“And my eyes were glued to the road!”
Spot on. In my GMC truck, the pillar trim was easy to remove (I was installing a grab handle anyway) and it was pretty clear how to route the cable so it was not anywhere near the air bag.
I don’t remember the process I used in my wife’s Subaru, but “not being in front of the air bag” is a priority. Google your own vehicle model to see how others have done it. It is probably as simple as prying up the trim and popping it back in place afterwards.
A few additional thoughts on these…
I bought the Garmin(s) as well (Mini 2). I wanted them as small as possible and these are almost invisible with the mount behind the windshield “dots”. Only the lens peeks below.
If you’re using Android Auto, it doesn’t play well with the Garmin phone app. I’ve found that everything clears up if I just turn the car off. Then I can easily find and save videos, and I’ve also practiced a bit with the voice commands. Note: if you have a rear camera you need to speak loudly.
I found the cameras could shut down when parked in the Texas heat. I added small heat sinks to both of them and it seems to have solved the problem.
As far as license plates, experience has taught me to have very low confidence in the justice system as a whole, and zero expectation that traffic scofflaws will be found or prosecuted. Personally I’ve been in one staged accident, caused by a known driver/attorney team who’d been doing this a while (found out from my insurance company later). Also a friend that had a bum hurl himself backward onto the hood while stopped a traffic light, then claiming he was hit by the car. Video of these events can be invaluable, and maybe even nip some of this bullshit in the bud when the responding officer views them. I only want cameras to prove my own innocence if there is uncertainty, either with police or insurance company.
That’s a great point–to set expectations that a dash cam is less about identifying the plate number of someone and more about documenting the event.
You probably won’t be able to get anything from a flash of blurred plate from the red light runner late at night, but at least you can provide documentation of what really happened to your insurance company and to the police.
Any camera that stops recording when the card fills up can’t (shouldn’t) be called a dashcam, because that’s what they have to do in order to be of any use. What you need to do is get in the habit of pushing the save/manual record/lock button right after an incident, which prevents the camera from overwriting the footage you want to keep. It’ll then overwrite anything else it needs to, but that specific block is protected until you download and manually unlock the footage.
I had an incident a couple months ago. And by "incident " I mean 2 ins cos paying out >$250K+ for 2 totalled cars.
The 3rd vehicle which caused this expense was undamaged and sped away from the scene of their crime. We had clear pix and multiple witness statements at the scene. The license plate of the initiating offender was not in doubt.
The cops, who were prompt, professional, friendly, sympathetic, and humane, did not give a shit about the hit-and-run driver who wrecked two cars and drove away. Despite the ironclad evidence we offered.
I spoke to both our insurance co’s. As did the other driver, an articulate professional. Despite the immediately available evidence they both had zero interest in pursuing the 3rd driver. In their opinion, the car behind me was at fault, period. The rest was irrelevant details.
Worked great for me as an instant event, but gave me great pause as to future society.
I had one that used to overwrite the oldest files,but then it stopped doing that; it would only record until it filled up & then record no more. Now I could get hours out of the card but it was a PITA, hence the “had”
Why so much concern about cams erasing old footage. I assume in well over 99% of cases, you would know immediately that you want to save specific footage.
What about keeping a spare memory card in the glove compartment? In the event of an accident where you want to save the footage, pull the memory card and install the spare.
I didn’t get around to moving the dashcam into my current car when I got it in 2019 …until earlier this year. I noticed that the clock wasn’t holding up but didn’t think much of it. One evening in May, I came across a small car smoking with a little flame flickering inside. I jumped out and did a bunch of crazy death defying, heroic things: secure the patients/passengers (they were already out), get my fire extinguisher (missing, also not moved into the new car), weakly batted at the fire with a floormat and helplessly watched it consume the dashboard.
The Fire Department arrived (finally!) and I turned it over to them and cleared the scene, eager to watch my awesome videos. For whatever reason, it was only saving the last video segment recorded so I only got the video below. In it, we see Chicago FD Engine 69 finishing my hard work as I check out with the victims. As I drive away, I say “Dude” before clicking the camera off.
I’ve since bought a new cam that, based on the last few months, I very highly recommend. Nice mounts & cables, boots really fast, very good menus and even the manual is decent. I still have yet to set up the rear cam and parking mode kit but I think this is a nice cam.
A big enough card will store hours of video clips. That’s generally enough time to drive home before the important clip gets overwritten, and then bring the card inside and download the clip to your desktop computer, all without having to take any special steps on the camera to preserve the footage.
Haha… My flying instructor back in the 70s said his instructor was a member of Danish air force - up until he flew his jet under a big stone bridge.
I bought an external 1TB drive for my Tesla, it will record several days - I think, never had to look. It also has sentry mode where motion will trigger recording while parked (But there’s the option to turn off sentry mode at home, since I park in the garage. ) I see there are some pretty hefty micro-SD cards available too now.
Believe me, LSLGuy, when the CIVIL lawsuits start, the dash cams become very important to the attorneys and accident reconstruction engineers. I receive quite a few of the videos, as well as the cameras themselves, for review and analysis. In fact, for many commercial systems (e.g., Lytx and Samsara systems in commercial trucks), we actually remove the eMMC device(s) from the board and use software tools to recover deleted videos or data not yet uploaded to the cloud. Driving patterns and history prior to the incident can be considered in civil actions as they may show a pattern of poor driving.
But I agree that the police investigations are often cursory at best. And if insurance adjusters can close the case quickly and reasonably, they will make every attempt to do so.
More thoughts on dash cams…
The card is being written to for every minute of your driving. If you drive hundreds of miles per week this means the card is undergoing substantial wear and tear. Replace it every year or even more often.
Decide ahead of time if you want your GPS data and/or speed to be overlayed on the image. These may help exonerate you, but can also incriminate you. These can be turned off in the settings.
Likewise, decide if you want audio to be captured in your car. I think it’s a good idea (for shout outs of the license plate) but there may be reasons you don’t want this enabled.
Wired-in is the way to go. You don’t want to have to remember to set up and turn on the camera, and you do want it to capture bumps that happen while you are parked. The OBD-II adapter makes a wired-in installation relatively painless.
Annoying flashing LEDs distracting you at night? Black tape.
Consider whether or not you need a rear camera as well. They are typically sold as a set, and the card will have clips of “front” and “rear” for every time period.
Think about interior cameras. Some dash cams have a front facing and an interior camera–these are often used by Uber drivers to document their passengers in case of trouble.
Someone mentioned hot weather earlier. Dash cams will shut down in hot weather, not unexpected in their precarious position in the sunlight. They can also be affected by cold weather: they draw battery power from your car, so make sure you have a good battery. There shouldn’t be any issues with the camera in parking mode for a week or so, but keep this in mind.
Keep the windshield in front of the camera clean. Check the view.
Consider adding a polarizer. They are made by the specific camera vendors. Polarizers help cameras see through glare off of windshields, both your own and those of other vehicles.
Get things framed optimally. You don’t need 3/4 of the image being empty sky, but you also don’t need 3/4 of the image filled by your hood.
One important feature of any decent dash cam is that it should automatically save the clip when there is any jolt. The camera will make some audible alert whenever that happens.
The end result is that you end up with a good collection of clips of your car going over potholes, but if there were ever an accident you don’t need to worry about not saving the clip–the camera does that for you. It should save the 30s or so before and after the event.
Of course, as always, trust but verify.
I always wondered what happens when someone does a dumb move like a lane change without signaling that causes an accident behind them without their car being touched. I imagined no cop would bother with that guy and would simply say you both need to drive safely enough to respond to unusual situations. Argh!
The camera probably is most valuable in documenting what happened in the case where you or someone else is involved in proper litigation–personal injuries and such.