Dash cams?

OVERBOOK--GREAT VIDEO

From where I stand having a camera recording your every move on the highway would automatically make a person more careful driving.

I have the BlackVue and so far like it.

BlackVue

Bigdog wrote:

rhagfo wrote:
Mine is not a big brand, but is small and discrete! Hides behind the rearview mirror. Takes great video and wide angle, clear video night and day.
I see it as my best friend, an unbiased witness if in an accident!

Wait till you hit someone from the rear or have too much to drink and try to sneak home and hit something. Then you won't really want to have one. We are depending on too many electronic things today and not using our eyes or brains.
The wife of a friend has had two accidents in her brand new 2015 auto with all the bells and whistles because she wasn't paying attention to her driving and depending on the warnings.

I agree with the point of you post about depending in electronics to much. However the way you worded it suggests that if someone hits a person from the rear they should drive away and would not want the recording. It also seems like your encouraging drinking and driving. I'm sure that's not what you meant and I probably misunderstood you.

I too agree that the new cars have too much on them that distracts a person from watching what they are doing. I hate the climate controls on my 2004 Chevy pickup because they require me to take my eyes off of the road to adjust them.

spoon059 wrote:
As someone else mentioned... make sure it has loop recording. I have a dash cam on my police car. It is constantly recording... but it only saves the last 30 seconds before you turn it on. That 30 seconds gives me plenty of time to hit the RECORD button and capture the previous 30 seconds and continue recording the present. That lets me capture information that I really wanted to capture without having hours and hours of nothing recorded in the off chance something happened that I wanted recorded.

OK I don't understand why this is preferable to a loop recording. with it my previous ?? hours are recorded. no need to hit record.
bumpy

rhagfo wrote:
Mine is not a big brand, but is small and discrete! Hides behind the rearview mirror. Takes great video and wide angle, clear video night and day.
I see it as my best friend, an unbiased witness if in an accident!

Wait till you hit someone from the rear or have too much to drink and try to sneak home and hit something. Then you won't really want to have one. We are depending on too many electronic things today and not using our eyes or brains.
The wife of a friend has had two accidents in her brand new 2015 auto with all the bells and whistles because she wasn't paying attention to her driving and depending on the warnings.

When it worked, I liked the feature of my old dash cam, where it would use all the room on a 32GB MicroSD card. Since it recorded in 10 gig segments, when it ran out of space, it deleted the oldest one. This way, I had about 4-8 hours of video which gave me plenty of time to stop the camera, yank the card, look at the footage, and go from there.

The 30 second pre-record feature is useful, as I know of some police body camera makers which build that in. Maybe a camera offering both, one so one knows that footage of an event is recorded, and the second just as a passive addition as a security camera if the vehicle is backed in.

As someone else mentioned... make sure it has loop recording. I have a dash cam on my police car. It is constantly recording... but it only saves the last 30 seconds before you turn it on. That 30 seconds gives me plenty of time to hit the RECORD button and capture the previous 30 seconds and continue recording the present. That lets me capture information that I really wanted to capture without having hours and hours of nothing recorded in the off chance something happened that I wanted recorded.

I started a thread earlier this year about what I bought, since it was fairly popular. Well, it died, stated it was recording, but when I looked at the SD card, it really wasn't... and when I needed the images was after a hit and run. However, said camera did record footage which got handed over to traffic lawyers (especially when it caught one person backing into another person's car, then the person who caused the wreck claimed it was a rear-ender. My footage destroyed their claim to that.)

My advice. Don't buy the Chinese junk. Go for a good name brand. I'm also debating what to get next. I want something unobtrusive, as I fear a GoPro Hero with a suction cup may end up becoming an item in a meth-head's stash.

I have a LUKAS LK-7900 ACE 8GB + GPS dashcam. It is a Sony camera, can put filters on it (for glare...), and it is GPS enabled, which is nice if pulled over for speeding or running stop signs... Don't ask how I know. :) The software uses Google maps to when played back and it will lock the video files if the camera detects an accident (the accelerometers). I have mine behind the rear view mirror, it is discrete, and it is wired to an up fitter switch.

Cale