Image: Cycling UK
Cycling UK has welcomed the Scottish Government’s move to develop a new national dashcam reporting portal for Police Scotland.
Funding for the portal was announced earlier this month, to the tune of £300k, as part of a wider package designed to put active travel at the heart of the country’s transport policy.
The Scottish Government hopes the portal will make it easier to report crimes that put other road users, particularly cyclists and pedestrians, in danger.
Such systems are already in use in 40 of the 45 police force areas in the UK.
Cycling UK has welcomed the funding for the portal, having campaigned for its introduction.
In March 2021, Cycling UK led a group of 33 organisations – including the AA, the RAC and Brake – in writing an open letter to Police Scotland, making the case for a system that allows members of the public to upload footage of dangerous driving and other road crimes.
Jim Densham, Cycling UK’s policy and campaigns manager for Scotland, said: “Following our campaigning, Cycling UK is extremely pleased to see Transport Scotland and Police Scotland’s commitment to introducing a national dashcam safety portal which will help responsible road users provide evidence of dangerous and careless driving.
“Roads police officers can’t be everywhere on the roads but as the use of dashcams and helmetcams continues to grow, they can provide added eyes on the road collecting valuable evidence.”
This is timed well with the release of a new app for smartphones that enables pedestrians to capture and upload a video of a speeding car together with a report that has analysed the video and provides evidence of the speed. The app itself does not detect the speed. A short video clip is automatically uploaded to a cloud based server which uses AI to determine the time taken for the two wheels to pass the same point on the road, hence determining the speed by reference to the wheelbase for that particular vehicle.
This video and report may then be used to upload to dashcam portals as evidence of Section 59 offences.
You can read much more about it at http://www.20splenty.org/speedcamanywhere
Rod King, Lymm
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