smasha

no. no one has ever made that type of accusation regarding my videos. if anyone ever suggested that: i'm talented enough to add titles to a video and do some picture-in-picture effects, but that's about it. besides... i have no grudge against motorists who drive safely. there are enough bad drivers out there that i don't have to spend time doctoring videos.

i have had complaints down-graded (eg a "careless driving" incident was charged as "unsafe passing") because the objective quality of the video (eg distances, speeds, etc) is hard to quantify without expert witnesses, and such. the supervising officer in that case agreed that the motorist was likely deserving of a "careless driving" charge, but he was concerned that the video evidence might not meet the evidentiary threshold for "careless driving"; he said the video evidence clearly did meet the evidentiary threshold for "unsafe passing", and charges were filed for that. both charges incur a $150 fine, but "careless driving" also incurs 30 points (out of 100), while "unsafe passing" incurs zero points

but this all depends on who the complaint is assigned to... some of the cops will look at the video and clearly identify an offence that i'm happy with, while other cops are more conservative in weighing the "burden of evidence" required to sign-off on a traffic ticket, when they didn't witness the event first-hand. one of my videos resulted in a motorist getting a phone-call from the police... after confirming that he was driving the vehicle at the time and place of the incident, the motorist said he was certain there was no one there on a bike... the cop said it was clear from the video that i was "lit up like a christmas tree", and based on the motorist's statement of not seeing me or my bike, a "careless driving" ticket was issued. so in addition to video, this also depends on how slick/motivated the cop is at conducting interviews.

if i were in a jurisdiction that had a statutory minimum safe-passing clearance... i'd take a tape-measure, a chalk-line, and some big, fat pieces of coloured chalk to an empty parking lot... draw some lines at 30-50cm widths, and then ride along the "zero" line (after accounting for the width of the handlebars) with cameras rolling. this can be compared to any close-pass videos that need to be pursued. of course, anytime the mounts are adjusted, the cameras have to be "recalibrated". but the basic idea is to have a point-of-reference that clearly shows, within the video frame, where the legal threshold is, and where 50% and 75% of the legal threshold are.

cops and courts, understandably, don't want to deal with cases where someone was a few cm too close at reasonable speed... but if you can provide evidence that an overtaking vehicle was really too close, then those types of cases should be easier to prosecute.