Who runs a dash cam?

After a very disturbing road rage incident that ended with police involvement, I am looking very hard at one. I drive 30k miles in outside sales and while usually, there is no issue, but I could see how one could be extremely beneficial.

Who runs one and what features should I be looking for?

I do now after my decade plus in claims handling.

basically, they're all going to have the basic features someone would care about these days (except action cams, some of those do not have any useful dashcam features).

i went with this one mass produced under multiple labels: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00MIO2KRC

I picked the capacitor one because lol Atlanta heat death in hot car, but its also offered with a battery one instead.

Here's premium features this one doesn't have you have to decide if you wanna pay for: true night vision (usually a high powered IR led with very low LUX lense), optical zoom, increased slot capacity, gps/telemetry, accelerometer, wifi/bluetooth features...

While I am not, that is likely a yet.

My primary interest is in being able to win against insurance companies. I've been burned numerous times by them. Having photo/video documentation might have made a difference.

I have one, the same one eastsidemav has. My boss recently went thru hell with a state trooper about changing lanes for the trooper having someone else pulled over. I told him a dash cam would have been case closed.

I have this one: eBay

$44, add a 32gb card. Turns on and off with the ignition, deletes oldest file when the card is full. Pretty damn good resolution too.

EDIT: seems to be the same one mentioned above. Got really good ratings on a dashcam forum.

My post from another thread.

1kris06 wrote: DashCam Talk Youtube Reviewer My youtube videos DashCam Basic Features I've had a Mini 0801 for 2-3 years now. No issues once I found a suitable microSD card and the date/time has started resetting randomly the last 6 months. I believe they are up to 0806 currently with this series of cams. Any other questions I can probably help with or help you find the answers.

I run a gopro on the dash. Thought about other options, but don't feel like paying for them. I run it completely manually. Kind of a pain in the ass to keep charged and manually start, so it wouldnt' be the best choice, but I use it.

A friend runs a dash cam and IIRC, I've posted a video he recorded. I can ask about it. Let me see if I can find it. (Here it is.) If you want to know about his, I'll ask him.

I keep thinking of them myself. Driving is getting nuts around here

I have a Monoprice action cam. It's not specific to the dash, but it could easily be run as one. I haven't done it yet though.

I noticed recently Crutchfield is selling one that is integrated into a replacement rear view mirror. I'd imagine there are other versions, but that design sounds nice and unobtrusive.

I picked up a cheapy from Groupon a couple months ago. Supposed night vision, but I don't think the LEDs are bright enough to work further than a couple feet. Continuous looping in 10 minute intervals. It has an accelerometer built in, so any impact (I think 6Gs) will trigger a save mode and not overwrite that section of the card.

I think my next one for my other vehicle will also include a rear facing camera.

foxtrapper wrote: While I am not, that is likely a yet. My primary interest is in being able to win against insurance companies. I've been burned numerous times by them. Having photo/video documentation might have made a difference.

Be aware that this is only marginally useful in a car collision as it only faces one direction.

anything with a 140deg viewing angle is going to have nice, wide peripherals, but they are still basically only useful for forward facing accidents.

However, in pedestrian accidents, this can be absolutely critically useful. Highly recommended if you're driving alot in-town and metro areas.

Who runs a dashcam?

MasterBlaster.

Had one in a rental car.
Noticed RockAuto has some listed also.

I'll second (or third of fourth) the G1W. I've got one in each of the two cars I drive regularly. You can usually read a license plate of a car in front of you at a traffic light, but once moving it doesn't have a good enough lense to pick letters out as easily. So, it may not be great for hit and run situations, but it'll be fine for insurance purposes.

I've thought about running a rear camera, but I also realized, if I'm in an accident that is not in the field of vision of the camera, it can still do a good job of showing what I was doing, so should still be fine for absolving me of blame.

I don't have one but I get to review some of ours at work and if you are safe they are good to have. It can be interesting hearing how far some people's version of the truth can stray from reality. I hope at some point we start prosecuting people that file false claims.

Hmmm, the G1W is cheap enough I just bought one. I found one sold in the US for $38: G1W

Could be useful for debriefing my son's driving since he doesn't believe some of the things I tell him he's doing.
How do these things do with vibration? Do they work for autox/rallycross/trackdays as well?

In reply to XLR99:

it depends on the mount quality as far as vibes go.

and yes, it makes a decent 30 fps track cam. you can get 60 fps if you lower the rez i think

In reply to XLR99:

I wouldn't use one for rallycross, but they might be okay for auto cross or track days. However, they are not going to be anywhere near as secure as a gopro.

Thanks guys, I sort of assumed it wouldn't be ideal for motorsports use, but given the amount of stupid I've been encountering lately (both from my kid and other drivers), it should be money well spent.

I checked mine after some ...spirited driving... on the Tail of the Dragon, and a recent autocross. Works pretty nicely. I have no idea how well it would handle the bumps on a rallycross.

Jerry wrote: I checked mine after some ...spirited driving... on the Tail of the Dragon, and a recent autocross. Works pretty nicely. I have no idea how well it would handle the bumps on a rallycross.

I'm not willing to find out. I seem to recall some of the cheaper dashcams use double-sided tape in their construction. Doesn't seem like it'd hold up to much off road abuse.

I run this one. KDLINKS® X1 Full-HD This is my second one. The heat finally cooked my first one.

With all the stupid people in this world and all the people out to make a quick dollar, I run it all the time. This one has a GPS built in that will also map your travels and record speeds and times. So, say a cop pulls you for speeding. It's recorded if you weren't.

It also has surprisingly good night capabilities. It does like a quality SD card. The cheap one I had in it originally would cause the camera to lock up on occasion. Over all, I'd give it a 9.9/10.

In reply to Datsun1500:

Don't get too excited. Consequences for lying on happen on TV. In a real court the mouthpiece says they must have made a mistake and life goes on.