Cameras have become a key part of traffic enforcement in recent decades. Red light cameras and speed cameras are now common, with new devices now hunting for drivers using mobile phones, too. However, one Australian police force has figured it can go one better by crowdsourcing surveillance to the broader public.
As covered by The Canberra Times, Australian Capital Territory police have created a new online portal to help crack down on traffic crimes. The department has called for the public to share dashcam videos of driving offences in order to dob in (i,e to snitch on) their fellow motorists.
The move has already netted significant results. Since the portal opened in May, police have received 132 reports and issued 25 traffic infringements in turn. ACT police have produced a compilation video, noting that over $7,000 in fines have been issued under the scheme. A further 35 drivers have received caution notices, while six matters are pending investigation.
The compilation includes a number of obvious offences. Drivers can be seen ignoring red lights and pedestrian crossings, cutting off cyclists, and watching videos on their mobile phones. Other offences are on the lesser scale, such as a $316 fine issued for “driving without due care” to an alleged tailgater. With video footage including visible numberplates on hand, it’s easy enough for police to go ahead and issue fine notices to offending drivers.
For now, the measure is being undertaken by police in one of Australia’s smallest territories. The Australian Capital Territory has a population of just 430,000, out of a total of 26 million nationwide. However, other state police forces may follow in the footsteps of ACT Police before long.
Australia has long been an enthusiastic user of traditional camera enforcement technologies. In 2020, the country was ranked 14th in the world for speed camera use, or 10th per capita when adjusted for population. Phone detection cameras have also become an increasingly popular tool for police in recent years.
However, directly soliciting public dash cam submissions marks a new age. Drivers in the ACT must now contend with the fact that any fellow road user could be capturing their mistakes and misdeeds for potential prosecution.
“By using modern technology, and public support to send in footage of driving offences they observe on our roads, police are now able to utilize this footage to ensure drivers are held to account at all times,” officer Mark Richardson told The Canberra Times. “While police are happy to see so many people are already using the online portal, we are very disappointed to see the volume of poor driving behavior occurring daily.”
In some ways, this is a similar doctrine that Australian police have used to enforce other road rules. Unmarked camera cars and surprise random breath tests have long been used as a scare tactic to remind drivers to follow the law at all times. Now, the fear that a fellow road user may be filming is being used to do the same.
If you’ve never been to Australia, you might find the scheme at odds with the country’s laid-back, casual, larrikin nature. In reality, though, Australia is a very rules-heavy society. Fines are heavy for those that break the law, and enforcement is, increasingly, everywhere.
Whether the measure has a serious impact on road safety will be difficult to prove. Police and government will be watching the road toll statistics closely in the coming year in hunt of that evidence. Meanwhile, for road users, getting away with breaking the rules will be harder than ever. It’s difficult, nigh impossible, to argue against video evidence that shows you doing the wrong thing.
Image credits: ACTPolicing via YouTube
The last “entering intersection on red light” in their video isn’t even correct, as the vehicles wheels are clearly on the line before the light turns red. That is “in the intersection” in my book, because the front of the car is ahead of the stop line. I would fight the hell out of that.
Dystopian as fuck. Especially in a world where the technology to modify or fabricate videos is easily and cheaply available.
The AI proponents are currently warming up with some jumping jacks….
The ability to bear false witness has been around since the beginning. Pretty sure the courts know about it.
This seems like it will end people sending in reports for little things like a tail light being out or for someone having a little fun when they are first at the light.
I do wonder if it will result in the police getting overloaded with more data than they can properly analyze, similar to the NSA’s mass collection of the past 23 years
Remember when Budweiser ran Super Bowl ads with those frogs?
That was a fun time.
Omeleto predicted this distopian hellscape more than four years ago:
“UTOPIA” https://youtu.be/vJYaXy5mmA8
Well, well, after how they handles Covid I didn’t think Australia will surprise me with more dystopian ideas but here we go.
The Australian government helps produce a gem of a show called Bluey (if you have young kids, you know). They have an episode that teaches you that “Dobbing” or snitching on every little thing is annoying. Perhaps the government should practice what it preaches…
Funny thing about Bluey, there are a few episodes that they won’t show in the US. No matter how ridiculous AUS laws appear at times, the people there can still handle a balloon popping under a kid’s shirt when she’s playing pregnant, as an allusion to a miscarriage ( a lot of people have dealt with that in real life), but the people in the US can’t handle that type of episode, so it got banned.
It is not “banned”. The network chose not to show that episode as is their right in a Free country. There is a big difference.
Disney effectively banned it, by not making it available in the US. Their decision behind it is likely equal parts political blowback from the people who don’t know how to talk to their kids about sensitive topics, and also what the FCC allows, or what borders on acceptable to the FCC.
Yes it is Disney’s right, because companies have free speech, but the reason they won’t show it is because of the political blowback. Meanwhile the episode was created in coordination with a different government, that can often times be more restrictive. Its an interesting juxtaposition of what we consider free, and how we as people react to situations mannnny people have experienced.
It’s not that the US can’t “handle” it. It’s more so that the loss of ad revenue doesn’t support it.
Right, wrong, or indifferent, the bottom line is the bottom line. No consideration of morality is involved.
Demographic fluffing is all it is.
Where does the loss of ad revenue come from?
It comes from parents telling kids they can’t watch the show anymore, because the parents can’t handle questions on real life issues.
What?
Ok, I guess if you wanna go down this path…
None of this has anything to do with the capabilities of an individual parent. Shit, you could be the “best” parents in the world, but if your techniques don’t align with whatever some polls/surveys/sales data/interweb traction eeks out, then you don’t get the episode because it won’t persuade you to buy some stuff. It all only deals with end-of-day sales, and that’s it.
How do people still not know that they are the vessel to consume, and for no other reason, in the eyes of EVERY business? There is no morality, or skill assessment (lol) involved.
I can’t be the only one that understands consumerism, can I?
I read your post 6 times now, and I still can’t understand it.
This has all gone too far. My comment was meant to illustrate the wildly different issues that Aussies and Americans can find issues with, and either over regulate away, or take the action of a free market “ban”.
People’s personal feelings and opinions are how those surveys generate the data to say what people will watch. There is a large portion of this country that is uncomfortable with any reproductive talk around children. These people’s opinions fill in these polls/surveys/etc, and spit out info to Disney that says parents will make kids stop watching if we air this episode. Then, and only then, is revenue affected.
You portray it as the episode has no sales potential directly tied to it (but it did in AUS), however the reality is, if this one episode aired, the sales potential of all episodes after will go down because viewers’ parents don’t like the topics.
“This has all gone too far.”
Yep, I’m tapping out on this one. I don’t actually care all that much.
Either way, have a good day.
I don’t believe “The Show” was banned by Disney? I’ve seen it a bunch of times (I have kids, 3 and 6, and we’ve watched probably entirely too much Bluey at this point). “Dad Baby” however, the network has never shown or released. And there are a lot of episodes that Disney forced minor edits for US audiences, mostly because we suck I guess.
Semi-related, it’s an awesome show. It might be the best thing on TV right now, lol.
ALL HAIL THE LONG DOGS
My blue heeler dog absolutely freaks out and barks when either the music or the characters appear on TV. That is the only show that gets her attention. Coincidence?
I’m of two minds on this. Some people will use this for good. Which is the objective. However, most people will use it as an opportunity to turn in their enemies. Your bogan neighbors didn’t signal driving home from Woolies? Snitch time!
The phone cameras I’m more or less fine with. The number of distracted drivers on their phones is ridiculous. It’s a primary offense where I live so an officer can stop someone for being on their phone. It’s also standard procedure in any driving accident lawsuit to subpoena phone records to go fishing for distracted driving.
“However, most people will use it as an opportunity to turn in their enemies. Your bogan neighbors didn’t signal driving home from Woolies? Snitch time!”
Some maybe. I think “most people” wouldn’t bother. For those that do I expect most such submissions will go right into the trash.
OTOH those does give your hypothetical person a harmless way to vent.
It’s not harmless to have to defend against malicious complaints. Especially when the police are involved. Time off work to deal with it, needing to pay an attorney, higher insurance costs and the mental anguish that comes with fighting someone using the power of the state to further a personal feud.
I get it, but I don’t like it.
Oh how will they ever make up the funding lost through traffic citations once autonomous driving arrives?
Wait if a robot car does something that violates the law, who gets the ticket?
I am not only going to sit on the fence about this topic, I will become the fence. This has so many good outcomes, and so many terrible outcomes I can’t make a decision.
There have many times I wish I could send a dash video to cops, like the time a guy rolled coal on my Fiesta ST, then passed 6 cars on the shoulder to roll coal on a Pruis, then speed down the shoulder to the exit.
But the fact that the Hyundai got fined for following too closely to the Mazda is CRAZY! Taking a small snip of a video from a passerby should not be means for legal enforcement(of a minor infraction), especially for something that can’t be measured in the video.
If this system were used to send warnings and notices only, letting drivers know the Gov’t is watching and paying attention, I would be more on board. $300.00 fines because someone may have brake checked you, and another driver only got you being to close on video seems like this will abused for revenue.
Agree completely. For “egregious” issues I support, for BS crap, it’s a nuisance, but this is a slippery slope for what classifies as “egregious” and up to interpretation that can swing wildly depending on who is “in power” at the time.
Watch ‘horrible driver’ dashcam videos on youtube.
It’s a solid 80% dashcam owner refusing to let someone merge in and then calling the other driver a maniac. These are the people who will be reporting you.
Yeah, I both love and have reservations about this at the same time. I guess let ACT be the guinea pig and see how it goes.
But, this is potentially a good way to crack down on dangerous behavior the police usually don’t bother with themselves due to the singular focus on speeding. Tailgating, unsecured loads, not signaling turns or lane changes, driving in the dark with headlights off, etc, all extremely common and nobody seems to care
I am become fence, the destroyer of hot takes.
Indeed, like yourself, I am quite torn about this development. In one sense, the idea of catching the most overt reckless drivers seems a win, especially as law enforcement cannot catch all of them. Better they get the attention of law enforcement before they end up seriously injuring/killing someone on a public road.
However, the potential for abuse and harassment for minor infractions seems quite juicy, especially for the subset of the population that loves overzealous law enforcement. Many of the ACT cases posted would seem to fall into this category.
So, I would probably restrict the use of dashcam submissions to the prosecution of the most dangerous drivers. Have fun writing that law or drafting that policy.
Indeed, if I was in such a position with the ACT Police Service, I would effectively implement such a policy to preserve the standing of the police in the community. If you think people have problems with law enforcement right now, malicious prosecution of small-time infractions via dashcam footage will absolutely erode public confidence.
Actual stasi shit, normalizing turning people into informers on each other. No and fuck no.
I came here to post the same thing. History shows us that people reporting on other people doesn’t end up well.
Could I spend all day recording idiots hogging the left lane, and idiots holding their phones in their hands, eating pizza, doing their makeup, etc etc? Sure. But again, people reporting on people doesn’t take us to a good place.
The police have a job. They can do it.
No they can’t. That’s the point.
“History shows us that people reporting on other people doesn’t end up well.”
History also shows people sitting back and not calling others on their bullshit is worse.
I personally feel like everyone in society has a duty to call people out on egregious bad behavior, otherwise people will learn they can get away with it and get worse. I’m not talking nitpicking, but full on bad faith/dangerous/etc type of actions that can have serious impacts.
Got something to hide do ya?
I’m going to assume you’re in good faith only have an agenda for public safety and not expanding a panopticon or weaponizing it against your political opposition.
Yes I do have something to hide. While this is in Australia and is probably not designed to be malicious, just poorly-considered, me going to an abortion clinic or gun shop is none of anyone’s fucking business. Not even the car manufacturer’s and DEFINITELY not the “concerned citizen” that can now use the state’s power to harass me because they don’t like that.
That’s quite a slippery slope you’re perched on. It needs no police portal though, Tik tok, youtube and other such shaming sites already exist.
Yeah, shaming. Ineffective, but also impermanent if there’s a mistake unlike directly priming the men with guns to look at this person with suspicion.
Now, we can get on ‘why cops are trigger-happy’ and the attendant gun control carousel or we can just agree to disagree.
You really think someone caught violating a traffic law on a dashcam is going to get men with guns knocking on their door?
Pretty sure its going to be a ticket in the mail from a computer with no guns.
Don’t we have armed drones now?
Tickets could certainly be delivered by a computer with a gun.
What’s stopping that now?
Cost.
Once we can get the ticket volumes up with the assistance of our Rat Army, the gun drones will make more economical sense.
Why would you need expensive flying drones at all? Just deputize the local gun nut militias. They’ll do it for free!
Duh. They’re ground drones like those creepy Boston Dynamics dogs.
The gun nuts will be busy checking brown people for their papers.
Oh there are enough gun nuts for everyone.
Some will be running the camps.
Well I suppose we’ll see what happens in November.
Yes, this is the basis of all state power- the legal monopoly on organized violence. If you ignore the ticket and the summons, at some point armed officers of the state will show up at your place of residence and take you to prison, and if you resist they will engage in lawful violence.
Laws exist only if they are enforced, so either these tickets are bullshit that can be ignored by anyone who receives them, or the state ultimately backs them up with the thread of organized and armed violence, there is no other way.
Then don’t ignore the ticket or the summons.
Er, is this supposed to be a gotcha?
“Don’t ignore the summons, otherwise the state will sanction violence against you” is a very definite affirmative answer to “You really think someone caught violating a traffic law on a dashcam is going to get men with guns knocking on their door?”
Thanks for playing Stasi Simulator, Kangaroo Edition.
Hyperbole much?
You watch way too much TV. There is a huge difference between “men with guns” breaking down your door with those guns drawn vs politely knocking on your door with those weapons holstered or even in the car. By ignoring the ticket then the summons you may have shown contempt for the court. If so that adds a whole new layer to your case; however there might be a good reason you never got back to them. You might have since become homeless with no mailing address or you may be in a coma somewhere, maybe there was a fire, how is the court to know unless they send someone out to check? That someone(s) may have a badge and a gun if you have a record that deserves such caution or that someone might be an unarmed college student looking to earn a few extra bucks as a process server.
Lol, I don’t own a TV, but I do have a bunch of bookshelves and one of the books on them is Leviathan. Give it a read one of these days, it will fill in the gaps nicely. Your argument appears to be that no reasonable person would not offer compliance with the orders of the court, but you haven’t finished the thought- reasonable people indeed offer compliance because any functional judicial system has the ability to compel compliance through lawful force: a bunch of armed officers will eventually drag you in front of a magistrate by force if necessary if you refuse to comply. This is the basis of all functional state governments, there are no successful alternatives. It is not hyperbole to point this out, but it is delusion to think otherwise.
Or he’s talking about TX, where citizens can bring charges against other citizens for one of the mentioned activities.
Which is unrelated to traffic safety.
I know. Bad driving can actually cause a risk to others.
And its worth pointing out the footage was taken by someone put at risk.
We’re all at risk.
Maybe that unfortunate pedestrian was going to grow up to be a TikTok star.
Nobody ever talks about the benefits of tall pickup hoods.
Is “Cheap Bastard” your real name? If not, what are you hiding? Hmmm?
I love the taste of hypocrisy in the morning…
Hiding it? It’s how I introduce myself at parties.
His first name is Cheap, but real last name is Snow. Changed it Bastard on the internets, so no one knows which kingdom he actually came from.
Wrong!
Its “Blackfyre.”
Ahhh, A legitimized bastard, that checks out.
All bastards are legit.
While I’d normally agree, public behavior on public roads using multi-ton machines capable killing people is a different scenario than ratting out your neighbor for reading the wrong kind of book.
The behavior I’ve seen on the road that should have 100% lead to an arrest and loss of license is way too frequent to assume that existing efforts are working.
That’s fine. The cops (inasmuch as they can be everywhere at once) need to step up traffic enforcement then.
Glad you agree. Now start posting some dashcam footage!
At the very least send the cops a link to someone who stupidly posted their own footage for clicks.
They suck up enough municipal resources as it is.
Let them outsource the filming of reckless behavior and let somebody who’s not a cop verify and screen the footage before escalating to the law.
So you agree too. Good.
Probably for the best you edited out the part about parents.
Yeah it was just going to invite an escalation of everyone signalling what a great tribe member they are and I really don’t want to do that here.
Definitely has me wondering whether I’d ever want to drive in Canberra again.
This has been a thing in lots of Asian countries for many years now. Essentially since the invention of the dashcam.
I’m strongly against govt cameras, but I kind of like this idea…? Enforcement today sucks because it’s mostly centered on revenue collection from ambushing speeders, and speeding by itself is IMO way down the list of dangerous driving practices. To catch the worst offenders (people weaving recklessly, ignoring crosswalks, forcing bikes off the road, applying makeup at 75mph etc) a cop has to be in exactly the right place at the right time, and then put themselves at risk in a traffic stop. Which is why most bad driving doesn’t get caught.
That said, I would require a full minute of video before and after to make sure the officer sees the full context of the infraction.
A camera being used to persecute citizens IS a government camera, regardless of who ordered it from Amazon (or bought it on gumtree).
Is the issuance of a moving violation really persecution tho?
When my a-hole neighbor can do it, yes.
Your a-hole neighbor is only testifying. Its the court that prosecutes.
You never met my neighbor. I have a nice corner in the basement ready for that jerk.
We all have that neighbor lol
I don’t have a problem with it.
That’s some cold-blooded shit right there.
I forgot this was Australia for a second and couldn’t figure out why the last driver was getting fined for the passenger using their phone.
I’d like to report a bunch of people driving on the wrong side of the road.
#COTD
reporting half the world’s population would help the city budget. I’d even settle for a 1.5% cut.
Someone’s firing on all ten cylinders early this morning! 🙂
(Side note: The more I see your username, the more I want to drive a Viper!)
Many such cases!
That would be amazing if they adopted that here in the US. If I installed a dashcam, I’m certain I’d be able to report enough motorists to fund half of the municipal operating budget.
I have dashcams, and while the idea has crossed my mind, I’ve only once had even the notion of sending what I’d seen to authorities, and it was “just” somebody driving fast on the highway and weaving between lanes, with little gap between other vehicles.
But I have no idea where live-and-let-live begins and ends, and nobody was hit or driven off the road, so…I dropped the line of thought.
But I’d be happy to provide footage if I witnessed an accident or someone hit me.
Yeah considering how much shit I used to see daily commuting in Boston I’m kind of ok with this. People know to watch for cops and the chances of a cop being there when they do colossally dumb shit is low, but maybe if they knew anyone could report them people would be more apt to follow the law.
Exactly. Many drivers, at least in my area, of the US perform so much reckless, life-endangering maneuvers that it easily trumps the whole, “don’t be a snitch” thing. I get the speeding or a late yellow run, I really do, but when you’re cutting off people on one lane roads, passing in no passing zones, speeding by schools or 15 MPH roads with no sidewalks, nope, not cool.
The thing about speeding in this context is if someone catches you doing it on their dashcam you weren’t speeding on an empty, open highway. You were creating an unsafe speed gradient.
Technically true, but I’d want to limit video enforcement to super-obvious non-speeding infractions, given the difficulty of objectively assessing speed from a video. Reckless driving, weaving in and out of traffic, blatant red light running, that sort of thing. The kind of stuff the current lazy method of enforcement (sitting on a shoulder with a radar gun) never catches.
“Technically true, but I’d want to limit video enforcement to super-obvious non-speeding infractions, given the difficulty of objectively assessing speed from a video.”
Simple enough to record the GPS and OBD2 speed of the observer and see on the video someone is moving faster than that.
I see so much stupid stuff, I’d love this here in the US. Even if it just resulted in scary warnings, it would help.
I’ve been wanting to be able to do this for years. There was one time years ago I think I sent in dashcam footage to the highway patrol after I called in a tow truck driver who slowed down to 20 mph below the speed limit in the left lane of the interstate next to a truck, lowered his tow bar, and proceeded to repeatedly aggressively brake check someone behind him.
I get how this is a slippery slope but also, fuck drivers (people?) these days. I drive, bike and walk and it’s dangerous no matter what I do. People running red lights, blocking intersections because their rush is more important than everyone else’s rush,etc.- we’re all drivers, we all see it on a daily basis.
People don’t seem to realize (care?) that something like running a red light turns into manslaughter real quick. Then you got all the time in the world to sit in your jail cell and realize that the thing you were rushing to get to wasn’t all that important.
At this rate, I welcome measures like red light cameras at every intersection, or this. I will say though, if I’m snitching on someone, I want a cut of the profit off the ticket.
Australia, I’m disappointed.
The police are handing the work off to citizens so they can sit around eating donuts! Or whatever the Aussie equivalent to donuts is! I’m guessing it would include kangaroos or kiwi birds somehow!
It means police don’t have to detail officers to watch all the dashcam videos posted on Facebook and TikTok.
Snitches get stitches
Stitch incoming
Well when healthcare is so unaffordable you do what ya gotta do.
Dobbers get clobbered.
They’re crowdsourcing revenue. I want 15% of the tickets I generate since I’m doing your job.
City of New York compensates those who photograph and report cars that are double-parked.
AKA snitches get riches. From what I’ve heard though the payout is incredibly slow, so the people doing it aren’t really in it for the money.
It is very slow, but frankly, if you’re truly double-parked, not just hovering with your 4-way flashers, you get what’s coming to you. And a ticket is better than the more traditional tire-slashing.
Mainly just for the personal satisfaction of being a rat?
I’m sure some of it is petty, but I won’t shed a tear for anyone who parked in the bicycle lane or left their vehicle idling for 30 minutes.
Spoken like someone with a closet full of skeletons.
Basement, too. Mind your business.
And that is how evil flourishes.
That I’m okay with since double parking is a legitimate impediment to traffic and emergency vehicles.
Yikes.
Just yikes…