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The legailty of Camera use

November 22, 2010 — 3 Comments

I often get the internet lawyer telling me that I’m braking several laws by videoing vehicles and posting videos of them, the drivers and the vehicles number plates online.
As we all know, vehicle number plates are publicly viewable and identifies the car. We can use these to complain about the drivers behaviour. What we don’t know from the number plate is any information about the driver.

I know in the past, that magnatom asked the information commissioner of Scotland what the position was, legally, of him doing what he does. The response that he got, was that it’s fine for us to do and it’s not breaking any data protection laws.
Magnatom has always stated that he isn’t sure if this applies to the England as well.

So to confirm where i and other helmet camera users stand on the matter of legality of posting videos online, i contacted the information commissioner in England and asked the following questions;

  • Is recording bicycle journeys made in england and posting footage on youtube breaking any laws? This includes posting footage of number plates of dangerous drivers that put cyclists life in danger and in some cases the faces and conversations with these drivers.
  • are there any restrictions to it, such as is advertising that you have a camera against the law e.g. a sign saying ‘video recording in operation’ on the cyclists back.

A few weeks later i got a response and it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. As magnatom’s response, i was also told that the videoing and posting videos would fall under section 36 of the data protection act. Which states

Personal data processed by an individual only for the purposes of that individual’s personal, family or household affairs (including recreational purposes) are exempt from the data protection principles and the provisions of Parts II and III.

This exemption means that individuals do not have to provide fair processing information to data subjects and so signs will not be necessary in a situation such as the one described. Equally, however, it would not be illegal to display such signs that warn of a camera.

Apart from the data protection act, I don’t think there is any issue with filming, and if there was, I’m sure I would have been brought up on it by now. My footage has been passed to various police departments in London, and none of them have come back to me saying I’m braking any laws.

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A Guide To Helmet Cameras

November 15, 2010 — 5 Comments

Helmet cameras are becoming popular with cyclists. For evidential purposes and down to videos of cyclists just having fun. With the increase in users and more people watching the videos, i get asked regularly about my set up and what cameras i recommend. It’s time for me to create a detailed list of what cameras are out there and which camera to buy.

There are lots of things to think about when buying a camera, the most important being how much you want to spend. But lets not forget about; video quality, size, weight, waterproofness, battery life, battery replacement and the list goes on.

Something which is often overlooked but very important is storage and editing of footage. If you choose to go with a HD camera, then you will want to make sure your computer is up to scratch with editing the footage. The company that make the cameras should be able to supply you with the information you require on minimum system specifications for their camera. Look at how much storage space you will require if you want to keep some of your videos. HD recordings will take up a lot of space.

My top 5 list of helmet cameras to buy.

  1. Veho Muvi
  2. ContourHD
  3. GoPro HD Hero
  4. Drift HD170
  5. VIO POV 1.5

Veho Muvi
The camera which came out a little over a year ago which has made helmet camera’s popular and affordable is the Veho Muvi. It can be picked up for around £60. You are limited to about 1h30m max on the battery and due to the size of the camera it can be very discreet. The camera it’s self isn’t waterproof, but a special case or good positioning can sort this issue out.

A copy of the muvi is the MD80, and can be picked up at a fraction of the price without losing much quality.
There are a few copies of the muvi, a few are good but most are bad. Look out for the switches on the side of the camera, if they are buttons then avoid the camera!

I have to put the Muvi at number one because of the sheer amount of cyclists that use it and its cheap price for great quality.

ContourHD
The ContourHD is my camera of choice, i have the old 720p model and a 1080p model. Both very much worth the money and hopefully my reasons for choosing it will be outlined below.

The ContourHD pretty much covers every base with what you need from your camera. Superb quality, good variety of mounts for all situations, water-resistant, replaceable battery, rotateable lens, two lasers to line up the perfect angle and a button configuration that is very easy to use without looking at the camera and using gloves.

Things to know about behind the scenes with the camera and the company, vholdr have set up a community where you can upload your videos and a decent forum where questions are answered by other users. Differently worth checking out. There is some software which is available to edit and upload your videos, and change the quality and various light settings.

A key thing for me, was how the camera looked when mounted on the helmet. The contourHD appears to be bullet like and fairly flat, with a red recording light that is visible from the front and the side. This was a big factor for me when choosing it over the gopro HD Hero.

GoPro HD Hero
This is definitely the best camera from a picture point of view. The features and accessories are similar to the ContourHD, in fact there isn’t much difference between the GoPro HD Hero and the ContourHD. They are both amazing cameras, offer great options, deliver great video and are easy to use.
The two downside’s for me with the GoPro are the shape of it and you’re not able to rotate the lens. It’s square and looks ridiculous when you put it on top of a helmet. Rotating the lens means that you can still get the perfect angle when recording but having the ability to mount the camera in strange positions and angles.

One way around this downside is to mount the camera somewhere on the bike, where other oddly shaped things are mounted. MrOrigamist on youtube has done just this, mounted on his stem i believe, it gives a really interesting perspective that no one else currently uses and it looks great. So it’s only downside may not be relevant if you’re not actually going to mount on your helmet.

Drift HD170
Another HD camera here with some different attributes. Similar to the ContourHD the HD170 lets you rotate the lens so that you can get the perfect angle where ever you are mounting it. But where it lacks in laser pointers, it makes up for it with a screen which you can use to watch playback and check your angle. It also comes with a little remote clicker which you can use to start and stop recording.

If I’m honest i think the screen and remote are gimmicky. In day-to-day use I wouldn’t use either of them. A big problem for me is the buttons and their spacing. Due to their close nature and quite small size, it would be hard to operate the camera whilst it is on your helmet with gloves on. This was the main decider for me no to get a Drift HD170.
Apart from that the camera is just as good as the ContourHD and GoPro HD.

Vio POV 1.5
The Vio POV is an expensive option for a helmet camera, but it’s a damn good one. I doubt it’s the camera for most people anyway. It’s a 2 piece unit, a camera and a recording unit (DVR) these are connected via a cable. You will need to find a place to store the DVR whilst you are cycling, this is easy if you have a back pack. The DVR has all the buttons you need and a screen to go with it. On the screen you can watch recordings or the live feed. This gives you an easy way to check the recording angle without taking the camera off or going back to your PC.

The VIO makes it onto my list due to the technology it uses, the better lens and CCD recording chip means the image quality (whilst not HD) is truly amazing. The camera will also be much better in low light when compared to the cameras listed above.
The ability to upgrade the camera or DVR separately is also something that is attractive, especially if one breaks.

Conclusion
The muvi is the best value for money and one of the most widely used cameras among commuters (including clones). The HD cameras in my opinion are the best way to go. The quality they provide means that number plates and actions of cars are clearly visible. But the price jump between the Muvi and the HD cameras is huge, and if you don’t want to spend that money but want better quality then don’t disapear, as there is a gap that the companies have filled.
GoPro, Drift and several other companies have cameras that are in the non-HD range and are of still good quality with good features. If you want one of these, then i will suggest checking out the footage of that camera on youtube or similar.

This is just a list of my top 5 cameras i would recommend. I will do a detailed list of all helmet cameras i know about.

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The ‘Efficacy’ of RoadSafe Website

November 2, 2010 — 4 Comments

Anyone that has gone through my previous blog posts will know that I’m a user of the RoadSafe London website and I was invited to meet the team that run it.

Only today I reported two incidences to RoadSafe, one for a white van that overtook me far to close and another where I’m concerned that a scooter rider hasn’t done his CBT and is putting him self in danger due to his riding style.

Recently a Freedom of information request was logged by Tim Lennon asking the following questions to the Metropolitan Police Service about the RoadSafe Website. Questions are in bold and the full FOI can be found here.

  1. How many people have visited the site since its inception?
    Since November 2009 the site has been visited 8235 times.
  2. How many copies of the form have been filled in? by how many individuals?
    From Nov to Dev 2009 = 12 Reports
    from Jan 2010 to date = 1213 reports
    The system does not capture data to provide detail of how many individuals have filled in forms.
  3. What transport method was in use by those filling in the form?
    Details of mode of transport is not logged
  4. How many people have been contacted (i.e. those listed in ‘driver details’ or ‘vehicle details’)
    We have sent 659 letters to resisted keepers and/or companies
  5. How many individuals and individual vehicles have been named in these forms?
    58 drivers named
  6. What action has been taken in each instance? (if detail is expensive to provide, you may simply advise how many have been cautioned , how many have had words of advice or similar, and how many have been pursued with further legal means.)
    Nine specific tasks aimed at disqualified or drink drivers. Resulting in two disqualified drivers arrested, one suspected persistent drink driver stopped.
    Eight reports generated and forwarded to our criminal justice unit for a decision on prosecution.
    Twenty eight intelligence reports passed to the MPS Cab Enforcement office.
    Four interest reports added to the ANPR database.
    Twenty one Intelligence reports disseminated to other MPS units.
    Twenty nine previously unreported collisions received.
    Four company visits made by our Commercial Vehicle Unit.
    Twenty one cycle intelligence reports passed to newly formed cycle team to deal.
    Eleven reports passed to our Traffic Management Unit to investigate alleged problems with road engineering. One of these resulted in recommendation to council for engineering solution. This has now been completed with new bollards and signs put in place.
    There have been 393 instances of no further action from reports created.
  7. Has any cost benefit analysis or similar been done of the site and its activity (if so, can you supply this data or report?)
    No

I don’t know the person that requested this FOI, or what there intentions where, I’m unaware if they are a blogger as i was passed this link by one of my twitter followers and he found it in the comments of another blog post.

A lot of people are complaining that this is no better than before. The roadsafe website makes it easy to make a complaint about a vehicle and their driver but without proof the police are unlikely to do anything about it. Which to me is understandable.
And you have to be realistic with what you expect them to do.

Looking at the results of the FOI request, it’s clear that they are using the information they are getting in a positive way. The information is being passed on to specific teams that can deal with them in a better way, and arrests and prosecutions are being made where possible.

With 1225 reports made with RoadSafe in nearly a year and 659 letters sent out to the registered keepers and/or companies. Your complaint has a 1 in 2 chance of having some action being taken place. A letter might not do much, but it should be kept on record against the vehicle that they have been contacted about their driving in the past.

More than 40% of the reports are about cycling ‘near miss’ this just shows that a vast majority of the users of it are cyclists. And I know that most of the London helmet camera users will report the worst stuff they see to RoadSafe, So I expect a vast majority of those 530 cycling near misses will be accompanied by video evidence.
With lots of video evidence going to the police with regards to issues that we cyclists face on a daily basis, one can only hope that they listen and help to do something about it.
Clearly we are going a step in the right direction as the cycling task force has been launched and they are tackling various issues across London by bicycle.

The only bad thing to pick up from this information is the fact that the traffic to the webpage is quite low. I still haven’t seen any advertising about this form, and I only found out due to word of mouth from other cyclists.
I recall from when I met the officers that run the website, they said something about a soft launch first of all and then going public later. An extended testing period?

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Silly Cyclists

November 1, 2010 — 3 Comments
A coconut bunch

Image via Wikipedia

For as long as I have been publishing videos on youtube of bad drivers, I have had comments about why I don’t show videos of cyclists doing dangerous things. The reason was mostly because the cyclists are putting them selves in danger and not others.

About 2 months ago I half changed my mind on this case. I make videos to highlight the dangers of cycling in a place like London, and often the issues which come with cycling and how to get around them. But with other cyclists not reading from the same hymn sheet, I decide that making regular videos about the dangerous positions I see people putting them selves in to be a much better learning tool if anyone sees them.

These regular videos where daily at the start. Showing everything I saw. I soon changed this format to a weekly video with a commentary over the top. This format has made Silly Cyclists an important learning tool. I talk about what you shouldn’t do and what you should do in those situations. Watching the videos you soon learn what the common issues are, it seems to me that undertaking large vehicles such as buses and HGV’s is still a regular accorance.

Below I have added the latest Episode (14) and here you can find a playlist with all episodes in.

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Cycling Lights

October 29, 2010 — 4 Comments

As we all know, it’s the time of the year where it gets darker sooner, and this weekend the clocks change and it will be darker even sooner than it is now.

This change in light levels means that now most commuting cycle journeys will be taking place in darkness. From my experience, most cyclists light set ups are not what I would call up to scratch. In the following paragraphs I will talk about what I think make good and bad set ups, why you should have a set up similar and what my set up is.

A good light set up should consist of at least 4 lights, 2 front and 2 rear. One of each should be on constant mode and the other two should be on flashing. The steady mode helps road users gauge your speed as the light is constant and easy to follow. The flashing light helps grab the attention of road users and they should see that you are there.
The added bonus of having two lights of each, is if one does, then you have a back up ready. Cycling without lights is very dangerous so having a back up light is essential!
I suggest that placing your second light in a different plane to your first one, what I mean by this is not attaching your second light to your seat post or above your handle bars.  This is because in a different position it makes you look wider and possibly two cyclists from a long distance. Instead the rear light can be placed on your helmet, seat stays, rear rack of backpack depending on which you use. The front lights are best used if one is above and the other below the handle bars on either side of the stem, this puts a good distance between the two and makes the flasher stand out more.
Another reason for having good lights is the amount of light that is often in and around London, with plenty of other vehicles and cyclists with lights on it can often become confusing as to who is who and where they are. With descent lights you should stand out straigth away.

Why are most set ups bad? Most cyclists I see on my commute through London can be categorised in four different groups by their lights. 1. no lights 2. the wrong lights 3. not enough lights 4. perfect lights
No Lights – these cyclists are often on cheap mountain bikes and ridden by people who couldn’t give a toss about their safety and often flout the laws of the road.
The Wrong Lights – Cyclists with either white/red lights facing in the wrong direction or non standard colors i.e. yellow/green/blue those colors don’t stand out anywhere near as well as a descent white light and a blue light is illegal to use on the roads unless you are an emergency vehicle.
Not Enough Lights – Most users will fall into this category. They have 1 of each kind of light on either steady or constant. The lights can’t do both jobs of grabbing attention and easy speed reading abilities for other road users. They also don’t have back up lights. So the lights can often appear dim because the batteries are near dead.
Perfect Lights – Maybe 3% of the cyclists I see have a good set up of lights, with the minimum being the 2 front and 2 rear, some have gone even further and having added lights on the bike.

It is worth noting that Hi-Viz is not a substitute for some good lights. Whilst I see the great application of hi-viz, it doesn’t perform the job of the lights as I have previously discussed but does make you stand out a little bit more but with a good light set up, you should be perfectly visible without hi-viz.

Depending on where you cycle, you may need more powerful lights than the ones that are readily available in bicycle shops. For example I have to cycle down a few roads with limited to no street lamps, this means that I need lights to see with. So I have lights with varying power levels so that when I need to I can turn the power up and light up the way ahead of me. Lights that can output that kind of power at much more expensive that what most people are willing to spend on lights. But are worth it if you need to see where you are going.

My light setup. At present I’m running two front lights, a Hope Vision 1 and a Magicshine MJ-808. The hope alone is a very bright light, but for me the flood from the light was not good enough to light up the dark roads I use and this is why i have a Magicshine which is rated at 900lumens but outputs more like 700lumens. That perfectly lights up the road in front of me when required. Each of these lights has several modes ranging from flashing to different power settings.
My rear lights are a Blackburn Mars 4.0 and 2x Fibre Flares. The fibre flares are mounted on my seat stays and due to their long nature and near 360degree shine is perfect for standing out, these are both set to flashing. The Mars 4.0 is on constant and located on the back of my saddle bag. This is a bright rear light and grabs attention from drivers easily.
I shall be doing a video review of my lights shortly with more information about prices and stats in another post.

Note this post is intended for people cycling in a busy metropolitan area.

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