Oops... City of Cape Town won't accept dash cam footage... But is it balanced reporting by CapeTalk Radio?
Just amazes me that our local radio station CapeTalk keeps ignoring my feedback to them via Whatsapp (Morning Breakfast Show) and Twitter that firstly although our City of Cape Town has no online site for motorists to report driving offences and bad behaviour, our Province does have one called Safely Home Reporter. The station keeps referring to the City of Johannesburg but ignores a similar service in their own Province (which is monitored by Provincial Traffic and Transport, letter acting on complaints about minibus taxis).
And whilst it is truly that dashcam footage by a citizen is not accepted in court on its own, neither if anything observed by a traffic official. The traffic official has to appear in court to support the evidence otherwise the case is thrown out. A similar situation exists for a citizen who must then be prepared to appear in court to swear under oath to the validity and truthfulness of the evidence submitted for cross-examination.
I have sent dashcam footage to the City of Cape Town regarding a littering offence that could have caused a fire. I was asked to go to a police station afterwards and make a sworn affidavit to support my video, which I did, and the perpetrator was fined. If we wanted to contest that fine I would have gone to court as a citizen to support the video. My dashcam records and embeds the exact GPS location, speed and date/time in every frame of the video.
So, as I said to CapeTalk radio, let's just have balanced reporting and give the full context.... Now it looks like citizens are wasting their time submitting dashcam evidence and this is a pity as it is great technology for not only creating awareness about bad and illegal behaviour on the roads, but also useful for proving your own innocence during a collision, and many also give warning for lane drift, speeding, forward collisions, etc.
See www.capetalk.co.za/articles/34…
#capetalk #dashcams #capetown
source https://squeet.me/display/962c3e10-175c-cd7d-e582-5d3994391901
And whilst it is truly that dashcam footage by a citizen is not accepted in court on its own, neither if anything observed by a traffic official. The traffic official has to appear in court to support the evidence otherwise the case is thrown out. A similar situation exists for a citizen who must then be prepared to appear in court to swear under oath to the validity and truthfulness of the evidence submitted for cross-examination.
I have sent dashcam footage to the City of Cape Town regarding a littering offence that could have caused a fire. I was asked to go to a police station afterwards and make a sworn affidavit to support my video, which I did, and the perpetrator was fined. If we wanted to contest that fine I would have gone to court as a citizen to support the video. My dashcam records and embeds the exact GPS location, speed and date/time in every frame of the video.
So, as I said to CapeTalk radio, let's just have balanced reporting and give the full context.... Now it looks like citizens are wasting their time submitting dashcam evidence and this is a pity as it is great technology for not only creating awareness about bad and illegal behaviour on the roads, but also useful for proving your own innocence during a collision, and many also give warning for lane drift, speeding, forward collisions, etc.
See www.capetalk.co.za/articles/34…
#capetalk #dashcams #capetown
source https://squeet.me/display/962c3e10-175c-cd7d-e582-5d3994391901
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