What's new
What's new

O.T. Dash cam

5 axis Fidia guy

Stainless
Joined
Aug 17, 2006
Location
Wisconsin
Hey there, after seeing several violent accidents while on motorcycle trips, I installed a tiny dash cam on my bike, not to post on Youtube, just to have in the event of a crash. Has anyone here ever used dash cam footage to their advantage with insurance companies? Any dash cam suggestions? Any dash cam discounts with insurance?
 
I don't have one so I've no idea, ..but they can be a 2 edged sword so make sure you erase any of your shall we say ''minor misdeeds'' ;) after a ride.
 
I had one and returned it (WalMArt $29.99 special)

What's needed is a 360 degree view, to show other
than just the front view.
 
Yeah more than a few here in the uk have caught them selves with there dash cams, remember, in a crash its not like you can chose weather the footage gets seen or not and no one here in the uk has ever done well arguing against a video of any kind. Equally post a video of your self driving like a twat on you tube on the public high way and the chances are good there going to find u!

Good or bad for you, few things beat them as a totally solid undisputed version of events. Its why there so popular in russia, you can't even bribe the video camera!

Chose wisely though and replace the memory card every year or so as the constant rewrite cycles tend to kill them.
 
Looking forward to the answers here as to best brands and types. A couple of years ago a friend of mine searched the internet, bought an import and had nothing but difficulty setting it up and found the image was poor. He finally settled on an American dash cam due to quality and ease of set up. In general import ones greatly exaggerated picture quality. Video of a blur doesn't really help.

For my last accident (t-boned, stolen car/driver ran a stop sign) insurance took care of most of the cost but I would have loved to have had dash cam footage to help catch the driver. I don't care if the footage gets used against me, if I'm the cause of an accident I'll own it.

Depending upon how much/when you drive and the road, you can sure see stupid things happen. Jerks seem to gravitate to some makes and types of vehicles. I guess I just don't realize that some people are special.

Dave
 
I bought the $20 Walmart one (marked down from $30, and later to $15) and returned it after a couple days. It had a reasonable live display on the screen which made one think it's working but totally worthless when you try and play anything back. Menus are non functional and stored image quality is worse than an old vcr tape if you can get it to play at all. It's NOT HD, Read the reviews on YouTube, it uses some goofy 1980s format I've never even heard of. It's only value would be as a prop. You could point to it and say "I have it on video"! It's basically a scam to get your $20.
 
I've had one in all the vehicles for 3 or 4 years after a fellow engineer at work got hit head on by a rollback in a curve (rollback was on engineer's side of the road) and the officer cited my fellow engineer instead of the rollback driver. He had pictures, etc and did cad diagram and calculations of how it was impossible for what the officer said to be true. Was tossed out of court and his insurance record cleaned. You have to spend >$70 bucks to get a good one. I have one in my vehicle that has both forward and rear facing cameras. I don't drive stupid so I really don't have much to worry about there. It has been used in an accident investigation when a dude hit my car Dec 2016. I showed the footage to the officer and it clearly showed I was stopped when he T-boned me in the left front wheel. Highly suggest everyone get one.
 
Last edited:
Tony, how about you post which make/model you bought ?

I am seeing that some have a GPS built in these days as well.
 
I've seen enough YouTube videos to strongly think about getting one, especially for in my collector car.

My "favorite" video was one from Britain (I think) where a lady was driving down a narrow side street in a row of... brownstones? The row houses all connected o one another?

Anyway, both sides of the road were lined with parked cars, and there was only one lane. The lady was coming to an intersection, when a guy pops out between two cars, pushing a scooter (motorbike) like he was getting ready to hop on at the intersection. She comes to a stop behind him, he suddenly stops and hauls the bike rearward, slamming it into her car. He then jumps up and flops onto the hood (okay, bonnet :D ) then rolls back into the street.

He gets up, clutching his back and acting in terrible pain, when another guy comes out of the other side of the street in a t-shirt and shorts, acting and gesticulating like "I saw everything, I'm calling the cops!"

The lady by this time has gotten out of the car, and points back to the camera, at which time the cyclist picks up his scooter and both of them book it in opposite directions like their hair's on fire. :)

It was clearly and obviously a setup, either to make an insurance claim or more likely just to extort some pocket money from the lady- tell you what, we won't call the cops of you give us 100 pounds.

And without the video, it would have been very hard for the lady to prove otherwise. WITH the video, it was a plain-as-day setup.

Doc.
 
I've seen enough YouTube videos to strongly think about getting one, especially for in my collector car.

My "favorite" video was one from Britain (I think) where a lady was driving down a narrow side street in a row of... brownstones? The row houses all connected o one another?

Anyway, both sides of the road were lined with parked cars, and there was only one lane. The lady was coming to an intersection, when a guy pops out between two cars, pushing a scooter (motorbike) like he was getting ready to hop on at the intersection. She comes to a stop behind him, he suddenly stops and hauls the bike rearward, slamming it into her car. He then jumps up and flops onto the hood (okay, bonnet :D ) then rolls back into the street.

He gets up, clutching his back and acting in terrible pain, when another guy comes out of the other side of the street in a t-shirt and shorts, acting and gesticulating like "I saw everything, I'm calling the cops!"

The lady by this time has gotten out of the car, and points back to the camera, at which time the cyclist picks up his scooter and both of them book it in opposite directions like their hair's on fire. :)

It was clearly and obviously a setup, either to make an insurance claim or more likely just to extort some pocket money from the lady- tell you what, we won't call the cops of you give us 100 pounds.

And without the video, it would have been very hard for the lady to prove otherwise. WITH the video, it was a plain-as-day setup.

Doc.



That's it, I've been procrastinating for years, I'm getting one...


Insurance Scam Backfires on Scammer || ViralHog - YouTube
 
They are expensive because they are new, but the Owl Cam (Owl Car Cam - The first security camera for your car



– Owl Cameras
) looks pretty fantastic...

- Long, flat cable that plugs into the OBD port so no having to hack into power.
- LTE cell connection so it auto uploads video, allows you to monitor remotely
- Dual cams front/rear, with GPS and tilt sensors. Can detect someone attempting entry and notify you instantly, while turning on an interior light.

Bunch of other cool stuff they've done.

It's $300 now and $10 a month for the optional net connection, but I expect the price to come down relatively rapidly as the chinese knock it off. Bunch of ex Apple people, so everything about it is maximum slick.
 
The only problem is that it only will talk to an Apple smart phone. You have to buy into Apple.

Rick


They are expensive because they are new, but the Owl Cam (Owl Car Cam - The first security camera for your car



– Owl Cameras
) looks pretty fantastic...

- Long, flat cable that plugs into the OBD port so no having to hack into power.
- LTE cell connection so it auto uploads video, allows you to monitor remotely
- Dual cams front/rear, with GPS and tilt sensors. Can detect someone attempting entry and notify you instantly, while turning on an interior light.

Bunch of other cool stuff they've done.

It's $300 now and $10 a month for the optional net connection, but I expect the price to come down relatively rapidly as the chinese knock it off. Bunch of ex Apple people, so everything about it is maximum slick.
 
The only problem is that it only will talk to an Apple smart phone. You have to buy into Apple.

They have an Android version coming out.

For a startup, it's way easier to launch with iPhone only, since it is only one or two versions of the OS to target and a handful of screen sizes to reach 85% of the user base. With Android, you've got 5+ different versions of the OS running across the active user base, and 50-60 different phones. It's a lot more development and testing.
 








 
Back
Top