Reporting Driving Offences

My viewer sent in 15 of his clips that he reported to operation snap for us to have a look at. Do you report and if so, how do you decide when to and when not to?

This is Chris's email in full.
Hi Ashley,
All 15 clips now sent over. Hopefully they are useful for perhaps making a video specifically about reporting footage to Op SNAP. A couple from today could do with faces blurring as well as number plates.

A lot of people are a bit - what is the word - aggrieved, perhaps, when if they find out someone does report footage to OpSNAP. They tend to label the person as a grass, a snoop or a busybody, and to an extent they are correct. However, as always, if the person hadn't done something wrong in the first place....etc.

There are three reasons why I started reporting stuff:

Firstly as shown in the clip where the man gets out of his car. That junction is a mess to navigate as which ever lane you are in seems to be "wrong". Often times the left lane people cut across and risk running into the side of the car. Pockets of space are required, but it can be a pinch point what ever one does to do ones best (i.e. you can't control where other people put their car etc).

The other reason was that I started doing a much longer commute to work. The first six months of that job was via an agency and I was on "very thin ice" in terms of job security. If I couldn't get there they would have let me go at the drop of a hat. The amount of stupid driving I saw everyday on the M65 was unbelievable. Much of it was dangerous and I quickly realised the safest place to be was in lane 1 and just trundle along with a massive gap to whatever was in front in lane 1. Getting into lane 2 was asking for trouble, and still does on the few occasions I venture there. I also worked out that the difference between 70mph and 60mph over the six mile motorway commute was 38 seconds and after driving a van all day I just can't be bothered about saving every last second, which so many people seem to do. If my car was written off (by an idiot driver) I was risking loosing my job.

Thirdly - my litter picking, and generally getting out of and into the van, but mostly the litter picking. You go on about drivers close passing a cyclist, but you won't have seen nothing until you try litterpicking a 40mph road with no pavement. Again if I got hurt while with the Agency that was me out of a job.

Basically there were (and are) so many job risking muppets on the roads trying to do something about it was/is my way of dealing with the (thankfully minor) stress that they cause me. I *should* be able to drive 20 minutes to work each morning and 40 minutes back and do my job each day without someone trying (albeit unintentionally) to crash into me or run me off the road ...

It is my opinion that the only way people will learn is to be caught and dealt with appropriately. If enough people get into trouble, slowly but surely things will start to improve. People moan about "the police not doing anything" but then they don't use the very valuable resource that is Op SNAP. It is the only way to really fight back against the dangerous and inconsiderate motorist out there.

Some stats for you :
OpSNAP Lancs - 133 submissions and 47 positive outcomes. (35%)
OpSNAP GMP - 10 submissions and 10 positive outcomes (9 of which were all on the same journey on the M66, mostly people exiting junction via hard shoulder) (100%)
GoSafeWales - 6 submissions and 2 positive outcomes. (33%)

I expect we've had the full run of penalties too from warning letters right up to summons to court.

If my maths is right that is 149 submissions and 59 positive outcomes. Approx 40% success rate, which isn't bad really. There were several of these that would have been NIPed if the evidence had been better too. The BMW racing up the sliproad onto the M6 is a case in point (APL157485).

The first clip I submitted was given the number around APL134000 the most recent one was around APL174000 --- 15 months -- and the number of clips submitted is around 40 thousand clips. If the same ratio applies for NIPs then that is about 15 thousand drivers prosecuted! (just in Lancashire alone!)

Any further info needed on any clips, please just let me know and I'll be happy to help.

Best wishes,
Chris.

Become a Channel Member    / @ashley_neal  

Dash Camera Affiliate Links. NOW USE CODE 'ASHLEY'

Car - Viofo - https://viofouk.co.uk/ashleyv10f01621...

Motorcycle - Innov - https://innovv.co.uk/ashley1nn0v13703...

Motorcycle, Bicycle and Equestrian - Techalogic - https://techalogic.co.uk/ashleyt3ck41...