# If you record someone breaking the law on your dashcam **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 1, 2018, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-record-someone-breaking-the-law-on-your-dashcam/809796 "2018-03-01T03:09:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-record-someone-breaking-the-law-on-your-dashcam/809796/21 "2018-03-03T20:01:36Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > Evidence is not probable cause. It’s what probable cause is made of. I’m using the word “evidence” somewhat loosely but in context. Tripolar said: _A simple accusation is not probable cause. There has to be some evidence to back up your claim._ I’m following Tripolar’s use of “evidence.” I did not say that evidence **is** probable cause, I said that eyewitness testimony is evidence, which admittedly was phrased rather sloppily. I’ll amend that to: _Eyewitness testimony is often sufficient to constitute probable casue_. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-record-someone-breaking-the-law-on-your-dashcam/809796/22 "2018-03-03T20:04:41Z")
> [@Loach](#): > > 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. I’m still not too clear on how this works. If I’m a credible witness (a sober passer-by) and I see an attempted murder (somebody shoots somebody on the street) and record it on my dashcam, that’s something the police would surely pursue based on the evidence of my testimony and my recording, even if the victim disappears (no body). But you’re saying there is a legal (rather than policy) difference with less serious offenses. What is the distinction, exactly? Is it a question of whether it’s a criminal offense? Or non-criminal traffic offenses in particular? ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-record-someone-breaking-the-law-on-your-dashcam/809796/23 "2018-03-03T22:26:34Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > But you’re saying there is a legal (rather than policy) difference with less serious offenses. What is the distinction, exactly? Is it a question of whether it’s a criminal offense? Or non-criminal traffic offenses in particular? Based on the phrasing used by someone claiming to be a Deputy sheriff in Illinois in the quote below, eyewitness testimony in his jurisdiction is enough for a cop to issue a citation. He says the complaint must be “specific enough to serve as the basis for a citation” and doesn’t mention any other evidence needed for the summons to be issued and is based on the complainant’s word. > [@](#): > > Here in Central Illinois, it’s not unheard of for a driver to call in a complaint about someone’s driving and then follow that person until an officer gets to them and stops the guy. Standard procedure is to take a written statement from the complainant, and, if the complaint is specific enough to serve as the basis for a citation, that citation is issued on the complainant’s word. > **[If I record an egregious traffic violation on my dash cam, can I turn it over...](https://www.quora.com/If-I-record-an-egregious-traffic-violation-on-my-dash-cam-can-I-turn-it-over-to-police)** > > Answer (1 of 4): I was on my way home from working at the PD after my overnight shift. At about 6:20 am I was waiting to make a left turn at a red light. I finally got the green arrow, and slowly entered the intersection. I caught some movement to... ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [March 3, 2018, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-record-someone-breaking-the-law-on-your-dashcam/809796/24 "2018-03-03T23:16:00Z")
Loach, I’ve got an idea. How about we make it so that autonomous cars rat out everyone on the road they see breaking the law, automatically? There would be this auto-generated set of reports on each driver, sent automatically to your department. You could then sort by worst driver. Once there are enough autonomous vehicles on the road, they would be able to observe every single violation a human driven vehicle makes, tracking them by license plate. And then all the autonomous cars running autonomy software from the same manufacturer could upload reports and their evidence to a server when the car is parked in wifi range, and the server could collate the reports by license plate and state of registration. So you could find that “Joe Smoe” was seen speeding 1503 times, he was seen changing lanes without signaling 103 times, making dangerous maneuvers that could cause a collision 53 times, his left tailight is out, and so on. And each of these reports there is a small video, available both raw and with onscreen graphics auto-generated by the autonomous car where the machine shows why it thinks a violation happened. Some reports, multiple autonomous cars would have seen the same incident from multiple angles. The reason autononous car manufacturers would do this is to get as many licenses revoked as possible, which makes things safer for occupants of their cars, as well as increases the demand for autonomy. It lets them show just how bad human drivers really are. There would probably be thousands of people who have been seen making thousands of violations. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-record-someone-breaking-the-law-on-your-dashcam/809796/25 "2018-03-04T03:40:15Z")
> [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](#): > > 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. The problem I forsee with this is dash cams usually point forward so your far more likely to record yourself rear ending someone than to catch someone rear ending you. Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk ---
**Author:** ![x-ray\_vision](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/x-ray_vision/32/351_2.png) [@x-ray\_vision](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/x-ray_vision)\ **Post date:** [March 4, 2018, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-record-someone-breaking-the-law-on-your-dashcam/809796/26 "2018-03-04T04:12:34Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > The problem I forsee with this is dash cams usually point forward so your far more likely to record yourself rear ending someone than to catch someone rear ending you. True, but getting rear ended is usually more straight forward than other types of accidents, so having video evidence of getting rear ended isn’t as helpful as accidents from the front and sides. Like this: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/MyPQN8vgH-M/maxresdefault.jpg "I Crashed My Camry - Car Accident Caught on Dashcam") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyPQN8vgH-M) But getting multiple angles that include the rear is cheap enough now. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-record-someone-breaking-the-law-on-your-dashcam/809796.md?page=1)