A Fine Gael TD has called for an online portal to be set up to help people upload dashcam footage of road traffic offences.
At present, anyone seeking to report an allegation of dangerous driving or cycling needs to make a trip to their local Garda stations.
However, in recent years, many police forces in Britain have set up online portals for people to send them footage of road traffic offences and Ciaran Cannon believes An Garda Síochána should do likewise.
“We would replicate the work being done in other jurisdictions - particularly in our nearest neighbour, the United Kingdom,” he told Newstalk Breakfast.
“Bear in mind, this would be open to all road users, not alone cyclists, it can be anyone who uses a dashcam be it on their windscreen or on their bike or on their motorcycle.
“If they encounter dangerous driving - if their safety or indeed their lives are put at risk as a result dangerous driving - and they record video footage of that incident, then rather than the convoluted and time consuming mechanism that is in place right now for the submission of this footage, we would create a dedicated online portal.”
2CHER2D man looking at mobile phone while driving a car his bend down to pick up smartphone on car ,Dangerous driving conceptMr Cannon said it would provide additional “eyes and ears” for Gardaí and has the potential to save “thousands of hours in police time”.
“We have to move with the times,” he added.
“What they’ve found in the UK is that rather than an individual having to go into a police station with a USB key - which is the situation here in Ireland - sit down across the table from the member of the force, make your witness statement, have it submitted, have it entered, you can now do that all online, all of it is automated.”
In the Road Safety Strategy 2021–2030, the Government pledged to “Explore the potential of an online portal for road users to upload footage of road traffic offences to assist prosecutions.”
Main image: A man using a mobile phone while driving a car. Picture by: Alamy.com
