Does it do any good to send the video to the police? Or do the cops have to witness the crime themselves?
It is evidence of a crime which the police can use. The police can’t arrest someone just because you say you saw them commit a crime, they need more evidence than that, and a video recording is very good evidence if it shows the crime.
It very much depends on the nature of the incident.
If your complaint is that a particular vehicle was speeding then the police probably would take no action based upon a video. It would be too difficult to verify exact location, and accuracy of whatever you are using to assess the speed of the other vehicle. The police just aren;t going to put forth much effort for a speeding ticket.
But if your video shows a more serious incident, say a shooting or stabbing, then they probably would take it very seriously and open an investigation if this was the first report.
Um, yeah, if by ‘crime’ you mean minor traffic offenses then don’t bother. But if there’s an accident down the road and you can show one of the cars involved driving erratically then it would be valuable.
That would make a lot of investigations difficult. Most murders, for example, are not committed in the presence of a police officer.
But with a murder there is physical evidence left behind demonstrating that a crime had occurred. Someone runs a stop sign or red light without causing an accident, not so much.
Moving violations are often not classified as crimes, and have different regulations. In some jurisdictions I believe that police must witness some types of moving violations to give a ticket but in many jurisdictions that isn’t required. It’s rare in either case.
OTOH, red light cameras are doing exactly that. They’re legal in some places, not legal in others.
Point. But the OP only specifies “breaking the law” and a dashcam recording so a reasonable scenario is running a red light.
On this point, a police officer can always arrest someone for any crime committed in his or her presence, without a warrant. If the crime occurred outside the officer’s presence, he or she can arrest without a warrant if the crime was a felony (as opposed to just a misdemeanor) and the officer has probable cause to believe that this person is the perp, or for any crime if there is a warrant.
So, if you record someone running a traffic light at reckless speed, the police officer arriving after the fact could use your video as the basis for obtaining a warrant and could go arrest the driver after securing one. If your video showed the driver running a traffic light at reckless speed to run over his or her ex-spouse in the crosswalk while yelling “I’ll kill you!”, the police probably could arrest the driver on the basis of the video alone.
I’m speaking generally here. State law may vary. I’m not your lawyer and this is not legal advice.
That’s basically my plan for my dashcam - to provide evidence in case somebody hits me. I spoke to a cop about it and basically he said that if I capture the impact and get a license plate the cops would have somewhat of a reason to track the other driver and ask questions. Better than nothing, but the dashcam was only $20 and my new-ish car is only 3 years old. I wasn’t as worried when I was driving my previous 20 year old truck. But now I want to take care of this vehicle. Hopefully I won’t have to deal with it but that’s the plan.
My greater concern is liability, if somebody claims you are at fault in an accident that injures or kills somebody. That’s when huge sums can be at stake, far more than the value of a car.
Agreed. But it cuts both ways: The camera footage can also prove you were at fault.
(Huh? Sorry. Camera’s broken. It just spontaneously cracked in half.)
I’ve often said that dash cams should have a big red DELETE ALL button.
Yes, they can.
That’s why all those YouTube accident videos seem to be from Russia. Causing a wreck and blaming you for it is a national past time so lotsa drivers have a cam in self-defense.
In Soviet Russia accident causes you.
Most moving violations are against the driver, not the vehicle*, so unless your cam gets a good shot of the driver doing whatever moving violation, PD won’t even consider it.
Certain dashcams (Garmin’s in particular) can display speed. However, 1) this is probably not calibrated enough for the PD to use & 2) If you’re pacing the vehicle (keeping a set distance behind it), you just gave the PD evidence that you were speeding, too. :smack:
OTOH, if you’re sitting first car at a light, & a car crosses perpendicular to your path & travels the entire intersection at, say, ¼ second, when it should take ½ second at legal speed, you know that car was doing 2x the speed limit because speed can easily be calculated from a set time to get between a set distance.
- Red light cams are the exception, at least in this state.
No they can’t. A simple accusation is not probable cause. There has to be some evidence to back up your claim. It doesn’t have to be much, but the police have to establish that a crime was committed.
Eye witness testimony is evidence. Let’s start using cites. I’ll go first.
A criminal defense attorney in FL:
https://www.avvo.com/legal-answers/can-i-be-arrested-based-on-what-a-witness-seen-and-971022.html
From the book Criminal Procedure: Edition 2 by Matthew Lippman
More:
Establishing that a crime was committed isn’t done by the police; it’s done in criminal proceedings.
You don’t have to be pacing someone to show that they’re speeding. If your recording shows that you’re going the speed limit, and also shows that someone passed you very quickly, then that’s evidence that they were going faster than the limit. If the police don’t act based on that, then it’s probably just a matter of low priorities, rather than not having any evidence.
Evidence is not probable cause. It’s what probable cause is made of.
Nope it’s not low priorities, we are not allowed to sign the complaint. You as the witness who is accusing someone else has the right to sign a motor vehicle summons. If someone had video they thought was proof of another driver speeding I would point them to the court window.