Watch out Prince George; if you're a bad driver, you may end up on video for everyone to see.
After frustrations of seeing drivers break road rules regularly and come close to causing accidents, a Prince George resident, and two others, are filming and posting videos of dangerous and reckless driving on Bad Drivers of B.C.
The man, who requested to remain anonymous, started the YouTube channel last week with a year's worth of footage at his disposal already, but decided now was the time to release the videos upon seeing the situation getting worse.
"I've been getting fed up with peoples driving for a long time," he tells PrinceGeorgeMatters. "I went out and picked up a dash-cam and I've had the footage sitting around and thinking about how I could do something with that footage to help encourage drivers to be a little more responsible on the road."
So far, there are two episodes posted to the YouTube channel. The videos include everything from U-turns in the middle of a street, a U-turn on a red light in an intersection, non-use of signals and other dangerous driving infractions.
The most recent incident the man witnessed was yesterday (Nov. 26) when driving down Carney Street.
He says he got behind a TDI Volkswagen Jetta which he says was swerving wildly across the road, even into oncoming traffic and then back all the way to the shoulder and the sidewalk.
When he got even closer, he saw severe damage and believes the car was allegedly involved in a hit and run.
"The right-hand passenger side of the car was all smashed up," he says. "The two tires on that side of the car, including a really bent rim rear tire that was starting to come apart with cords coming outside, were damaged."
There was also a broken right taillight on the vehicle he says. The car turned left down 15th and the YouTube channel owner was going in another direction, but his friend called the police to report the car and the behaviour of the driver.
There's one scenario in particular the man sees that is disturbing: the lack of turn signals.
"There's a lot of clips of that on our videos," he says. "It isn't the most 'exciting' thing to see, but that's one thing we're really targeting because it's so rampant in this area."
They don't just use their footage either. In the past week alone, they have had three people submit footage they took themselves to the group to add into their episodes.
As for feedback? The group has been getting one request that was a little surprising to them.
"People have been checking our videos to see if they're in them," he says. "We like that too because if they care enough to check on our videos if they are there or not, we think that the next time they go out and are about to pull some illegal manoeuvre, they might just think twice about it."
While people check to see if they've been spotted, they also message the group asking if they have footage of them in files that have not yet been posted, or others saying they didn't see themselves in the videos doing anything illegal.
"Right now, we're making a difference based on the feedback," he says. "But we want to make a bigger difference."
