“Making our roads safer through intelligence and technology” 
Alan Featherstone - Assistant Chief Constable (ret) 
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Vigilantes Take To The Streets 
Members of the public are taking matters into their own hands as ex police chief provokes human rights campaigners. Liberty’s view is that the large-scale expansion of cameras watching the public in recent years poses a threat to our way of life... 
- click to read more 
 
Now imagine .... thousands - if not tens of thousands - of mobile traffic cameras on our roads. Not fitted to high visibility police vehicles, but installed in private cars, rusty old vans, lorries making deliveries, and even public buses, coaches and taxis. 
 
Controversial even in its name, PoliceWitness.com recruits and encourages ‘Visualantes’ to capture 
acts of dangerous driving on video and then report these incidents via a website. The reports are then forwarded to specific, dedicated contacts within each police force for consideration of prosecution or 
indeed (for better or worse, depending on your view) a stern letter. 
 
The former ACC of Northamptonshire police, Alan Featherstone, was never far from controversy in his role as a senior police officer; however with front line policing cuts it would seem his private crusade in retirement is being met with public enthusiasm. 
 
Ex-ACC Featherstone said: “Our research has indicated that people are simply not going to sit back during these policing cuts, the public want people who flout the law, and put the lives of others in 
jeopardy, held to account.” He added “With fewer officers and working speed cameras on our streets I have personally already seen people’s driving styles change for the worse. Nearly every time I get into my car I see some idiot take a risk not just with their own life, but with others ... how many times have you witnessed a close call? ... Exactly my point ...” 
 
The thought of Cameron’s Big Society springs to mind as so called ‘Police Witnesses’ take to our roads, cameras in hand, with justice in mind. However, for PoliceWitness.com, driving offences are just the start: the power of the digital video camera is immense when obtaining independent evidence of any crime, it’s like having thousands of unmarked police cars on our streets - organised crime and 
lawless youths beware! 
 
Road related incidents aside, think about the immense amount of intelligence the police will obtain with literally thousands of evidential video clips being submitted from the general public. Police forces across the country are already interested in the opportunities which come from this initiative, with implications for use in Neighbourhood Policing as well as fighting crime. 
 
But is it legal? 
 
Yes, the fact is we all have a perfectly legitimate right to film or take pictures in public. So fear not. 
 
PoliceWitness.com says: 
"PoliceWitness.com provides a service not found anywhere else, and that service is not only to the public but to the police themselves across the whole of the British Isles. 
 
Our background, and our commitment to the best traditions of the police as a public service, meant that - in developing our concept to benefit the public - we put just as much effort into ensuring that the benefits to the police service massively outweighed the minimal resource implications. 
 
This is a service which will transform both the public and professional approach to road safety, and do so at minimal cost - the perfect solution!" 
The end of boy racers? High-tech key system allows parents to limit top speed of their family car for teenagers 
For parents worried about lending their precious car to their even more precious teenage children, it sounds like the answer to their prayers. 
 
An electronic system will be fitted to new Ford cars from next year that will force young motorists to drive safely when they ask to borrow the family motor. 
- click to read more 
 
The system will limit the car’s top speed and even stop teenagers turning the volume up too high on the stereo. 
 
The safety feature, which has already been dubbed ‘teenage mode’, springs into action when the young driver uses a special second car key. 
 
Officially known as MyKey, the system is programmable by parents, allowing them to set a top speed of between 45mph and 80mph. 
 
Once the car reaches a certain speed, a chime sounds, and the car plays a spoken warning to slow down. 
 
The system also features an early warning when the driver is running low on fuel. 
 
Another safety feature is ‘emergency assistance’ in the event of a crash serious enough to trigger the passenger airbags. 
 
If there is such a collision, the car’s on-board computer will send a message through the mobile phone network to the emergency services. The message will include the co-ordinates of the accident. 
 
It is not only ‘boy racers’ whose antics will be curtailed, but teenage girl drivers, too. 
 
Ford cites research which shows that while excessive speed is the cause of 30 per cent of accidents involving young male drivers, it is also the cause of 21 per cent of accidents with young female drivers. 
 
Paul Mascarena, Ford’s chief technical officer, said of MyKey: ‘It’s targeted at young drivers, though it is useful for fleet operators as well.’ 
 
The car maker said that it had feared the ‘electronic spy’ would prove unpopular with teenagers, but initial trials in America have proven otherwise. 
 
It was found that parents were more willing to lend their car with the safety feature operating. 
 
‘We were concerned that children would see it as Big Brother watching them,’ said Mr Mascarena. ‘But they are now getting more access to the vehicle. And from a parental perspective, there is peace of mind.’ 
 
Ford said research shows that 46 per cent of parents say speeding is their biggest worry while their offspring are driving, followed by talking on mobile phones while at the wheel (37 per cent) and their child being distracted by others in the car (35 per cent). 
 
Matthew Avery, crash and safety research manager at safety testing company Thatcham, said it was possible insurance companies might reduce young drivers’ insurance premiums for using the system. 
 
MyKey will be introduced into all new Fords in Britain next year. 
 
The move was welcomed by a spokesman for London Ambulance Service, who said: ‘We work closely with the other emergency services to try to educate young people about the dangers of speeding. 
 
‘It can sometimes come down to peer pressure, but the results can be devastating for themselves, their passengers, families and other road users. 
 
‘Our staff can also be affected by responding to calls where youngsters have been killed or seriously injured and it is even sadder because a lot of the most serious incidents could be avoided.’ 
 
Source: dailymail.co.uk 02/09/2011 
To read the full story click here 
PoliceWitness.com says: 
"Full marks to Ford for trying. 
 
Only 2 out of 10 for achieving. 
Sadly, using a blunt instrument will rarely achieve a successful operation. People do not have to wait to buy a new car in order to have a solution to the problems which Ford seeks to address. That solution can be far more refined and massively more effective for a fraction of the cost. 
 
Installing a camera and ‘black box’ technology in your car will not only allow you to identify precisely how your teenage child is driving, it can also allow you to monitor it on a live basis if you wish, and to see precisely where, when and by whom it is being driven. 
 
It's what the Americans call a ‘no-brainer’." 
- click to read more 
 
 
'Perfect storm' of fraud, rising injury bills and high crash rates hits cover for young drivers 
Young drivers in some parts of Britain are in the midst of a 'perfect storm' that threatens to price them off the road through unrealistic insurance. 
 
A combination of widespread fraud, rising injury costs and the high accident rate of inexperienced drivers has led many insurers to shun wide swathes of the country. 
- click to read more 
 
Men aged between 17 and 20 are paying an average of £4,006 a year for comprehensive cover, a staggering rise of £1,511 in the past two years. 
 
The figure for young women in the same age bracket is £2,151, up £1,335 in the past two years, according to the latest Towers Watson/confused. com car insurance price index. But this average masks some blackspots where the price of cover has gone through the roof and beyond. 
 
As was reported last week, one 20-year-old female student from Bradford, West Yorkshire, was quoted a ridiculous £53,000 to insure her Vauxhall Corsa. Even after shopping around, the best deal was £5,000, still more than double the average cost for a driver of her age. 
 
Graeme Trudgill of the British Insurance Brokers' Association says younger drivers in some areas are trapped in a vicious three-way squeeze. 
 
'Insurers look at the accident statistics and know that someone aged under 21 is ten times more likely to make a claim than someone aged 50 or over,' he says. 'Also, when they do claim, the costs on average are more than twice as high.' 
 
On top of this, dearer personal injury claims are driving all premiums higher. At the same time insurers are treading far more cautiously in some areas where fraud and losses from uninsured drivers are highest. Insurers uncovered a record 40,000 bogus motor claims last year. 
 
Dan Clark of broker Adrian Flux in King's Lynn, Norfolk, which specialises in insuring younger drivers, says: 'Even on some of our younger driver schemes there are areas where it is virtually impossible to obtain cover at any price.' 
 
Simon Warsop, director of pricing at Aviva, says insurers now have more detailed information on each area and this has led to a wider variation in premiums. 'There is a bigger gap between the good postcodes and the bad postcodes,' he says. 
 
Source: dailymail.co.uk 27/08/2011 
To read the full story click here 
PoliceWitness.com says: 
"If people simply spent a few pounds on a quality in-car camera, or better still a camera with ‘black box’ capabilities, they could help themselves immensely - and in the course of doing so help resolve all the issues in this article. 
 
‘Crash for cash’ - responsible for a huge proportion of these bogus claims - would be effectively eradicated from our roads if the majority of drivers used such equipment. Who says so? 
The senior detective responsible for addressing these issues across the Metropolitan police area. 
 
The same equipment would demonstrate immediately who was at fault in a collision, and it would demonstrate precisely the driving standards of any young person. So what? 
 
So, no longer would huge premiums be passed on to millions of innocent drivers. Anyone taking out insurance and driving like an idiot would know that future insurance would at best be extremely expensive and potentially would consign them to riding on buses for years to come. 
 
What is needed? All the insurance companies have to do is require the use of such equipment whenever the vehicle is driven on the road in order for the policy to be valid. 
 
Simples!!" 
 
 
 
Fined after parking for exactly 17 seconds: Spy cameras hit innocent drivers as tickets soar fivefold 
Persecuted motorists are being handed five times as many parking tickets as they were a decade ago, figures show. 
 
New mobile CCTV cameras are being used to catch drivers who may only have stopped momentarily. One case was based on just 17 seconds of film. 
- click to read more 
 
There have even been instances of automated fines being generated for moving vehicles. 
 
More than four million tickets with penalties of up to £105 a time were dished out by wardens and councils across the country last year. 
 
Numbers have leapt more than ten per cent in the past two years, fuelled by the introduction of controversial CCTV-equipped camera cars. 
 
Instead of tickets being slapped on the windscreen, drivers discover a fine only when the automatically generated ticket drops through their letterbox. 
 
But misuse of the cameras has led to a stinging rebuke from the official appeals watchdog, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal. 
 
The number of people successfully challenging their tickets has risen by an astonishing 20 per cent in the past two years. 
 
In one case that was thrown out on appeal, a council issued a ticket using CCTV footage of ‘some 17 seconds’. 
 
In another rejected case, a fine was issued when a car stopped for 46 seconds to allow driver and passenger to swap places. 
 
The report also highlights cases of camera cars parking on double yellow lines to catch errant drivers and councils that fail to put up signs warning drivers that CCTV is in operation. 
 
Motoring groups said cash-strapped councils were increasingly using parking charges and fines to fill ‘black holes in their coffers’. 
 
Government guidance says councils should use automatic CCTV cameras ‘sparingly’ as motorists regard such enforcement as ‘overzealous’. 
 
The Association of British Drivers said the damning statistics proved that the ‘war on motorists was far from over’. 
 
ABD founder member Hugh Bladon said: ‘Councils are desperate for money and the motorist is an easy target. Things can only get worse.’ 
 
AA spokesman Luke Bosdet added that ‘putting in cameras has turned a cottage industry into an industrial process’. 
 
The Traffic Management Act, which came into force on March 31, 2008, was claimed to make parking enforcement ‘fairer’ by reigning in overzealous wardens. 
 
 
Source: dailymail.co.uk  
To read the full story click here 
 
PoliceWitness.com says: 
"NIMBY. Not In My Back Yard. 
 
I don't want it to be me either, but if I know the technology is there, and I still do it, why would anyone have sympathy with me? 
Okay, so the offending motorist may not have known the technology was there. It's new. Like anything new we have to get used to it and very quickly it becomes the norm. 
 
It isn't that many years since drinking and driving was the norm. Yes, really. And real men didn't wear seat belts. How stupid does that sound today?" 
 
 
 
 
Helmet cameras capture bad driving 
Cyclist Ben Porter's brush with a white van man resulted in the driver being convicted of careless driving - click to read more 
 
With more cyclists than ever on Britain's roads, an increasing number are coming into conflict with other road users. 
 
Their latest weapon is wearing a miniature camera attached to helmets or handlebars, to capture bad driving. 
 
Ben Porter, a stagehand from London, bought a camera to show incredulous friends and family just how dangerous his daily commute could be. 
 
Like many others, he uploaded clips of the worst driving onto YouTube and would discuss them on cycling forums like CycleChat. 
 
For most cyclists, "naming and shaming" drivers is as far as it goes. But Ben decided to take things further after one van driver overtook him too close and then jumped out to confront him, shouting abuse. 
 
"I think he wanted to teach me a lesson. It wasn't very nice, but he didn't notice the camera," he said. 
Near misses 
 
Mr Porter, 37, took the footage to his local police station and the van driver was eventually prosecuted and found guilty of a public order offence and driving without due care and attention. He was fined £300, with costs of £150 and given five points on his licence. 
 
The cycling organisation CTC says the more people cycle, the safer it becomes, as drivers become used to watching out for bicycles. The organisation says there has been a 91% increase in cycling in London alone since 2000, while casualties have dropped by a third. 
 
However, there are still around 17,000 injuries a year and 104 deaths in 2009, the latest year that official figures are available for. 
 
"I was just lucky there was no car there - it was terrifying” 
Simon Robertson Cyclist 
 
Most regular cyclists have horror stories of near misses, the bus that overtook too close, the car driver who did not see them on the roundabout, the van that forced them off the road. 
 
With the technology getting cheaper - cameras can be found on the internet for £15, although some people spend up to £200 - and the quality improving, more cyclists are documenting their struggles with drivers. All that is needed is to strap the camera on, set the hard drive recording and away you go. 
 
Simon Robertson, from Haywards Heath, West Sussex, bought his camera from Ebay for less than £20. During his daily commute through central London he was undertaken by a coach while crossing a busy roundabout. 
 
"The driver was in the wrong lane and cut right in front of me from the left, forcing me into the lane to my right. I was just lucky there was no car there - it was terrifying," he said. 
 
Simon posted a link to his video on RoadSafeLondon, a Metropolitan Police website set up for road users to report bad driving. The coach driver was fined £150 and given three points on his licence. 
Considerate driving 
 
Such criminal prosecutions resulting from camera footage are still rare but are set to increase, according to DCI Nick Chalmers, who runs the website. 
 
He said an increasing number of cyclists were posting links to their footage which made his job easier, although it was "not a magic bullet". 
 
"The greater the number of cameras covering London's roads the more likely we are to secure a conviction for what are very serious offences. I think head-cams will help produce more considerate driving but video footage does not always show the full picture and the police will only prosecute if the evidence is clear," he said. 
 
Carrying a camera is no guarantee of success and while video is increasingly being used in insurance claims and now in the civil courts, cyclists say the police's attitude to their footage varies between forces and even between police stations. 
 
Nor are all cyclists convinced by the trend. Paul Kitson is a lawyer specialising in personal injury cases involving cyclists. He uses footage in cases but has yet to be convinced to wear a camera on his commute. 
 
"A camera helmet can secure a case for you, but personally I think it's going a bit too far. I do own a cycle helmet camera but I use it for skiing." 
 
However, those cyclists who do use them hope the mere presence of more cameras on the road will encourage other road users to be - in their eyes -more considerate. 
 
Source: bbc.co.uk 01/02/2011 
PoliceWitness.com says: 
'Cash for Crash gang jailed for insurance fraud 
Three members of a Luton gang involved in a £5.3m "cash for crash" insurance scam have been jailed 
- click to read more 
 
The gang engineered crashes involving unsuspecting motorists as well as making bogus injury insurance claims. 
 
Kamsan Mahmood, Peter Charlery and Istafa Hussain, all of Bedfordshire, were found guilty at Luton Crown Court of conspiracy to defraud on 14 April. 
 
On Wednesday, Mahmood was jailed five years, Hussain for four-and-a-half and Charlery for 18 months. 
 
Mahmood, 42, and Charlery, 45, both of Long Meadow Farm, Chalton, and Hussain, 35, of Lincoln Road, Luton, were sentenced at Luton Crown Court. 
 
Police came across the insurance fraud while they were investigating organised criminal activity in the town. 
 
With the Insurance Fraud Bureau, they uncovered a "web of deceit" involving people from professions including the legal, medical and motor trade. 
 
The car insurance fraud centred on an accident management company based in Leagrave Road in Luton. 
 
The gang also used land at a farm to the north of the town to store the damaged vehicles. 
 
The police investigation saw 39 defendants appear at crown court in separate hearings over three years. 
 
Source: bbc.co.uk 27/04/2011 
PoliceWitness.com says: 
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