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In Thurgau, the police use drones to hunt down speeders. However, it is still unclear whether the courts will accept this method.
A suspected speeder is filmed by a drone and charged on the basis of these recordings: Such a case occurred in the summer in the canton of Thurgau, as the “Thurgauer Zeitung” published in early October. There are many indications that he could become a precedent in the prosecution of frenzy.
Police use commercial drones
The Thurgau cantonal police have been using drones for about a year to detect massive speed violations. There are no car chases being organized here, you just get a bird’s eye view with a standard device, says Kapo spokesman Michael Roth: “This means you have a car in view over large parts of the route.”
Legend:
Such commercially available drones are also used by the Thurgau cantonal police.
Keystone / Urs Flüeler
According to the media report, the now accused driver was once traveling at at least 137 km/h and on the return journey at 175 km/h. On the interurban road, this is a violation of 95 km/h – and thus a speeding offence.
Distance-time calculation like in school
But the accused driver and his lawyer doubt the measurements. From a legal point of view, the drone, in contrast to the radar box, is not a measuring device, but a recording device.
“The drone only documents the crime,” admits Kapo spokesman Roth. After that, an evaluation will follow. This works the way you learn it in school lessons: “The video recording has a time axis, from which we make a distance-time calculation.”
Sometimes it is not possible to set up a radar device.
So far, there has not been a speeder in the canton of Thurgau who has been convicted of drone footage. The effort is still worthwhile, explains police spokesman Michael Roth. “Thurgau has many roads where you can see long stretches of the road. Sometimes it’s not possible to set up a radar device everywhere.”
So far, Thurgau has only been chasing Raser with drones
With the drones, the cantonal police do not want to uncover small speed violations, but mainly act against massive speed violations and frenzy. “There are people who drive a route beforehand to see whether radar devices are set up or police patrols are on their way.” This is exactly where the drone can come into play – however, it only really takes pictures in justified cases.
For now, Thurgau is the only canton that uses drones to hunt speedsters. It remains to be seen whether this approach will prevail. Also because the current case first has to show whether the video evidence by drone will be accepted by the court if no official measurements are available.