Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

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Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

Postby cmsellers » Fri May 11, 2018 4:11 am

Yesterday I went to Houston, and left around six forty-five, just at the tail end of rush hour. As I neared the outskirts of the city going around sixty and keeping six car lengths from the car in front of me, a blue car pulled *right* in front of me, like so close I couldn't see the tail-lights. I slammed the breaks, and spent the next half our or so thinking about that incident.

It occurred to me "holy fuck, what if I hadn't just replaced the breaks, or what if the person behind me couldn't break? I'd have had an accident doing sixty (and the only reason I wasn't going faster was that that was as fast as traffic allowed); I'm pretty sure this is the closest I've come to having an accident on the freeway, and it was terrifying.

And I remembered that there's generally a rebuttable presumption that the the car which rear-ends another car is at fault, which might be why blue asshole was willing to risk that maneuver in the first place. Which made me think "there probably won't be witnesses to come forward to a freeway accident, maybe I should get a dashcam, in case something like this happens again."

I looked into it, and the cheapest dashcams don't have SD cards, which seems to render them pointless, except as a deterrent for robbers maybe. The cheapest dashcams with SD cars are around forty bucks, while most dashcams seem to be in the one to two hundred range.

So I'm wondering, given that I have liability insurance and drive a car which is worth maybe a thousand dollars at best, is it worth getting a dash cam in case something like this happens again and I have an accident? And if so, does anyone have any suggestions for the cheapest reliable dashcam I can get?
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Re: Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

Postby Absentia » Fri May 11, 2018 4:38 am

You might want to check with your insurance company and see what they recommend. I know a lot of companies have those in-car data recorders and they'll lower your rates if you let them install it and don't drive like a maniac. I imagine they can get pretty good data on what happened in an accident even if there's no video.
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Re: Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

Postby DoglovingJim » Fri May 11, 2018 4:40 am

Make your own dashboard camera, I modified one of these things to be attached head height on the drivers seat to act as a 'dashcam'.

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Comes with a easily removable SD card and I connected the charger to where the cigarette lighter goes so the thing charges as I drive. I'll take a picture of the homemade stock when I can.


EDIT:
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^41A1C2723E2ECB009CB7849FA7C683F44F5D7D8C110185696B^pimgpsh_fullsize_distr.jpg (91.86 KiB) Viewed 3121 times

As it's on the car seat itself instead of the dashboard then I also record the rear vision mirror too, it can see everything I see (need to get a wide angle lens though when I save up for it, just to make it better).
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Re: Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

Postby cmsellers » Fri May 11, 2018 4:46 am

Absentia wrote:I know a lot of companies have those in-car data recorders and they'll lower your rates if you let them install it and don't drive like a maniac.

Define "drive like a maniac."

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Re: Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

Postby Absentia » Fri May 11, 2018 4:53 am

I dunno, I never looked into it because I tend to ignore speed limits and figured it wouldn't be a good idea for me. All I know is from the commercials where they promise deep discounts for "safe drivers" if you're willing to prove it by having your car monitored. I'm sure it saves them a bundle on investigating crashes, too.
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Re: Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

Postby cmsellers » Fri May 11, 2018 4:58 am

Absentia wrote:I dunno, I never looked into it because I tend to ignore speed limits

See, I don't ignore them. I just look at them and mentally add ten.
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Re: Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

Postby DoglovingJim » Fri May 11, 2018 5:29 am

As for your question, yes get a dashboard camera. It doesn't just help in case you get in a crash, it can also help if someone accuses you of running a red light [insert traffic violation] or if you yourself witness a crash and want to help the poor fella out.

Not to mention it's always cool re-watching your videos, like I have a video of some guy angry that I overtook him. When I reached a stop-light (he finally started driving a bit faster, actually went over the limit just to overtake me so he could end up in the front again) jumped out of his car and threatened to beat me up. In response I just started laughing at him (I have a bad habit of smiling and laughing when people are threatening me) which made him even more crazy, and when the lights turned green I just drove off and overtook him again since I always make sure to leave a gap (even when stationary) and he wasn't moving.
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Re: Should I get a dashcam and if so, which one?

Postby iMURDAu » Fri May 11, 2018 12:26 pm

Yeah two days ago on my way to work I was sitting still at a light with a red light camera that flashed after I had been sitting still for about 5 seconds. I was the only vehicle at the intersection so idk why the flash went off. But I saved the footage on my dashcam so if the robonazis send me a ticket I have proof that I wasn't moving.

The SpyTec A118-C is what I use. It's $65 on Amazon right now which is $20 less than when I bought it a couple years ago. I use a Silicon Power 32GB sd card in it. There are other versions from other companies as it's really just a Chinese sourced camera but SpyTec offers U.S. based customer service. Which made it very easy to communicate with them when I needed to get a replacement mount after we had to replace a cracked windshield.

You can't see license plates on it and it only records 30 frames a second but it's got a great angle and is very easy to use. It doesn't have a battery that will overheat since it uses a capacitor. It's handled freeze/thaw cycles very well.

The peace of mind is my favorite part about it. I know if there's an accident I won't have to persuade an officer that my story is the one to believe, I can just bring up the video. Plus what if a meteor shower happens or some giant flying cryptid swoops down in front of me?
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