court, in the absence of other evidence, and if it properly date/time stamps the incident with a full view of the other party's I.D. or license plate.

Chain of evidence. The video on the flash card is not secured in any meaningful way (encrypted, equivalent of CRC, hidden/unremovable time stamps), therefore it can be tempered with. For example date and timestamps could be removed, a few key seconds of video modified/deleted and a running timestamp put back on the video. This can be done on a PC using COTS software in little time (like while waiting for the police to arrive).

Based on my conversation with the 2 cops, today dash cam evidence is really only useful when comparing and collaborating other evidence. As I said previously, there are already scams involving modified cam recording.

 

[GameBoy27]

Again, I don't believe you.
Why would a pedestrian "jump in front of your car"? No pedestrian is going to come out of a car collision the victor. You said you were watching him, perhaps he thought he had eye contact with you and he felt you were acknowledging his actions. You provided few details on the event; Did it occur at a corner? Middle of the street? Were there other pedestrians crossing? How fast were you going? Did this occur in bumper-to-bumper traffic? Anyway, it doesn't matter as I don't trust what you will tell us.

Dumb question. People dart onto the street and into traffic all the time, especially drunk/high people when the bars close down. I had it happen to me last summer. I was driving through an intersection downtown (mid-afternoon) when two 15-16 year olds bolted from the corner into my path. I slammed on the brakes narrowly missing them. They were chasing a coin or something that rolled onto the street.

Had I hit them, a dash cam would have clearly shown I entered the intersection on a green light and that I was not speeding which are the two most important factors.

I got rear ended once, and I had a dash cam. Showed the car lurch forward. The other guy was honest, but another person could have claimed that I backed up into him. The more important issue is not the matter of getting a ticket by police, but to prevent your insurance co. raising your premiums as a result of an at-fault or partially at fault accident.

The other advantage to having a dash cam is when the other driver who's clearly at fault says you caused the collision, you can smile and say "my dash cam begs to differ." Then watch them squirm.

2) Dash cams are unproven/untested from a legal standpoint. It is hard to use from an evidence point of view because they are untrained, the quality isn't always good (i.e. rain, snow or at night), it's hard to judge speed and depth of view for distances.

I guess you didn't read this story. This guy was charged with fraud over $5,000, attempted fraud and public mischief as a result of dash cam footage. So yes, it has been tested from a legal standpoint. Cam quality is better than you think, even in rain and snow and many have time/date stamp and speed (GPS).

http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2012/03/06/youtube_dash_cam_crash_driver_charged_with_fraud_and_mischief.html

3) Most dash cam evidence can't be examined at the scene and only if the accident is serious enough or there is evidence of fraud will they ask for the flash cards for expert examination.

Many dash cams have screens or wifi capability for viewing on smartphones. If cops show up to a collision and you're looking at being charged for an improper left turn (in front of an on-coming vehicle as an example, which is what they'll typically charge you with) and you can show the cops the other guy clearly ran the red, then you can bet you won't be charged or deemed at fault by your insurance company.

4) If necessary, they would look at dash cam footage and use it to collaborate/support other more reliable evidence when investigating. They indicated they are aware that the dash cam could have been tampered with.
One cop stated there are scams in the US where the bad guys cause an accident, pretend to call the cops to buy a few minutes, modify the cam evidence on their PC and try to extort money from the victim. The modifications were apparently good enough to pass non-expert review.

If people are pulling this video editing scam, which I highly doubt is rampant it's all the more reason to have a dash cam yourself.

So, IMHO dash cams evidence is not yet reliable or proven, but still could be a useful purchase. It could be used by the insurance companies to assign fault and thus prevent your rates from going up and could likely be used to shut down a scammer so for that reason people might find the expense justifiable. Me - no-one I know has ever had this issue, so I'll wait till the technology and legal issues mature.

Actually, it is reliable and has been used to lay charges against fraudsters. You can buy 2-3 good quality dash cams a year with all sorts of features for the price of a cup of coffee a day. Most people pay $100-200 a month on insurance so it's not like it's a huge expense.

I agree with you and based on my conversation with the insurance companies they will examine the evidence and use it in their negotiations with the other insurance company. I wonder what would happen if the other guy claims you modified the video (assuming the evidence wasn't back and white)?

If the other guy claims you modified the video, tell him to prove it.

Chain of evidence. The video on the flash card is not secured in any meaningful way (encrypted, equivalent of CRC, hidden/unremovable time stamps), therefore it can be tempered with. For example date and timestamps could be removed, a few key seconds of video modified/deleted and a running timestamp put back on the video. This can be done on a PC using COTS software in little time (like while waiting for the police to arrive).

Based on my conversation with the 2 cops, today dash cam evidence is really only useful when comparing and collaborating other evidence. As I said previously, there are already scams involving modified cam recording.

Seriously, how many people in Ontario do you think are going to buy a car/insurance then drive around causing accidents and modifying the video evidence on the spot all in the effort to extort a few hundred bucks from people?

In Ontario, accidents with damage in excess of $1000 must be reported to the police. To do this you have to go to a collision reporting centre. You are also required by the terms of your insurance policy to report any accident you have to your insurance company, whether or not the police are involved.

Can't see how this scam as being a real money maker. I think your pessimism and paranoia are getting the better of you.

 

[Promo]

The police use dash cams and even body cams. Doesn't that corroborate their validity as evidence in a court of law or for insurance purposes?

Entirely different technology, different processes and procedures and is used for an entirely different reason.

Those recordings are used for Police management to make sure their officers correctly followed procedures if required and can be used as evidence in court once the police are on-site (i.e. confirm resisting arrest charges). No use for traffic violations or automotive insurance.

The police maintain the chain of evidence. The recordings are encrypted and include digital signatures that prevent modifying of the video. The Officer hands in his recorder at the end of the day and processes and procedures are put in place to secure and maintain the data. If required properly trained experts will review and evaluate the evidence.

The original video I posted including the TERB discussion is a perfect example of what I'm trying to say. When you first watch the video, we all thought the pick-up driver was an ass. When people started to listen to the audio, it was realized she was speeding up and down, doubts were raised. When eyewitness testimony was provided to the police, her story fell apart. Once the Police received other complaints, they investigated if she was doing the same things to other drivers and found she was posting on YouTube under different names. It was then realized she was provoking incidents, hoping to capture it on dash cam so she could cash-out on YouTube and/or have viral videos.

Disclosure: I'm not a lawyer and have no expertise on chain of evidence requirements. I'm basing my opinion on what the police told me (he's my neighbour and ran a station until his recent retirement, the other is his son who is in the forensics unit) and what I've read on the technologies involved. I was involved with the technology side when insurance companies were trying to make-use the diagnostic port in their Safe Driver program (which died) so we were looking heavily at how the data could be encrypted and be made tamper proof.

 

[lucky_blue]

Quote Originally Posted by Promo

Again, I don't believe you.
Why would a pedestrian "jump in front of your car"? No pedestrian is going to come out of a car collision the victor. You said you were watching him, perhaps he thought he had eye contact with you and he felt you were acknowledging his actions. You provided few details on the event; Did it occur at a corner? Middle of the street? Were there other pedestrians crossing? How fast were you going? Did this occur in bumper-to-bumper traffic? Anyway, it doesn't matter as I don't trust what you will tell us.

Dumb question. People dart onto the street and into traffic all the time, especially drunk/high people when the bars close down. I had it happen to me last summer. I was driving through an intersection downtown (mid-afternoon) when two 15-16 year olds bolted from the corner into my path. I slammed on the brakes narrowly missing them. They were chasing a coin or something that rolled onto the street.

Had I hit them, a dash cam would have clearly shown I entered the intersection on a green light and that I was not speeding which are the two most important factors.



The other advantage to having a dash cam is when the other driver who's clearly at fault says you caused the collision, you can smile and say "my dash cam begs to differ." Then watch them squirm.

Not sure you can trust tesla either but it does happen.

A drug addict jumped in front of a friends car and he had no way to avoid it. He was not charged but the guy was left brain dead from the crash.

 

[Promo]

Dumb question. People dart onto the street and into traffic all the time, especially drunk/high people when the bars close down. I had it happen to me last summer. I was driving through an intersection downtown (mid-afternoon) when two 15-16 year olds bolted from the corner into my path. I slammed on the brakes narrowly missing them. They were chasing a coin or something that rolled onto the street.

Had I hit them, a dash cam would have clearly shown I entered the intersection on a green light and that I was not speeding which are the two most important factors.

LOL, you are missing my point. I've noted Tesla's posts over the years and find he yahoos allot. I was calling him out on his story and suggesting he actually may have other less honourable motives for buying the cam. I provided examples of how other people abused dash cams.

The example I used to support my position was his previous posts about how he will call other guys out for not washing their hands in public washrooms. He stated if they ignored him, he would continue to follow them into public areas and try to publicly shame them. IMHO, only a self-righteous ass would say something in the washroom. But by continuing to follow the guy out into public, Tesla would have REALLY crossed the "moral" line and would risk the guy getting in his face or worse. Personally I think his entire story is bull sh*t, like much of his tin-hat dribble.

Yes, I believe it happens all the time, exactly as you describe. Yes, the dash cam would be useful in these cases. <--I've already stated that. I do believe the legal side of all of this needs to be defined and tested and the technology still needs to mature more. I also believe there are people out there who are using the dash cams for less honourable reasons and I was told by Police that there are already dash cam scams occurring.

 

[|2 /-\ | /|/]

I modified my original post while you were responding - I agree in principal with you, but I think the technology TODAY is still a bit on the immature side, but is advancing very quickly to the point where it may be court viable by the end of this year. Until the courts accept the dash cam as evidence, it may only prove useful in particular situations i.e. used by the insurance companies to assign fault and thus prevent your rates from going up and be used to shut down a scammer.

Today, I believe there is still abuse going on. For example that woman in the video I provided or yahoos on the road causing problems and trying to use the cam video on the Internet or with the police.

Tying the cam to your phone and car's diagnostic port is a bit on the extreme side. Insurance companies have been considering for years to make use of the diagnostic port to reward safe drivers and that idea is pretty much dead.

Yeah for sure lots of abuse happening in both by the offenders and the" victims". The one area I can see it benefitting is in a personal injury case or an incident involving a pedestrian or bicyclists. Anytime there is personal injury it would help understand what really occurred.

I like the idea of using the cars diagnostic to improve my driving habits, save on fuel and understand my car a bit better and my ability to drive efficiently. I think eventually the connected vehicle will take care of this. However now I really like obtaining various data during driving and trying to improve my driving habits. Its not really the saving I am after, however I like a challenge to see if I can drive a bit better today and improve. Makes the commute a bit more interesting.

 

[GPIDEAL]

Chain of evidence. The video on the flash card is not secured in any meaningful way (encrypted, equivalent of CRC, hidden/unremovable time stamps), therefore it can be tempered with. For example date and timestamps could be removed, a few key seconds of video modified/deleted and a running timestamp put back on the video. This can be done on a PC using COTS software in little time (like while waiting for the police to arrive).

Based on my conversation with the 2 cops, today dash cam evidence is really only useful when comparing and collaborating other evidence. As I said previously, there are already scams involving modified cam recording.

Promo, someone posted a scammer who was foiled by a guy with a dashcam on the 401.

Practically speaking, I think they can be relied upon.

Maybe it might not be "the be all and end all" of evidence, but unless there's evidence that it has been tampered with* or is challenged on credible grounds, I don't think they are useless.

In a capital case, I can see such evidence highly scrutinized; otherwise, it should help if not resolve matters.


*you need proof that the chain of evidence is incomplete or has been compromised or that the video has been altered

 

[GPIDEAL]

Entirely different technology, different processes and procedures and is used for an entirely different reason.

Those recordings are used for Police management to make sure their officers correctly followed procedures if required and can be used as evidence in court once the police are on-site (i.e. confirm resisting arrest charges). No use for traffic violations or automotive insurance.

The police maintain the chain of evidence. The recordings are encrypted and include digital signatures that prevent modifying of the video. The Officer hands in his recorder at the end of the day and processes and procedures are put in place to secure and maintain the data. If required properly trained experts will review and evaluate the evidence.

The original video I posted including the TERB discussion is a perfect example of what I'm trying to say. When you first watch the video, we all thought the pick-up driver was an ass. When people started to listen to the audio, it was realized she was speeding up and down, doubts were raised. When eyewitness testimony was provided to the police, her story fell apart. Once the Police received other complaints, they investigated if she was doing the same things to other drivers and found she was posting on YouTube under different names. It was then realized she was provoking incidents, hoping to capture it on dash cam so she could cash-out on YouTube and/or have viral videos.

Disclosure: I'm not a lawyer and have no expertise on chain of evidence requirements. I'm basing my opinion on what the police told me (he's my neighbour and ran a station until his recent retirement, the other is his son who is in the forensics unit) and what I've read on the technologies involved. I was involved with the technology side when insurance companies were trying to make-use the diagnostic port in their Safe Driver program (which died) so we were looking heavily at how the data could be encrypted and be made tamper proof.

At the end of the day, not matter what that lady did, she couldn't persuade others to believe her concocted scenarios. Dash cam is there to record what naturally happens. It's not designed to record a played out scenario. It's not a movie maker. And god knows if she only posted certain parts to You Tube. YT postings are not a substitute for the original dash cam recording.

I really doubt that most people have the know-how to edit or introduce CGI effects to alter their own, ORIGINAL, dash cam recordings in order to incriminate others.

P.S. Promo, do you have a link to that story about that lady? (Checked now. It's disabled.)

 

[Promo]

Promo, someone posted a scammer who was foiled by a guy with a dashcam on the 401.

Glad you brought that up as I wasn't going to respond to Tesla. http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/20..._mischief.html and http://www.wheels.ca/news/youtube-video-of-minor-accident-on-401-sparks-onslaught-of-threats-racism/

Star article states: "The Ajax man at the centre of an Internet storm caused by a fender bender caught on a dashboard camera has been charged by police in the collision. Raguruban Yogarajah is charged with fraud over $5,000, attempted fraud and public mischief" and most importantly "The OPP investigation into the crash began after the online uproar grew".

Critical pieces of information:
1) The OPP investigated AFTER Sham posted his video and it went viral. The Police DID NOT see the raw video at the scene of the accident.
2) Sham is a experienced video editor: http://hermanphotos.com/ and for-sure modified the video with text and bubbles before posting it to the Internet <-- did he edit the content too?
3) The dash cam evidence did not show that Yogarajah tried to scam $500 from Sham. This is Sham's word against Yogarajah's.
4) Sham's YouTube name has several other cam video of traffic problems. His video is down right now so I can't post a URL here. That's suspicions, is he just after YouTube hits and/or viral videos? IMHO, probably not, but a lawyer may argue otherwise to create FUD.

Being charged and being found guilty are two different things. I did some searching and couldn't find ANY follow-up articles on the net or on the Toronto Star website. We don't know if Yogarajah was found guilty, therefore we don't know if the dash cam evidence and other testimony was considered reliable by a judge. This whole thing could have been thrown-out of court.

Practically speaking, I think they can be relied upon.

Maybe it might not be "the be all and end all" of evidence, but unless there's evidence that it has been tampered with* or is challenged on credible grounds, I don't think they are useless.
........
*you need proof that the chain of evidence is incomplete or has been compromised or that the video has been altered

In principal I agree with your concept, but I'm not a lawyer or judge, so I'm just guessing too. That said, the courts will expect proof that the chain of evidence was indeed intact otherwise I would think a good lawyer could create enough doubt. A judge would have to look at ALL evidence and not base his decision solely on the video provided by one of the people involved.

 

[Promo]

At the end of the day, not matter what that lady did, she couldn't persuade others to believe her concocted scenarios.

It was actually months later that she got caught. During that time the driver of the pick-up took ALLOT of heat. He had received harassment and threats. He was still an ass and obviously lost his temper and he still should be charged, but she's just as scummy and should also be charged IMHO.

Dash cam is there to record what naturally happens. It's not designed to record a played out scenario. It's not a movie maker. And god knows if she only posted certain parts to You Tube. YT postings are not a substitute for the original dash cam recording.

I really doubt that most people have the know-how to edit or introduce CGI effects to alter their own, ORIGINAL, dash cam recordings in order to incriminate others.

I disagree. A camera can be made to show whatever the user wants it to show. At one time only Hollywood could convincingly modify content. Now anybody with a PC, freeware and a little experience can modify videos sufficiently well for YouTube. Most changes won't stand up to the scrutiny of an expert, but how often does an expert get to examine the original video?

Remember, in Tesla's example, the police didn't see the original video when they started the investigation several days later. Plenty of time for the video to be modified.

P.S. Promo, do you have a link to that story about that lady? (Checked now. It's disabled.)

No, I get the same sign-in message. I don't have an account and prefer not to create one. If someone can sign-in and grab her name, I'll try to re-find the links to some of the follow-up stories.

I suspect after the police started to investigate her, she may have pulled the videos in an effort eliminate any evidence against her - but I'm guessing .

 

[TESLAMotors]

Dash cam might prevent a scam artist from getting away with blackmail, or validate the guilt of another party. I can't see why it wouldn't be used in court, in the absence of other evidence, and if it properly date/time stamps the incident with a full view of the other party's I.D. or license plate.

The only thing I read the court/judge would not admit as evidence would be the speed of the car as it's not official and it's 3rd party device, etc, something to that effect.
However, the video is still pretty solid to help you in your case if you need it.

 

[GPIDEAL]

@ Promo

You have absolutely no proof that Sham altered the video. That Yoga guy had a history of insurance claims. Sham never intended for online harassment of Yoga. That's an entirely separate issue.

I'd welcome a dash cam on my car. They're very popular in Russia due to widespread insurance claim fraud. (It isn't an accident that somebody's dash cam filmed that meteoroid speeding through the atmosphere).

You are trying to argue that dash cams are for the most part, unreliable from an evidentiary point of view and that their users have ulterior motives, just from the few bad apples you talk about. No way.

 

[TESLAMotors]

@ Promo

You have absolutely no proof that Sham altered the video. That Yoga guy had a history of insurance claims.

26 offences in FOUR years. Yeah, I'd say that's quite the history.

Sham never intended for online harassment of Yoga. That's an entirely separate issue.

I'd welcome a dash cam on my car. They're very popular in Russia due to widespread insurance claim fraud. (It isn't an accident that somebody's dash cam filmed that meteoroid speeding through the atmosphere).

You are trying to argue that dash cams are for the most part, unreliable from an evidentiary point of view and that their users have ulterior motives, just from the few bad apples you talk about. No way.

I think it's safe to say, the dash cam saved Sham from a lot more bullshit. Good for him.

 

[TESLAMotors]

Hey PROMO, maybe you should head over and interview these people jumping in front of cars randomly and find out why they did it and are they STILL doing it?
Since you're so skeptical that this shit happens, enjoy the video.

0:35 is something along the lines of what happened to me, not as dramatic because I was stopped by then.
The things people will do for money these days, desperate times for sure.