If it weren’t for dashboard cams the world would have never seen the 11,000-ton meteor hitting the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk this February, as well tons of other breathtaking, bizarre and hilarious vids. Russia has become the global dashcam authority because, “of the 40 million drivers in this country, every ninth driver has a video recorder,” automotive journalist Aleksandr Pikulenko told RT, citing the stats from his Sobesednik.ru portal. Vehicle owners say the camera is sometimes the only way to prove their innocence to the police, with a high number of traffic accidents in Russia. Police have registered over 83,000 incidents since the start of the year, in which more than 10,000 lives were lost. There’s also never a dull moment on Russian roads, with people throwing – or pretending to throw – themselves at cars to collect injury money and things like boats, tanks and fighter jets whizzing by. The head of the Duma’s information policy committee, Aleksey Mitrofanov, has recently proposed the prohibit posting dash cam videos on the internet for violating people’s privacy, but legal expert Ruslan Konorev says the MPs will have tough hill to climb because “there is no clear definition of privacy in the Constitution” and it needs to be specified in civil legislation. Watch more in RT’s Lindsay France’s report.
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Dash in the pan? Privacy ban mooted after Russian dashcam videos storm web
