Don’t worry. I’m not shilling for anyone. I won’t even post a link. But has anyone seen these commercials on late night tv for these dashcams? Only $39.99 or $59.99 or whatever (plus an unspecified amount of processing & handling, of course). My first thought, as a privacy advocate, was, (sarcastically), oh boy, another chance to be on camera. But on second thought, as long as its not uploading automatically to the cloud / youtube, this could be a good thing. The commercial is filled with testimonials like, “The policeman said that I ran the red light, but when I got out of shock trauma, I checked my dashcam video, and look, my light is green”.
My other thought is, if these really catch on, over time we should get a whole lot of funny & scary YouTube videos of people doing crazy things on the road. I don’t know if anybody else here is a fan of the show "World’s Dumbest. . . ", but a lot of the episodes revolved around cars & driving “. . . Dumbest Drivers”. Most of those videos came from traffic cameras and dashcams. It was stated on one of the episodes that most of the dashcam footage they get comes from Russia. Apparently there are a great many bad and/or crazy drivers in Russia, so folks install dashcams to prove to their insurance companies that they were not at fault when they get in an accident. I think its going to catch on here, especially with all the crazy / dumb / distracted people we have driving around in our country (the loose nut behind the wheel).
P.S.- Computer, stop underlining the word “dashcam”. Its a word.
There has been a time or two when a dashcam would have been helpful. I have seriously considered putting one on my car.
Bicyclists have been using them to document drivers that run them off the road, something to take to court against the drivers.
They may well become commonplace here as they become more affordable. You can even show your wife the video of your drive home if she accuses you of stopping at the bar when you come home late.
Just like the Russians. Opens up a whole new level of privacy concerns. First phones and now dash cams. I remember once we were taking pictures at one of our Christmas parties at work. One Oriental girl got really really upset. Unbeknownst to any of us back then is their perversion to being filmed because of stealing their spirit or something or other. So in essence you won’t be able to go anywhere without being filmed and its ok because you are considered to be in public with no guarantee of privacy. Yet you can’t record your phone conversation without letting the other person know.
I can see some new ruling coming. I think it should be ok to record but not publish such as on the net without permission.
Yeah, I’ve read / heard the same thing about many American Indian Tribes*, during the time of the “old west”; they’d try to kill you if they caught you taking their picture, they believed their soul would be trapped in the photograph (graven image).
Good points, @Bing . Personally, I think the cell phone location tracking and those tracking devices certain auto insurance companies want to entice folks to install on their cars are far more insidious than dashcams. However, I’m sure the dashcam people will find a way to make them more invasive of privacy than they need to be, because that’s where the money is, building a psychological dossier on everyone based on their movements and habits and using that information to manipulate people into spending money they didn’t intend on spending.
*I have read that “American Indians” take offense to the term “Native American”, i.e. labelling a people with the moniker of their conquerers and such, of course I guess “American Indian” is no better, but I mean the people who inhabited this land before the Europeans came, as opposed to “Indians” from the nation of India. See I’m trying to refer to people respectfully and I’m digging a deeper hole for myself. I don’t personally know any of these people to ask them. There’s always that one guy at work who says he’s 1/16th Cherokee on his mother’s cousin’s uncle’s sister-in-law’s side of the family, but I can’t rely on that. . .
You know that the vast majority of the footage shot by dash cams never gets viewed. In fact, these cameras have a mode where the new footage overwrites the old footage. Should something happen that needs to be presented to the insurance company or jury, you take out the flash card and save it.
The owner of the dash cam controls who sees the footage, unless the police obtain a warrant. There have been more than one hooligan motorcycle riders who filmed their own evidence to convict them. Once you post your exploits on You-Tube, no warrant needed.
Yeah the ones I’ve known (full blooded) prefer just Indian but associate with the tribe such as Lakota. So they would say they are Lakota or Sioux first and not so much Indian. A lot of them around here are doing very well and driving Hum Vees. Way up north though not so good.
@B.L.E. “You know that the vast majority of the footage shot by dash cams never gets viewed.” Yeah, cause its just boring. Just like the surveillance cameras at work. They’re not going to pay someone to look at hours and hours of people doing their jobs. It only comes into play when someone shows up in the office with a black eye or something comes up missing, then its, well, better go check the surveillance video. . .
. . . “new footage overwrites old footage”. . . This used to be a problem in the days of VHS. Somebody’d rob a store, and the tape was so grainy from so many overwrites as to often be unusable. I think digital storage eliminates most of those problems.
@Bing I’ve heard that too; they prefer their tribe name, but if one is making reference to the original inhabitants of an area as a group, I mean, there were literally hundreds if not thousands of tribes, and I’m not referring to a specific tribe, but rather the group as a whole. Aw heck, I’m on thin ice here. . . The cynic in me says that’s why they lost the country, because they thought of themselves as Lakota, Sioux, Cherokee, and so on. If they had been united, they could have slaughtered each boatload of Europeans as they came, and the folks back home would have just thought they sailed off the edge of the earth. . .
I was in Wal Mart recently and noticed they’re selling Go Pro dash cameras now in the automotive department for about 35-40 bucks.
They could be a handy little device to have if an accident ever turned into a he said, she said thing.
I’m not a fan of dash clutter but I’m seriously considering getting one and installing it in my car.
My other thought is, if these really catch on, over time we should get a whole lot of funny & scary YouTube videos of people doing crazy things on the road.
Over time? That time has already come, just look to You-Tube.
I have been considering getting one just to prove to a few people that there are more complete idiots driving than most would even believe.
I was in Wal Mart recently and noticed they're selling Go Pro dash cameras now in the automotive department for about 35-40 bucks.
If it’s that cheap, it probably wasn’t made by Go Pro®. Unless Go Pro has become the new Jet Ski®, a brand or trademark being used as a generic term for a product.
Another thought. We used to have an email retention schedule of 6 months. Then they were destroyed. They can work both ways to exonerate or convict. Sometimes its better to not have the evidence. If you have a dash cam and are in a serious accident that is your fault, your dash cam can be used as evidence against you as well as the contents of your black box. Just sayin’ no one is ever always in the right.
As we discussed in our defensive driving course, kill someone in their 30’s with a good income and do the math for lifetime income and loss of companionship. You can quickly exceed several million in liability. Once your insurance pays its limits, your income and property then become at risk. A wise person realizes they can make a mistake and sometimes that’s deadly.
“You can quickly exceed several million in liability. Once your insurance pays its limits, your income and property then become at risk.” “A wise person realizes they can make a mistake and sometimes that’s deadly.”
Exactly. That’s why wise people, with assets to protect, buy Umbrella Policies. CSA
Our agent related a true story of a southern Minnesota farmer that had several hundred acres of land (so that’s over a million) all paid for but didn’t want to pay for an umbrella policy. Ended up having an accident and his entire farm was at risk. Somehow the suit was settled and his land was saved but he bought the umbrella after that. About $10 per month per million.
You can quickly exceed several million in liability. Once your insurance pays its limits, your income and property then become at risk.
OTOH, a large insurance policy can become an "attractive nuisance" encouraging a lawyer to go after the deep pockets, where they might otherwise not have put up such a fervent assault.
"OTOH, a large insurance policy can become an “attractive nuisance” encouraging a lawyer to go after the deep pockets, where they might otherwise not have put up such a fervent
assault. "
Believe me, I’ve considered that, but I’ll take that risk over the risk of inadequate coverage. And do you know what? When my major insurer has millions on the line they will use their lawyers to help me out, instead of me going it alone.
Hey, @B.L.E., how do you get your keyboard to make that “R” in the circle trademark symbol?
Sounds like what my late father used to say, yeah, you might get sued for more than your umbrella policy and still lose your assets, but the insurance company is going to fight mighty hard on your behalf to avoid kicking out that kind of money. Nothing in life is 100%, but a good umbrella policy is probably about as close as you can practically get.