It's banging. A sheet metal damage at crossroads, and no one wants to blame. Such traffic accidents could be clarified more quickly in future, provided that drivers have a small camera in car that is filming everything: recordings of such so-called Dashcams are admissible in future as evidence in court. This was decided by Federal Supreme Court in Karlsruhe on Tuesday (vi ZR 233/17) and thus a fundamental verdict. Manufacturers are pleased with verdict, y are now expecting increasing sales. The insurance industry is also satisfied.
The verdict creates clarity. For some years now re have been such car cameras, which are attached to windscreen and record ride. In Russia and Eastern Europe y now use countless car drivers and create films. The clips often show brutal accidents in which participants are clearly identifiable. Millions of people in world click se movies on YouTube.
And this is exactly where problem lies: pictures of cameras often violate data protection in this country. Although recordings are allowed in public, permanent films are not. It is generally a violation of data protection and personal rights to make or even publicly disseminate images in which identification, persons or even children can be identified. The problem is also question of how long someone saves pictures of his car camera. Some providers, such as world market leader BlackVue from South Korea, even offer cloud solutions with unlimited storage time. Usually, however, images are only stored on a local SD card. What owners of cameras actually do in end with recordings – y really delete or edit and upload on internet like in Russia – is hard to control.
This is also why video recording of car cameras has so far been inadmissible as evidence in court. The courts decided on a case-by-case and always had to consider what interest was higher – interest in securing evidence or data protection. The current BGH ruling does not change this principle per se, but has made it clear that re is no general prohibition of proof. And this leads to a contradictory situation: Dashcam-incisions are allowed in future in court, even if films were created under data protection violations.
Manufacturers hope to increase paragraphsThe industry will help verdict on good business. Not least because of unclear legal situation, car drivers in Germany have hardly used Dashcams so far. Only 150,000 of se cameras were sold since 2015 according to industry association Bitcom in Germany. Last year, manufacturers generated sales of more than four million euros. On average, drivers can cost cameras 88 euros, whereby prices vary depending on model and additional functions such as parking, based on or speedometer display. There are Dashcams for cars and Dashcams for motorcycles. Something new on market are so-called dual-Dashcams, which have front camera as well as rear.
According to a recent Bitcom survey, 83 percent of Germans are convinced that Dashcams will be part of everyday life in coming years. And after all, almost every second finds that use of se video cameras should be prescribed by law. 46 percent of respondents would even support it if Dashcams were installed by default in all new cars.
A scenario that even manufacturers have in mind. The market leader in Germany is camera manufacturer Rollei, whose Dashcam sales increased by ten percent last year. "We now expect that nationwide installation of Dashcams in vehicles will also prevail in Germany. In future, traffic courts should have routinely clear and clear evidence on hand so that case law can be facilitated and accelerated, "says Rollei managing director Thomas Güttler.
Date Of Update: 16 May 2018, 12:02
