Record number of driving offence videos submitted during first six months of 2023

During the first six months of this year, officers from the Northamptonshire Police Safer Roads Team have received a record number of video submissions to Operation Snap.

Since the launch of the online portal in 2019, the number of people reporting driving offences via the Force website and uploading video evidence has increased year-on-year.

In fact, between January 1 and June 30 this year, 905 videos were submitted by 822 individual witnesses (613 drivers and 209 cyclists) compared to 758 clips for the same period last year – an increase of 64 reports.

This has also resulted in the rise of video submissions leading to further action with a total of 478 Notice of Intended Prosecution (NIP) letters sent to registered owners, which is slightly down on the 482 prosecutions in 2021.

Videos have ranged from driving dangerously to drivers not being in proper control of their vehicle, driving without due care and attention, overtaking on solid white lines, ignoring traffic lights, and carrying too many passengers.

Driving without due care and attention remained the most common offence captured on camera footage with 150 incidents, followed by driving without reasonable consideration for other road users (113).

Other frequently reported offences include failing to comply with red traffic light signal (69), stopping a vehicle within a pedestrian crossing limit (41), failing to comply with solid white line road markings (25) and use of a handheld mobile phone/device while driving (18).

During the six-month period there have also been eight reported incidents of dangerous driving. Due to their serious nature of these investigations, the drivers will be summoned to face court proceedings.

Northamptonshire Police’s Safer Roads Team Manager, Matthew O’Connell, said: “Alongside our Northamptonshire Safer Roads Alliance partners, improving the standard of driving and behaviour on our roads remains our priority.

“We strive to achieve this through education, engagement, and engineering. However, we will also prosecute where necessary those who use our roads illegally or irresponsibly and put themselves and others at risk.

“Since its launch, Operation Snap has proved an invaluable tool and with the continued support of the public, we now have more pairs of eyes helping us to keep our roads safer and the chances of getting caught for committing traffic offences have increased.”

People can report driving offences by uploading video evidence via the simple online Operation Snap portal on the Force website and completing a form, which automatically creates a witness statement to provide a full account of the incident.

Reports are then triaged by trained police staff, who check the footage to ensure it falls within the scheme's remit and contains clear views of an offender’s number plates so they can be identified.

If it matches the Operation Snap criteria, police officers in the Safer Roads Team then examine the footage. If a driving offence is identified, legal proceedings will begin where required.

The team only has 14 days to investigate any offences and members of the public are asked to submit their videos as soon after the incident as possible to allow the maximum time for the footage to be reviewed.

Anyone who submits footage via Operation Snap can find out the outcome of their submission by following the link on their confirmation email which will take them to a monthly update.

For more information about Operation Snap or to submit video footage, visit the Northamptonshire Police website at www.northants.police.uk/OpSnap