Dash Cams
2I bet there are people in this forum who know something about dash cams. Have you thought about installing one? Do you run one? Which one did you choose? How do you feel about it? Did you ever capture footage of anything interesting? Useful accident footage? Creepy neighbor caught in an act of mischief? Last surviving ivory-billed woodpecker?
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I pull up next to people who irritate me and take their picture with my phone. It's funny how much this pisses people off. Someday someone is going to shoot me though, so I don't recommend.
This is how I had a knife pulled on me in traffic once. I also don't recommend it.
Suidcide by photo
@snapster, You should set up a shared Photo Stream of driver pics. For the lulz, but also so we can then see who ends up shooting you.
Definitely a worthwhile investment.
I have one of these: http://www.szswill.com/car-camera.html (not sure exactly what model) and it has worked perfectly thus far (couple of years). It fits behind the rear-view mirror perfectly.
Run the cord from the 12V outlet in front of the gear lever, up through the passenger a-pillar, and behind the headliner. And it's in there permanently. It doesn't drain the battery unless you set it to "park" mode which enables it to record for a specified period of time when it senses movement in front of the car.
I've seen a lot of bad things happen to people while driving. Do you know what they all had in common? Dash Cam. They're bad news, and you should stay away from them.
Yeah, it's like these terrible incidents are just attracted to people who happen to be filming.
Does it require Russian citizenship to install a dash cam?
Hmm, maybe it's good the "I bet" in my original post was idiomatic.
I've been looking recently at these sites:
dashcamtalk.com and blackboxmycar.com
The latter is a retailer, so not necessarily super-objective. But there are some enlightening videos there for n00bz like me.
On the subject of photographing roadway menaces: I bet I STILL have a picture I took in 2001 or 2002 of a delivery/service driver who spat at me while I was riding my bike. (Out the passenger side window! Across his passenger!) I was sure this evidence would bring me justice somehow, though I never formulated any kind of plan as to how. I shot it with my phone, which didn't even have a very good camera for the time. It's probably 64 pixels square.
I don't get what dash cams are for... just entertainment? Or utillity... I mean, obvs useful if you witness an accident, but I've never witnessed one so that seems like not much utility.
Also handy meteorite footage, but I've never witnessed that either.
I think it's more common in places like Russia because they have a lot of insurance fraud issues. I also don't see a need for one myself.
If you're a stunt driver it's kinda like having a GoPro