Over 60,000 drivers and riders have sent dashcam footage to the police since 2017, highlighting dangerous driving. One in three cases were actioned by the police, which are encouraging us to upload evidence of law breaking such as use of phones while driving or crossing solid white lines.

“The use of dashcam evidence has been variable across different forces, there have been instances reported to the BMF of recordings of serious incidents, involving serious injuries to riders, with GPS locators and third-party recordings being ignored, for unstated reasons, by local accident investigators. Any attempt to co-ordinate and standardise the way this is done, has to be a good idea. That Lincolnshire is joining the ranks, that’s a positive step. In a county with many rural roads, where traffic enforcement is thinly stretched, this would seem to be especially important.” said BMF Chair Jim Freeman.

Lincolnshire has joined the growing ranks of UK forces which accept dashcam film as evidence of bad driving – 43 forces now accept the footage in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Uploading footage has been made easier by the National Dash Cam Safety Portal (NDCSP) set up by dash cam manufacturer Nextbase in 2017, which provides a single online gateway to uploading to any police force in the country. With dash cams and helmet cams increasingly popular, more riders and drivers are doing just this– by the end of 2020, 52,174 recordings had been uploaded through the NDCSP, with a further 18,168 in 2021. Of the 2020 total, 33.4% of cases were actioned by the police, with 9.6% resulting in a Fixed Penalty Notice, 10.5% in a driver awareness course and 10.3% in a court prosecution.

Lincolnshire Police set up its ‘Operation Snap’ in 2021, encouraging road users to send in any footage of illegal driving. Nikki Mayo, Head of Central Operations at the force, said: “A system to effectively process evidence of road traffic offences and poor driving will assist greatly in dealing with poor driver behaviour that can and does lead to collisions, serious injury and death on the roads of Lincolnshire.”

Send the footage directly to your local police force here

Top image courtesy of Midland Europe 

Words by Peter Henshaw