The ownership of Dash Cams has gone through the roof in recent years and many people ask why? What’s the point in one? Well i aim to explain a few reasons that a Dash Cam can be very useful.
Since writing this i have had the unfortunate pleasure of being involved in an accident:
The accident wrote of my 2016 Smart Car however due to the video footage it was put down as a ‘no fault’ accident for me (not one person stopped as a witness) rather than a 50/50 claim. Also my excess was not deducted from my payout for a new car and i had the money in my bank 28 days after the crash. I will just mention i was Braking hard but the front tyres had been blown out on the initial kerb so i had very little braking…
The below footage is from another camera i have had in the car for several years in 720hd, whilst this isn;t a Thinkware camera internal recording can be achieved with the Thinkware Internal IR camera. This can help back up any claims for injury and prove you were paying attention at the time!
1 – You have the obvious reason, you’re in an Accident and you need an accurate description of what happened. I had a very close call driving our Demo Van (Mercedes Vito) at around 75mph back in April ended up skidding all over the A14 in various directions as i swerved to miss 2 HGV’s that collided and annoyingly we didn’t have a dash cam in our van i would love to have been able to playback the footage as shock took over at the time! (Luckily no one had any serious injuries)
2 – Related to the above you’re in an accident, the common one is someone runs in to the back of your vehicle when you are stationary but they say you reversed into them. Even with just a Front camera you’re able to prove you were stationary and didn’t reverse into them!
3 – Damage to your vehicle whilst parked, if you have a Dash Cam that has a Parking Mode then you stand much more chance of catching the person that has damaged your vehicle whilst parked up especially if you have a 2 channel Front & Rear system. It’s still not guaranteed to catch them as it does depend what angle they hit the vehicle but with 2 x 140 degree wide angle cameras it gives some hope! All Thinkware Cameras offer this feature when they are ‘Hard Wired’ to the vehicle and they have a Battery Voltage setting you adjust so when your battery gets to that level the camera will shut down so you don’t get a flat battery.
4 – I have heard of people using the footage from the Dash Cam to send to the Council to back up their story when they have hit a pothole and damaged their vehicle because of it.
5 – If you are going on a long journey that’s particularly scenic you can capture the scenery and then replay it to family members etc when you return. You may need to increase your memory card size (or take additional ones) for this as most cards overwrite themselves every couple of hours.
6 – You never know what’s around the next corner from animals running across the road to meteorites trailing through the sky.
7 – Also owning a Dash Cam can make YOU a better driver / person, I’ve had several people tell me at shows that they have a Dash Cam to calm them down otherwise they can be quite verbal & aggressive towards other motorists.
If you have any questions or other thoughts please get in touch by replying to this post or via our website www.thinkwaredashcam.store
Safe Driving!!!