Why did you buy a dash cam?

For me where it falls down is that for it to actually be worthwhile, you need to satisfy ALL of the following:

a) You need to be involved in a non-fault accident
b) That you couldn't reasonably avoid yourself
c) That leads to unclear liability from the circumstances of the crash
d) Which is then followed by a denial from the other party

Then and only then the dashcam comes in useful but given how rare even a) on it's own is, let alone satisfying every other criteria, is it really worth videoing your entire driving life?

From the other angle do we really like the idea that every time we go for a drive we appear in loads of random peoples videos, of which potentially at least one could be an irritating YouTube vigilante who takes offence at even the most reasonable of driving manoeuvres he perceives to be 'wrong'?

I dunno really, I can absolutely see the appeal but just wonder where it stops..

As for the rear facing ones, blimey. The chances of a rear ending accident where they hit you ending up in a huge liability dispute is even more rare, it's fairly difficult to pile into the back of somebody and get taken seriously when you feign innocence! Yet we have people like Burnsy fretting that 720p for his rear facing camera just didn't offer the right amount of quality!!! Better quality than broadcast TV from 5 years ago just won't cut it for a rear facing dashcam :D:D

If I lived in Russia I'd be ordering one tomorrow because the entire motoring climate just seems completely different over there.
 
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[TW]Fox;27589531 said:
As for the rear facing ones, blimey. The chances of a rear ending accident where they hit you ending up in a huge liability dispute is even more rare, it's fairly difficult to pile into the back of somebody and get taken seriously when you feign innocence! Yet we have people like Burnsy fretting that 720p for his rear facing camera just didn't offer the right amount of quality!!! Better quality than broadcast TV from 5 years ago just won't cut it for a rear facing dashcam :D:D
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What if someone reverses into my car in a carpark and drives off? That happens more often than many people would like.
 
Burnsy2023 said:
What if someone reverses into my car in a carpark and drives off? That happens more often than many people would like.
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That happened to the wife, a hired minibus rear end swung out and ripped the front end of her car off. The driver got out checked the bus and drove off leaving no note. £4k worth of damage was paid by the hire firms insurance as the wife had it all recorded.

Not sure why people are opposed to having one?
 
I don't see the point in why people have to upload footage like that off theirs. The only time I would upload footage is if it catches something rare (i.e the taiwan plane the other day)
 
[TW]Fox;27590175 said:
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^

The hilarious part about that is that there were numerous times in his dual carriageway/motorway footage where he should have been getting in the left hand lane...
 
[TW]Fox;27590808 said:
He has done at least 55 of them!
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Find him, he will be a Harold Shipman look alike, just like that ariel selling bloke from Sheffield who came to this forum with his moans and then got sacked for been a tool.
 
I bought one based on what seemed to be a growing trend for even obvious cases where a driver is at fault in a prang ending up being a huge battle to avoid it going 50/50 in the eyes of the insurer. The straw that broke this camels back was my mother in law who had someone pull out of their drive on a NSL road right in her path. That got to the stage of having to respond to multiple correspondence with a flat "No, I'm accepting no liability and I'll go to court if I have to" responce before everyone saw sense and it went in her favour.

So for around £30 ish for an ebay special and about a tenner for a micro SD it didn't seem like too much of an investment to make.

The one in my wifes car has been in there for several years now and we have had cause to view the footage twice. Once when she saw some fly tippers and we played it back to get the reg to pass on to the old bill and once when I thought a chav in an Impreza had thrown a bottle out of his window at me. Playing that footage back showed that he had in fact driven over the bottle which flicked it up directly at my windscreen. You could say it was therefore a waste of money but TBH I'd rather be £40 down than have a real reason to have to use the footage.

I've also fitted one to my MX 5 but I'm probably going to take that one out day to day and slip it back in if I end up doing a track day.
 
I've seen at least two posts on this very forum where I've replied with "If you had a dash cam"... it would have saved a load of hassle with identifying who is at fault.

and that's the crux of it really, the hassle factor is worth the relatively small outlay of a camera.

I got mine for my bike to start with so if I ended up punted off into a ditch and left for dead, I might have footage to prove who did it.
I'll admit I did tend to upload a load of boring **** to youtube but I've stopped that now (can't be arsed with the editing) and will keep it purely for the entertainment factor and should anything reasonably upload worthy happen either on the bike or in the car, like my Suicide biker one :D I can show it to the world.
I've also grown very bored of some of the people I originally subscribed to on there when all they upload is a load of the same old "oh dear he cut me up" "he didn't indicate" "he was in the wrong lane" Who ****ing cares! :D
 
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