That clearly explains why people are spending wasting money on these cameras, thanks.

Oooh snarky. Okay let me be clearer then. You said “As dash cams become more popular the general standard of driving goes down” – that’s suggesting causation, but all we actually have is correlation.

It is just as likely that the causation works the other way and dashcam popularity is increasing in response to a perceived drop in driving standards. Or that there is no real link and they just happen to correlate.

why bother spending money on a dashcam if they serve no purpose?

What makes you think they serve no purpose? Several people on this thread have reported success stories.

Well I want one in my Van and I dont care what the Paper shop drivers think.

Several people on this thread have reported success stories.

We see a few instances where culpits have been caught, which is good. But in my experience, and I have plenty, I have never needed a dashcam and in answer to the OP I don’t have one and will not as long as I have a choice in the matter.
If you feel that you have to try and convince me otherwise, knock yourself out. My advice is that you save your time.

Perhaps that Cashcam money would be better spent on some extra driver training which might stop you having an accident in the first place?

Does driver training give you ESP???? Not sure if obvious troll is obvious.

I always leave a 2 second gap when driving and plan ahead. This doesn’t stop other twunts doing stupid overtaking manouvres, pulling out of junctions when it’s not safe or my favourite today driving down the middle of an A road.

This shows their worth IMHO Ouch

If you feel that you have to try and convince me otherwise, knock yourself out. My advice is that you save your time.

Says the man who joined a thread about buying dashcams specifically to try and convince everyone that they are a waste of money. 😆

Says the man who joined a thread about buying dashcams specifically to try and convince everyone that they are a waste of money introduce their own opinion in the chat forum.

🙄
My apologies for going against the grain.

introduce their own opinion in the chat forum. My apologies for going against the grain.

Well if you feel that you have to try and convince me that they are pointless then knock yourself out. My advice is that you save your time. 😀

Well the OP question was, Do you have a Dashcam? So feel free to join in.
I felt I needed one tonight on a 25 mile drive home. 3 Lemmings tried to be my bonnet mascots.
Poor little darlings must have been tired after looking at there Monitors all day long 😯

Honestly it sounds like half the people on here can’t drive! Other cars do unexpected and stupid things – you should expect and plan your driving around it, not rely on a Cashcam to simply apportion blame should the worst happen. With proper observation and anticipation then there’s very little out there on the road that should be unexpected. If you find you’re getting surprised all the time then you’re either not concentrating, perhaps lack driving experience or might simply benefit from some more training.

It’s the thin end of the wedge, where does it stop? Should I record myself (and those around me) all of the time doing everything just to prove in every situation that I’m not to blame for whatever happens around me?

There’s too many cameras now monitoring what people do – it’s getting ridiculous and the last thing we want is for those cameras to be in the hands of incompetents or those self serving militant types who are out to prove a point as seems to be the case with a lot of Cash/bike cam footage posted online.

Gigs are filmed on phones now for watching on a laptop later (rather than watching it live with your eyes in the first place). CCTV is everywhere, monitoring your every move. We had a drone hovering over our back garden around Xmas time. You can’t go biking or snowboarding any more without someone recording the whole damn thing on a GoPro to bore their mates with their average riding at the bar afterwards. For god’s sake give us a break!!!

^lol

Other cars do unexpected and stupid things

Plenty of examples of stuff that has happened to people where a collision is unavoidable. Hint: that’s why “accidents” happen. They’re not all the result of both parties being at fault, sometimes it just takes one person to do something stupid. Added to that, all your ninja skills won’t help when somebody is wilfully causing the “accident”. I think you actually realise this in actuality and are just doing the usual driving-god-troll shtick you enjoy so much before straw-manning about CCTV and gigs…but hey…knock yourself out.

Interesting thread. Dashcams are for catching out liars and/or insurance co’s who are trying it on. FWIW my car was scuffed in residents car park and drievr from next door denied it despite paint from my car on his – fortunately cctv showed the incident and his wife and her friend getting out if their car to look at mine 😯

I’m very tempted especially by sensor ones which could detect parking / vandalism incidents too, being very open one’s with gps would need ability to switch that off.

Here’s a nice case of a guy who was caught on dashcam causing £8,000 of damage to an Aston Martin while it was parked outside Tesco.

Though obviously the owner could have avoided this by driving better. 🙄

personally ive got no problem with cameras all over the town/roads, watching my every move if they so wish. they can only help me if i need to prove something, theyll never catch me causing a fight in the street or burgling a house. and if mine/someone elses dashcam did prove it was me thats done something daft, id have no problem with accepting blame.

Holy tin foil hatsbat man. Jivehoneyjive has another login.

I wish i could post my dads video actually ( pending court case) id like to see how ninja skills would avoid the van.

personally ive got no problem with cameras all over the town/roads, watching my every move if they so wish.

Well you and I are different – I really think it’s a big invasion of privacy being filmed all the time. Would you accept someone following you down the street, walking 10ft behind you filming you? No I doubt you would? Why should it be any different just because that camera is mounted in a car?

Would you accept someone following you down the street, walking 10ft behind you filming you?

no that may p1ss me off a bit but unobtrusive cameras that you dont even realise are there dont bother me at all.

Well you and I are different –

after reading through the posts on this thread i can confirm that 😀 altho if youre just playing devils advocate for the sake of it to wind people up then we maybe have something in common after all cos i like doing that too 🙂

Would you accept someone following you down the street, walking 10ft behind you filming you?

no that may p1ss me off a bit but unobtrusive cameras that you dont even realise are there dont bother me at all.

Okay to change this, would you think it’s acceptable for people walking 10ft behind you on the street to be sneakily and secretly filming you without your knowledge?

This is more of a question about what is socially acceptable behavior generally since I appreciate that if you’re in this situation being filmed and the person following you has a semi-concealed camera then you might never realise.

would you think it’s acceptable for people walking 10ft behind you on the street to be sneakily and secretly filming you without your knowledge?

er…… but i wouldnt know about it so i couldnt have a problem with it. and i hope he enjoys his film of me walking around the streets innocently doing nothing wrong. if someone then came out of a pub and hit me in the face and when i reported him to the police said id started it, id be appreciative of said sneaky person tapping me on the shoulder tho and saying “here mate, use this, i got it all on film” 😉

er…… but i wouldnt know about it so i couldnt have a problem with it.

Not sure if you get what I said – it’s not about you, more in general whether it’s socially acceptable for people to follow other people around (whether they know them or not, whether they’re going the same direction or not), sneakily filming them with a hidden camera?

id probably think the chap had strange tastes in porn but it wouldnt bother me

Irony intended in your username agent007? Do you tape over your webcam and camera on your phone just in case someone hacks it and looks at you in your pants?

id probably think the chap had strange tastes in porn but it wouldnt bother me

Again it’s not about you and whether you personally do or don’t like it – it’s about whether this sort of thing should be acceptable social behaviour generally – following and filming strangers – oh and then using that footage for whatever reason, for self gratification, to stitch someone else up, to sue someone for damages, to protect yourself because you feel unsafe (how sad), to embarrass or bully someone online, or for whatever other reason.

people generally dont walk around wielding dangerous weapons though.

it does seem that folk drive around wielding their cars as dangerous weapons though.

it seems that in their tin box they feel invincible – and dont acknowledge what they did while in it …. see ronnie pickering and his subsequent interviews about what did and didnt happen…..

it’s not about you, more in general whether it’s socially acceptable for people to follow other people around (whether they know them or not, whether they’re going the same direction or not), sneakily filming them with a hidden camera?

trying to answer this as honestly as possible rather than argue for the sake of it or score points or whatever. i suppose the answer as to whether its ‘socially acceptable’ would depend on the reasons.
if someone was going round filming everyone to masturbate to later in his bedroom, or for some type of criminal purpose then no, it wouldnt be ‘socially acceptable’. if a ‘guardian angel’ was going round taking exactly the same footage for the purpose of keeping everyone safe and hopefully catching some criminal activity that could be reported then, id say that would be more ‘socially acceptable’, no problem, thanks for taking the time mate.

dashcams to me are more like the second case.

would you think it’s acceptable for people walking 10ft behind you on the street to be sneakily and secretly filming you without your knowledge?

But that’s a very different situation.

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of car crashes, bumps, scrapes and shunts every single day in the UK.
194,477 people a year are injured in the road, roughly 532 a day (2014 figure).
And the financial cost is absolutely enormous.

If the stats for walking about were the same then I might well be thinking about a headcam!

(FWIW, I don’t have a dashcam, yet, but I entirely understand why folk do)

if a ‘guardian angel’ was going round taking exactly the same footage for the purpose of keeping everyone safe and hopefully catching some criminal activity that could be reported then, id say that would be more ‘socially acceptable’, no problem, thanks for taking the time mate.

dashcams to me are more like the second case.

Hmm, I hope you still see it that way when your ‘driving mistake’ is plastered over the internet for all to see.

We all make bad decisions occasionally, yes even me 😉 In the past that was dealt with by the authorities who are fallible like everyone else, but whom at least are fair and accountable.

These days it seems that peoples driving mistakes are simply posted online for maximum ridicule and vigilante style justice. That’s really not a very nice thing to happen.

Oh and lets not even go down the route of Cashcams being used to record, glorify or brag to your mates later about your deliberate dangerous driving. Look on You-Tube, there’s thousands of these videos! I doubt people would be driving like this without the opportunity to film and show off about it.

These days it seems that peoples driving mistakes are simply posted online for maximum ridicule and vigilante style justice. That’s really not a very nice thing to happen.

this i agree with.

I to date have not even plugged my camera into the computer to look at any incidents….nothing ive deemed police worthy has happened.

I certainly wont be posting it on the internet then …..what ever happened to the need to keep evidence out of the public domain to get a decent conviction 😉

I doubt people would be driving like this without the opportunity to film and show off about it.

this i dont agree with …. when i was younger i knew several folk who drove like dicks just because they could and to wind others up. Dash cams/phone cams didnt exist in the mass markets back then either….they just did it for kicks. Its a bit like blaming strava for the straightlining of trails….which happened before strava as well.

I doubt people would be driving like this without the opportunity to film and show off about it.

this i dont agree with …. when i was younger i knew several folk who drove like dicks just because they could and to wind others up. Dash cams/phone cams didnt exist in the mass markets back then either….they just did it for kicks.

Hmmm, well I’ve just come back from a snowboard trip. A guy in our group trip was filming us to make a video (with our consent) and you know what we all just pushed ourselves that little bit more than usual because we knew we were being filmed. Bigger jumps, faster speed, taking more risks, that sort of thing. Very tempting. When the camera was turned off people were far happier just to chill.

These days it seems that peoples driving mistakes are simply posted online for maximum ridicule and vigilante style justice. That’s really not a very nice thing to happen.

as with trail rat, this i agree with.

as for the rest, i think thats just failings as human beings, maybe the technology shouldnt be blamed for that….

😯 i thought the point getting this dashcam is to catch something unexpected like UFO sightings in the horizon or some plane falling off the sky and sending it to 6 o’clock news for my 15 minutes of fame? Is it not? ..if so. Im out then 😕

I’d love it if they were not needed, but we do not live in a utopian world, and sadly there are a lot fewer police on the streets and roads, than there were even 10 years ago. A driver who was completely at fault at knocking me down by failing to stop at a junction, was let off as the police said that as there were no witnesses, it was her word against mine.

I’ve not gone for a dashcam as yet, mainly as I do very little town driving, but have just bought a cheap camera for my bike commute, after a particularly bad few weeks of almost daily incidents. For example, one driver was watching a video, plugged into headphones, whilst driving up a line of slow-moving traffic and just drifted across the lane and forced me off the road! I only noticed that she was watching a video on her phone as I ended up almost going through her side window!

I’ve only used the camera once so far (yesterday) and found that, as someone a few pages back mentioned, it has also had at least a modest effect of making me ensure that my riding is impeccable, as it could perhaps be questioned later. I’ve got no intention of using it for YouTube or naming/shaming, but hope that if something happens it can be dealt with properly.

Oh, and as for people skiing, snowboarding or riding beyond their limits just because a camera is present, I think that’s pretty silly.

agent007
I presume (based on your comments about the utility of cameras) that you must think that theres a lot of pointless stuff in the world.

I can almost see the headlines from the day after you become earth president.

“Euro NCAP crash tests rendered pointless by devastating argument and slightly better driver training”

“Aircraft door escape slides turned into bouncy castles after quick meeting where things got explained clearly.”
“It’s so obvious now” say airbus designers, “All we had to do was design it not to crash. Even the space taken up by the black box, can be made useful again.”

I think (hope?) you might be trolling a little bit, but I’d also love to see the world through your eyes .. just for a minute or two.

dashcams…waste of money

well not for me. My £40 dashcam saved me a £250 excess. That’s clearly and unequivocally NOT a waste of money. And whilst I am NOT a driving God, I am trained and experienced to a much higher level than the general public, and I didn’t manage to predict that the dickhead taxi driver was about to change lanes into the side of my car. As for invasions of privacy; under UK law, you do not have a ‘reasonable expectation of privacy’ whilst in a public place, as much as you may wish you did. Sorry.
Regarding driving differently because it’s being filmed; I forget mines there, TBH. I only remembered with the taxi incident about 15 minutes later, when I’d calmed down. I’ve never bothered looking at footage before or since, either. Having one is just a little extra insurance, as far as I’m concerned.

I just had a quick look to see who you’ve quoted there, v8ninety, and I can’t find it, but anyhow in answer to your, personal and, unequivocal experience. I have not had to make an insurance claim for something like 25 years or 750,000 miles. So, I can say that for me a dashcam IS an unequivocal waste of money. Funny that. 😀
Obviously I’ll total the car tomorrow within 1 mile of home and have no witnesses. 😛

“People with opinions just go around bothering each other.”
Buddha

I just had a quick look to see who you’ve quoted there, v8ninety, and I can’t find it, but anyhow in answer to your, personal and, unequivocal experience. I have not had to make an insurance claim for something like 25 years or 750,000 miles. So, I can say that for me a dashcam IS an unequivocal waste of money. Funny that.

Ain’t you the lucky one! A great may people, through no fault of their own, aren’t so lucky, and as in the example of v8ninety above, the investment of a really quite small amount of money has saved him around four times as much.
Most reasonable people would not consider that to be a waste of money.
Still, as a wise man once said, opinions are like assholes, everybody’s got one. 😉

I’m glad that you can accept differing opinions so graciously.