Is this van driver passing too close? Drives past again to shout abuse.

[I893469365902345609348566]

This van driver made me feel rather threatened. After driving past less than two feet away from my wing mirror, he returned to shout "You f*cking! (something)" from the other side of the road. My camera completely failed to capture his number plate, so from now on I'm under-exposing all of my video. There's very little which can be done in post, to reveal number plates when video is over-exposed. The microphone also failed to capture the abuse he shouted.

I pulled over and parked in a layby, in case he pursued me. Luckily, this van driver wasn't that unhinged. I haven't reported any driver to the rozzers yet, but would have liked to have reported this one.

 

[AndyBike]

Send footage to police. Dont mess about, the idiot even pumped his horn to deliberately unsettled you. Could easily have caused you to overbalance and fall.
You could try looking at it in photoshop, as a negative etc, try to use tones to remove some of the glare.

Had a similar run in with a white van today. A real rust bucket and heading the opposite way and the C**** screamed out the window abuse just as he passed. Bit of a fright yeah.

With your run in its just an entitled clown thinks he owns the road, with mine its a really low intellect halfwit who is too stupid to realize how dangerous his actions were. I needed to stop, and it makes me want to wear the go pro even on short journeys
If i had been wearing it I've have sent footage in with a note about how dangerous such actions were. F**** di*k**eds, theres a glut it seems.

 

[I893469365902345609348566]

The beep was my beep of alarm, thinking I was about to get flattened. I'd rather make an annoying beep than suffer in silence, when something like this happens. At least the driver knows that I know he did something alarming. Otherwise he would have not given this a second's thought.

If I could make out a single letter or number, I would definitely report this driver. He obviously has some sort of dangerous mental dysfunction. Pehaps it might have been worse, if he hadn't spotted the camera strapped to my chin? I honestly thought he was going to give chase and run me over. Taxi, van and SUV drivers are the worst.

Even though I was recording at 120 frames per second, the shutter speed was too slow when his number plate is visible, leading to blurry frames. And when the plate is lit, it's too bright. No action camera I've seen does well at night.

I'll under-expose in future. More can be done to enhance noisy frames which have been brightened, than over-exposed frames.

 

[I893469365902345609348566]

With your run in its just an entitled clown thinks he owns the road, with mine its a really low intellect halfwit who is too stupid to realize how dangerous his actions were. I needed to stop, and it makes me want to wear the go pro even on short journeys
If i had been wearing it I've have sent footage in with a note about how dangerous such actions were. F**** di*k**eds, theres a glut it seems.

I won't cylce without a camera... insurance claims, Police action if necessary, it's all too important.

I've ordered some new high capacity batteries for my low grade camera, but even the GoPros top out at ISO 6400 (same as mine), and their shutter speed still isn't fast enough to capture non-blurred number plates at night. The Instas highest ISO is 3200. I haven't seen any action camera capable of capturing number plates at night when vehicles are moving quickly. Casio made one several years ago capable of ISO 12800, but it was bulky. And none have enough manual controls.

 

[matthewslack]

Haven't used it at night, but deep shade high contrast conditions were ok for my hero 10 in June. I wonder how much difference the stabilisation makes.

 

[Nealh]

DGC or DGO looks like the last three letters.

 

[Nealh]

It is dangerous driving wth no consideration for their actions.
Though one can't ID the Transit reg properly, it is worth still reporting to plod.

 

[matthewslack]

The test of 'too close and/or too fast' is really as simple as did it make you, the more vulnerable road user, unsafe? If so then yes, the driver is not giving you enough care.

These are consecutive frames from an incident near Ullapool in June, half a second apart. First is after playing with exposure in the GoPro Quik app, second shows the deep shade and original unreadable number plate lighting.





There are more cyclists the other side of the van....

 

[I893469365902345609348566]

Haven't used it at night, but deep shade high contrast conditions were ok for my hero 10 in June. I wonder how much difference the stabilisation makes.

I advise not cycling at night unless necessary.

I think the ISO limitation is the problem. Before I buy any camera, I search Youtube for "GoPro 10 Hero night video test" or "GoPro 10 Hero low light video test" (in the case of GoPro 10) to avoid those useless and annoying "Unboxing" videos, Judging by GoPro 10 Hero night footage I have seen and paused, number plates are blurry.

 

[I893469365902345609348566]

It is dangerous driving wth no consideration for their actions.
Though one can't ID the Transit reg properly, it is worth still reporting to plod.

I've read the Police have number plate deblurring software. Those could be Ds or blocky Os. I'd hate to waste Police time without the certainty of at least one letter and it's position.

I've tried every trick I have on those stills, but there is too much blur or too much light. I'll underexpose drastically for all future video... working with dark images is more feasible than over-lit containing very little data, if there's enough dynamic range.