Dashcam footage helping to tackle illegal number plates

Spend any time at all on the road and you'll notice the number of vehicles sporting non-standard number plates - most of which are illegal.

The law sets out in precise detail what a vehicle number plate should look like for good reason. Motorists displaying tinted plates, elaborate fonts, undersized letters and unusual spacing risk a £100 fine, but more seriously they contribute towards road danger by making it harder for automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras to read plates as well as more challenging other road users to take a note of a vehicle's details in the event they need to.

However, the increasingly widespread use of dashcams means the tables may be about to turn against the use of illegal number plates. According to the Roads Policing and Road Safety Teams of Avon and Somerset Police, footage submitted by the public in their areas now forms the basis of the majority of prosecutions.

Dashcam footage and the law

The Metropolitan Police is one of a number of forces that allows road users to upload camera footage when reporting a road traffic incident. The Met has already received well over 20,000 submissions and around two thirds lead to action being taken. Such systems are a game changer for cyclists. Evidence of close passes, abusive drivers and collisions can all be passed to the police with the click of a mouse. One imagines the thousands of drivers who have already received penalty points following an online submission of camera footage will become more considerate and careful road users as a result.

Aside from these police portals designed specifically for the purpose, there is no reason why footage cannot be admitted as evidence in the same way as CCTV is used. It is likely that a witness statement would have to accompany the camera footage and it would have to be downloaded to a CD with a certificate (countersigned by a solicitor) stating that it had not been altered in any way from its original digital format.

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