Jock Elliott
Hall of Famer
- Location
- Troy, NY
This Huge Camera Rig Busts People for Texting and Driving
click through and check out the picture
Cheers, Jock
click through and check out the picture
Cheers, Jock
When using a spotting scope/camera, you may get an unambiguous photo of distracted driving, but it may also be ambiguous, or worse, misleading. If a driver is pulled over, the best evidence is the phone itself and the log of what happened and when.
If the USA is anything like the UK you aren't going to get a log from the phone without a court order or data protection act waiver. A log of who is called would be data, personal data retrieved from a computer (even though a mobile phone it is still a computer) and would only be released if a serious crime is being investigated. in any event you wouldn't need it. It is enough for an officer to say he or she saw it being used, much the same as an officer witnesses any offence being committed. A photo of a mobile phone in your hand whether to your ear or on the wheel or holding it anywhere in the car would be enough.
What you said there "A photo of a mobile phone", may be clear enough if I'm facing you and we're standing up and you are using it, but from a distance and even with a powerful camera, you'll have a lot of arrests where the image is ambiguous. There's a huge push on, a veritable panic in the citizenry driving this effort, and having taken a 10-week police course, I've seen some of it from the inside. BTW, in the U.S., cellphones have proven to be a great thing in cars, since drunk/impaired drivers get reported sooner, and statistics show a significant reduction in traffic fatalities.
I believe that people who text and drive should be locked up. And throw away the key.
Interestingly the inside of a car, although highly visible, is a "private place" under the terms of the Data Protection Act.Indeed. I actually reported a lady driving at 45mph in the centre lane of a motorway. She was reading a paperback novel in her hand resting on the steering wheel and also had a ciggie going in the other hand.
In the UK, a motoring offence is not a serious enough crime to get data from a phone....unless it involved a fatal or serious injury accident. In fact, I believe that if a person puts the phone in his/her pocket after being pulled over, you are not permitted to search them for the phone
Interestingly the inside of a car, although highly visible, is a "private place" under the terms of the Data Protection Act.
Don't ask me how I know, but pepipoo.com is worth a bookmark...