Got some helmet cam footage of YOUR commute?

kurako

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9Awf5h5bwE

That's a minibus trying to wipe me out on Commercial Road. It seems that ferrying lawyers between Canary Wharf and Bishopsgate is quite time critical. Shame about all the traffic then.

Allen & Overy:
http://www.aograduate.co.uk/Who-We-Are/ ... n-Offices/

Jamey

My first morning of commuting with the ContourHD strapped to my bonce and I've already got something to post... Here's a minibus from the Hammersmith & Fulham Community Transport Project cutting into a bus lane and forcing me to stop.

VholdR version (the full 60 frames per second):
http://vholdr.com/node/76531

Youtube version (30 frames per second but not yet processed at time of posting - think I might have to wait for approval or something as it's my first video uploaded with that account):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmcZ8hFqkw4

Reckon it's worth me emailing the company with a link to the video?

Jamey

Cor! ...My first day of helmet camming and I've already got this response from the people that own the van:

Hi Jamey

Both me & my manager have just watched the video that you have sent over, we
are both quite horrified by this drivers behavour & we will be showing him
this video & addressing the issue with him asap.

We do our upmost to ensure our drivers are trained & made aware of their
responsibilities, not only for their passengers but for other road users. I
can assure you that this driver will be brought in & reassessed.

I will also be showing this video to our D1 Trainer & hopefully he will be
able to incorporate it into his driver awareness training sessions.

Please accept our sincere apologise's & thank you for bringing it to our
attention, I would like to stress that we would much have preferred you
contacting us before posting this onto the world wide web.

All the best & Kind regards

XXXXXXXXXX
Bookings Co-ordinator
H&F Community Transport Project

AyrshireBacon

First clip worth posting in only my first week of running a camera (cheap MD80 clone from eBay) Must have seen me coming but still crawled slowly across. I had to brake, but wasn't going very fast anyway so no drama.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK1aSoPnNR8

Earlier the same journey I missed the car that was following me the wrong way up the one-way (there is a contra-flow for bikes) street. Saw him at the bottom of the road, but didn't turn my head far enough to catch a video of him in the act.

gaz545

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCyThgM_55I
Video HUD overlay...

Jamey

How the hell? What magic be this? Please explain whenceforth that graphical display of numbers came to appear on top of your video?

Edit: NM, I just read the comments on the previous video, understand now.

kurako

Crazies out in force today...

Bristol based glazing firm. I had difficulty tracing them due to the poor viewing angle of the phone number. I've made a complaint:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpn5egTWRE0

HGV pulling a U-turn. What was he thinking?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jORTmEYyRgc

Jamey

Fairly uneventful ride in today so I decided to clip the singing, waving lollipop lady I pass every day at Wandsworth:

http://vholdr.com/node/76755

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otindwvF9pE

Jamey

Eureka!

I've been wondering why gaz545's night time footage seemed so much brighter than mine given that we're both using almost the same camera and knowing a little about photographic exposure coupled with the fact that I knew he was shooting at 30fps I wondered if it was a frame rate thing (I shoot at 60fps).

It is.

I've just done a test with my Contour where I filmed exactly the same night time scene first at 720p60 and then again at 720p30,

The 30fps version is loads brighter.

So now I've set the Hi/Lo switch on my camera to have 720p60 on Hi for the morning commute and 720p30 on the Lo setting for the evening commute... At least until the clocks change this weekend, anyway.

Hooray for testing. I'm now off to post this on the official VholdR forums as I don't think it's mentioned anywhere on there.

Jamey

Another uneventful ride in today. Now that I'm wearing a camera and had that result on Tuesday I sort of feel a bit disappointed getting to work when nothing has happened.

I guess that's a bit perverse and I certainly don't want to be involved in an accident (or witness anyone else having one) but I do feel mildly let down that there's nothing worth keeping from the footage.

Anyone else get that?

kurako

Jamey wrote:

Another uneventful ride in today. Now that I'm wearing a camera and had that result on Tuesday I sort of feel a bit disappointed getting to work when nothing has happened.

I guess that's a bit perverse and I certainly don't want to be involved in an accident (or witness anyone else having one) but I do feel mildly let down that there's nothing worth keeping from the footage.

Anyone else get that?

I used to. After 4 nutters in the past week I'm quite relieved to have nothing worth posting.

Having said that, I've got some textbook footage of me taking the lane at the same spot I had the incident with the glazing fan yesterday and then scalping a Hi-Viz RLJ-er who had a massive head start

MadammeMarie

F***ing bus drivers! I'm getting sick of them!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRF3kCEFhyE

Sorry for the swearing! :oops:

cat_with_no_tail

MadammeMarie wrote:

F***ing bus drivers! I'm getting sick of them!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRF3kCEFhyE

Sorry for the swearing! :oops:

Hehehe, you tell him!

BIoody bus drivers, running red lights left right and centre, mounting pavements when it suits them. *runs off to send a letter to the daily mail*

kurako

MadammeMarie wrote:

F***ing bus drivers! I'm getting sick of them!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRF3kCEFhyE

Sorry for the swearing! :oops:

I would report to TfL. And a lot of buses have front facing cameras too these days. It's possible they can check it.

https://custserv.tfl.gov.uk/icss_csip/Z ... b=CA_12351

Jamey

Tell you what, this first week of helmet camming has made me realise how slow I am.

I had a bit of that Friday magic in my legs this morning and there were two short sections of my ride where I thought I'd "Cav it" and go for a little sprint.

Got into the office all eager to watch them back and it still looks like I'm plodding along compared to when you guys post a video of a scalp or whatever.

Need to sort that out.

MadammeMarie

Jamey wrote:

Tell you what, this first week of helmet camming has made me realise how slow I am.

I had a bit of that Friday magic in my legs this morning and there were two short sections of my ride where I thought I'd "Cav it" and go for a little sprint.

Got into the office all eager to watch them back and it still looks like I'm plodding along compared to when you guys post a video of a scalp or whatever.

Need to sort that out.

Yup, just speed them up using any video editing software!

kurako

MadammeMarie wrote:

Jamey wrote:

Tell you what, this first week of helmet camming has made me realise how slow I am.

I had a bit of that Friday magic in my legs this morning and there were two short sections of my ride where I thought I'd "Cav it" and go for a little sprint.

Got into the office all eager to watch them back and it still looks like I'm plodding along compared to when you guys post a video of a scalp or whatever.

Need to sort that out.

Yup, just speed them up using any video editing software!

I only post it when I overtake slow coaches. That way I look fast as f*ck

Jamey

Yeah but I overtook a slow coach today and it still didn't look very fast

kurako

Off to the Road Training section for you!!!

Can't say I'm an expert but a lot of it comes with time. Do you have gears or one of those fancy fixies? Just like a car high gear is good for cruising along but you need to be a bit lower for good acceleration.

See if you can get your legs spiinning at a rate that makes you want to change gear then make a conscious effor to spin faster. You should start to fly in no time.

Jamey

Yeah, I do tend to rotate slower than most... I wouldn't say it was mashing, not quite that bad but I could definitely do with spinning a bit faster. Last commute of the week tonight so might try to do it balls-out and see what I can manage.

Having two full panniers and weighing 20 stone probably doesn't help either

Bike has gears btw - it's a CXer, Tricross. Pic in sig.

Jamey

First night vid posting from me, from tonight's commute home.

Approaching the roundabout at Mitcham Common I noticed the guy behind had that "must overtake cyclist" mentality and sure enough he shot past me, nearly colliding with another car. The registration is LD58 FMS or FWS. It probably won't be clear in this YouTube version but you can see it on my original hi-res copy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idVhgJ9ohgQ

And on VholdR:
http://vholdr.com/node/77152

kurako

Had to do this over 2 vids. The action is on 2 files on my MuVi and I spent ages trying to stitch them together but the quaility was shee-iiiite. Very jerky and sound totally out of sync.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYnosARTK0g
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGykJgGwv4c

Rugby bloke : It's not a race. Well, ok, it is but there are rules. Squeezing up the left of people is seriously uncool!

Jamey

This software will let you join two video clips without any re-encoding (just uses the original data):
http://www.boilsoft.com/avi-mpeg-rm-joiner.html

Obviously the clips need to be trimmed out of the longer recordings first before using it.

Or, if they're QuickTimes then you can join them in QuickTime Player, again losslessly.

NWLondoner

I have just put some videos up using my Muvi but the video seems to wobble. Any ideas??

http://www.youtube.com/user/NWLondonerCyclist#p/u/0/u1ncDJkPURM

Jamey

It's the combination of Muvi and frame mounting that's causing the wobble.

If you mount the Muvi on the helmet it will work fine and if you mount a different camera on the frame it'll be fine but if you want to use the Muvi on the frame you'll have to live with the wobble.

It's caused by the fact that the camera reads data off the sensor one pixel (or line of pixels) at a time, so the lines at the bottom of the image have been read after the lines at the top of the image and the lines in the middle at various stages in between.

We're only talking fractions of a second but when there's fast movement it causes the wobbling effect you see there.

Better cameras tend to read the whole sensor image at once so that each pixel of the frame is taken at the same moment instead of having different areas of the image taken at different times.

Jamey

Oh, and the frame mounting vibrates the camera quite fast and fairly constantly, I meant to say that as well.

gaz545

NWLondoner wrote:

I have just put some videos up using my Muvi but the video seems to wobble. Any ideas??

http://www.youtube.com/user/NWLondonerCyclist#p/u/0/u1ncDJkPURM

You can fix the wobble on the video by supporting the camera better. If you add a velcro strap/zip tie/ or other kind of strap around the muvi and around your frame to support it better it reduces the wobble A LOT. I will do a video later to show you how much difference it makes.

kurako

Helmet cam as deterrent:

Sitting at the lights at Clapham Common South Side. Just before the underground where gaz had a barney with some woman (gulp!). I hear something behind me and look round to see a transit van about 6ft back and pushing half in the bus lane. Take a long look at his number plate and in the cab (although I couldn't see anything due to the lack of light!). Lights go green and I go expecting the van to be close behind. Only he must have noticed the camera and decided to slot back into traffic. I wee'd myself laughing. Checking the video I only got the front corner of the van. Must remember that the eyes may be looking at something but the camera may not

Jamey

Nice one.

I reported this guy to the police on Friday via the RoadSafeLondon website (cheers Gaz) and I've just had a reply saying:

Jamey

Many thanks for your email and information, I will research the Vehicle
and be in touch with the Keeper imminently

Roadsafe

Is that the bog-standard reply or does that mean they might actually do something? I'm assuming that certainly Gaz and maybe a few others on here have probably used the site before so be intrigued to know if that's an automated response or a proper one.

gaz545

well it's automated....

I got this response from one i reported last night

Thanks for the latest emails, I will research them imminently.

That is some incredible kit you have, do you compete?

roadsafe

From all the ones i reported, i get a similar response. They won't send you anything about what happens, but this is basically their process

You may be aware that 'Roadsafe London' is in its infancy and your report has raised issues that had not before been dealt with, particularly around possible prosecutions of offenders and the wording of our standard letter.

Roadsafe London was set up largely to provide the Metropolitan Police Service with a source of intelligence that relates to road incidents as opposed to the crime matters normally dealt with by Crimestoppers. This will enable tasking of roads policing units based on a number of reports as opposed to individual incidents per se. We anticipated, and have received, a large number of reports and considered a standard letter to drivers on a first notification was the only practical way to deal with volume reports and a 'standard' letter was sent to the driver in your case.

I appreciate this will not always provide satisfaction of prosecution or direct police contact on a first case but I hope you will understand what we are trying to achieve by this gathering of information. ALL identifiable drivers that have allegedly been driven in an unacceptable manner will be contacted by letter and, where a vehicle receives multiple reports, an intervention against an individual may be warranted backed up by Roadsafe reports and other intelligence where available.

Basically my view on the roadsafe london reporting site is to report things you wouldn't normally.. and anything more serious is best to contact the local police force directly.