Dash Cams

[classic33]

No indicator from the drivers turning right at 14s or the one 57s

And it's a Range Rover, what'd you expect!

 

[Smokin Joe]

One thing I'd recommend with a dashcam is to turn the voice recorder off. I witnessed a damage only accident earlier this year where one party was clearly at fault, but I didn't offer the evidence that was on my camera because just a few seconds earlier I'd realised I had come out without something I needed and turned the air blue inside the car.

And I believe one or two forum members may be prone to the odd politically incorrect comment concerning the state of dress of the occasional female one comes across.

 

[Drago]

I've checked the audio on mine. All that can be heard is heavily distorted Uriah Heep/Foreigner/Kansas/insert random seventies rock band.

 

[guitarpete247]

I got a cheapie from Groupon a few years ago.

Last week I saw the result of going cheap. Plonker pulled out on me whilst I had granddaughters in car. I slammed on the brakes and they screamed. Eldest complained of her neck hurting but at least I didn't run into him. She was alright later and next day.

When I looked at footage quality was too poor to show number plate (it was dark). I read out number which recorded on audio. Up the road Mrs GP took snap on her phone. Sent stills to local plod as the 3 mins footage wouldn't upload to email.

I'm now looking for something a little better. Thinking of Halfords hdc 300 or Nextbase 212. both around £70. Anyone got any other suggestions. reviews of both seem good and halfords has GPS logging.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

[QUOTE 5017722, member: 9609"]I think they should be fitted as standard to all vehicles.[/QUOTE]
I don't think it will be long before they are, I see it as another bandwagon for the manufacturer's to jump on as a sales gimmick.

 

[guitarpete247]

Only a few insurance companies offering discount for having one though. I'd not thought of this when I renewed earlier this year. Will look into it at renewal time.
Need to make sure what I buy next will be on insurers list of accepted cameras.

 

[guitarpete247]

I'm thinking about the Halfords HDC 300 (£69) but can't find any independent reviews apart from one negative about it interfering with his radio and fault with rear camera, and Which who I'm not a member of. Anyone have any experience of this model?

 

[Smokin Joe]

I'm thinking about the Halfords HDC 300 (£69) but can't find any independent reviews apart from one negative about it interfering with his radio and fault with rear camera, and Which who I'm not a member of. Anyone have any experience of this model?

The cheap lead that plugs into the cigarette lighter socket can interfere with the radio, it did on my first dashcam (Which was a Chinese cheapo). The solution was one of these -



Or you can wire the cam direct to the fuseboxhttps://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/USB-Car-Charger-Adaptor-Flush-Fit-Dual-Port-4-8A-High-Power-Iphone-Galaxy-Ipad/263720373357?hash=item3d66f58c6d:g9QAAOSwN2VbDEPZ:rk:28f:0

Or you can wire the camera direct to the fusebox.

 

[Soltydog]

Only a few insurance companies offering discount for having one though. I'd not thought of this when I renewed earlier this year. Will look into it at renewal time.
Need to make sure what I buy next will be on insurers list of accepted cameras.

I didn't get a discount for using one, but was offered a Nextbase camera & kit with my insurance for just a tenner. My wife had wanted one for a while, so thought at a tenner I'll treat her only to find out that with my policy I now have to use it When my renewal comes up in Jan I'll be passing it on & don't think I'll bother. Most of my driving is on quiet country roads, commuting with silly shift times, so don't encounter too much bad driving

 

[guitarpete247]

Quiet country roads can be the worst. I had my wing mirror removed by a twonk farm worker in a white van. Instead of pulling into the passing place (his side of road), before narrow road section, he ploughed on through. Even coming across to me a little. Was a hot summer day and had window open so were showered with mirror glass. I was hoovering it out for weeks. At night they're worse as they cannot see the edge of the road. This was before I got cheap camera.

The failings of cheap camera have been:
1) I had an idiot pull out on me the other night and found out the limitations of cheap dash cam at night. Can't see the No. plate.
2) Even in daylight guy who came round blind bend on my side of the road (he had given a cyclist lots of room). he came so fast plate also can't be read.
3) The only good plate I have is when a van snuck between me and a lorry at a roundabout a then went through red light. Unfortunately the date and time were set wrong.

 

[Globalti]

The Police are already spread so thin that they have resorted (here in Lancashire at least) to cruising the motorway using ANPR to spot the muppets who don't insure their cars, stopping them and tweeting about it to create an impression of effectiveness. Could we eventually reach a point where it becomes cost-effective for the Police to employ somebody to sit all day viewing the public's videos and sending the tasty ones on to be reported? This would effectively be Policing by proxy because the fear of a random catch has now all but disappeared and fear of dashcams could eventually replace human Police officers.

 

[tamiya]

If you're gunna bother maintaining a dashcam might as well get a good one.

My favourite is still Blackvue, these Koreans were the best back a few yrs ago and mine are still not too bad by today's standards. HD, 2CH, GPS, wifi & they're capacitor... yep cost a bomb, today they're probably worth more than the car

Have played with some other cheaper "equivalents" that looked equal on spec... but nah, they either crash repeatedly, take forever to boot up, fall asleep unexpectedly etc etc. And come time to read the file, image quality soso barely able to read plates @ 720 HD, frame rate is low ~15fps. And if they don't have GPS there's no speed or mapping coords recorded.

Even with "good brand" units, if they use lithium battery not capacitor - when that battery dies, the camera won't have enough power to properly shutdown. The last file (THAT YOUR CORONER NEEDS FOR EVIDENCE!!!) won't close properly, it'll be corrupted & unreadable. Cycle that camera a few times (= normal driving on/off) your SDcard gets filled up with corrupt files it can't delete/overwrite, it jams up & won't record anything new. Yeah sure you can erase that card manually (=pull out & format in PC) but on ours that needed doing every 5-6d. IMHO that type of camera is worse than nothing.

 

[Drago]

What happens when the capacitor dies? As a radio ham I've replaced more capacitors than Diane Abbot has messed up interviews.

As aforementioned, there are some genuinely s***e Chinese jobs about, but my rear facer has proven to be quite decent and exhibits none of the problems the doom and gloom mongers have forecast.

 

[Deleted member 26715]

Insured a car today & it was the first time I had been asked if it had any additional safety features, reversing sensors. dashcam etc.

 

[Drago]

They'd have probably charged you more for an imagined "lulled into a false sense of security" type scenario.