Road users, do we need to be filming each other nowadays?

I am also very wary of people who have car dash cams, many of them tend to be crap drivers

What a load of shite.

So where do you draw the line? 

Getting a bit philosophical now but never mind…

I see a difference between measures that involve surveillance and those that don’t. Cameras are indiscriminate, they record everyone so by installing one you are essentially treating everyone as a potential threat. I may be a law abiding citizen but your camera is watching me anyway. Traditional methods like locks are different. You install locks to keep thieves out, it doesn’t matter to me whether your house is locked or not because I’m not going to try to gain entry without your permission. Cameras speak of a state of suspicion in a way that locks do not.

There’s also the issue of how any footage is used. People have long been worried about government surveillance but I’m probably more worried about how private individuals might use footage.

i think they should be built in to all cars, BUT i think they should be inward facing too.

so the police can see if the driver was paying attention, fiddling with their phone, arguing with their passenger, etc.

having the camera covered, or footage deleted would be presumed guilt.

i think people would behave better if cars had closed circuit black boxes that could be accessed in the event of an accident, spurious insurance claims would fall. Its win win.

I increasingly feel like I should get cams for the bike commute, some absolute crazies out there plus every now and again some unnecessary aggression where I think some video evidence would be great to send to their employer (Tesco driver etc).

I’ll get wired dashcam when I get my next car.

My friend was knocked off her motorbike last year. It was caught on the dash cam of a driver behind who stopped and gave his contact details. Without that she never would have been able to prove what had happened (100% the drivers fault, quite a scary incident).

 I’ve yet to see a camera “<em style=”box-sizing: border-box; –tw-border-spacing-x: 0; –tw-border-spacing-y: 0; –tw-translate-x: 0; –tw-translate-y: 0; –tw-rotate: 0; –tw-skew-x: 0; –tw-skew-y: 0; –tw-scale-x: 1; –tw-scale-y: 1; –tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; –tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; –tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; –tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246/0.5); –tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; –tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; color: #000000; font-family: Roboto, ‘Helvetica Neue’, Arial, ‘Noto Sans’, sans-serif, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, ‘Segoe UI’, ‘Apple Color Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Emoji’, ‘Segoe UI Symbol’, ‘Noto Color Emoji’; background-color: #eeeeee;”>protect” anyone

Arguably, other people submitting videos to the policy which results in prosecution or driving awareness courses or whatever, makes us all safer if it results in drivers changing their behaviour to be more considerate/alert/safer.

squirrelking

Free Member
I am also very wary of people who have car dash cams, many of them tend to be crap drivers

What a load of shite.

I think there’s a bit of truth to it. Certain types of “holier than thou” bad drivers are definitely attracted to them. So often on those dashcam compilations you see a situation unfolding where a simple brake or even just slight lift of the gas would avoid an incident, but the dashcammer decides to plow on a full speed instead to teach them a lesson. Then you hear them yelling with glee: “youtube! youtube! camruh camruh!” and tapping on it; almost overflowing with joy that they caught somebody out and as if having the incident on film absolves them of being a **** themselves.

I’ve got a dash cam, never needed to use it till last week when I witnessed a driver turn right into a side street as a cyclist was coming the other way. Cyclist managed to swerve and just clip the rear quarter but could have been really nasty.

I pulled over to give the cyclist my details etc. in case they needed a witness, cyclist was getting a gob full for going to fast and it was all their fault. Driver then realised I was a cyclist as well due to the t-shirt I was wearing and I got a gob full as well. I then remembered I had the dashcam and told the cyclist, which made the driver even angrier, they obviously knew they were wrong but weren’t having it!

I have been thinking about this recently – the number of ****ts on the roads at the moment (****ts seem to be increasing in line with the increasing number of drivers who are considerate) means that I would have submitted some footage to Sussex Police a few times this summer. And the fact that I didn’t have a camera and no witnesses when i did get hit, meant that the boy racer, despite admitting he’d seen me, and his insurance declaring full liability, only got a warning letter rather than something a bit more robust.

Only challenge is deciding which cameras to buy.

I’ve not got a camera on my bike because there doesn’t seem to be anything that has the battery life needed for a multi-hour ride.

Have sent a few videos to North Yorkshire police from the Tesla cameras showing crap driving around other riders though (close passes, overtaking towards oncoming cyclists etc), which usually have a positive outcome.

Can’t understand why insurance companies don’t mandate them.

After two close calls in two days on my commute I have bought Chillitech front and rear cameras for my bike. They were pretty cheap – £130 for both – due to a launch special for the rear unit. Not yet delivered but should be with me in a couple of weeks.

I get annoyed at some of the twitter/youtube cyclists that report every close pass that might be vaguely less than 1.5 metres but I will be reporting drivers who I feel were genuinely causing a danger to me or other road users.

So what cameras would you recommend?

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A still taken from my Tooo camera footage. I looked over to shout and she was looking at me, not the road ahead. I have to admit to using bad words.

Arguably, other people submitting videos to the policy which results in prosecution or driving awareness courses or whatever, makes us all safer if it results in drivers changing their behaviour to be more considerate/alert/safer.

I get the “rising tide lifts all ships” concept, but it’s just not happening like that in reality is it.

Like I said “protection” or better yet “prevention” should be the goal not just accepting the inevitability of these events, and documenting them in the vague hope it will contribute to some sort of Damascene conversion, where Weapons grade bellends suddenly become considerate and thoughtful individuals because they were caught on camera and told off.

And it really shouldn’t be the case that bicycle users feel the need to buy relatively pricey bits of kit to record their own near misses and incidents because traffic policing is so utterly dire.

The hundreds of pounds on Tech and hours of your life you waste scrubbing through shaky footage to ‘get‘ that one bastard in a Transit that tried to wipe you out… You’ll never get it back you know, even as Kama.

Our dash cam shows outside, the driver and in car audio.

I don’t have anything to hide.

If everybody had one they might make the road a touch safer.

We now have CCTV as part deterrent, part reassurance

I’m afraid it doesn’t act as much of a detterent, we have cctv, didn’t stop our house being burgled last year and both our cars being stolen from the drive. Got some nice footage of the two hooded scrotes breaking in though – which was of no use whatsoever because they had covered their faces

To my absolute amazement the driver denied being present and claimed he was 100 miles away, this was the route his insurer went down having stated their driver wasn’t present. Given the police had attended this claim was bound to fail but…..

I had a car full of yoofs do a double pirouette into the front of me resulting in three of them being cut out of the car, the driver ending up in hospital with severe concussion and his licence temporarily revoked due to his injuries.

Four ambulances, fire brigade, numerous police, with the main attending officer offering a statement to say it clearly wasn’t my fault.

Their insurers first line of attack was to try and deny it ever happened….

Second line of attack was to attempt to blame me.

Nobody from either insurers ever contacted the police officer

I wished I’d had a dash cam for that incident

In hospital I began questioning what had actually happened, where I was at the time and whether in fact I was in part to blame.

Not had anything close to that, but I can relate with the latter bit about going over things and questioning my memory and own actions.

Afaik, dash cameras are mandatory in Russia.

Not legally required, but you’d be mad not to have one with all the road rage, insurance fraud, and police corruption.

I am also very wary of people who have car dash cams, many of them tend to be crap drivers

There’s definitely an aspect of this in some of the videos posted online, but I don’t think we can generalise from that.

I don’t have dash-cams, burglar alarms, CCTV, Ring doorbells, a camera to watch the dog while we’re out, etc., etc. – I just don’t want to live my life that way.

I agree in principle, and I don’t have any of those things at the moment. However, practice gives some harsh reminders sometimes making you think of health and legal consequences you narrowly missed.

I gave a PassPixi badge that clips to my jersey and seems to deter some drivers in case I am recording.

I can imagine that big camera badge is pure rage bait for some unfortunately. But probably makes them suppress it!

We shouldn’t need cameras everywhere, but we are where we are. People lie, but the camera never does.

Unfortunately true. But I will point out that selective editing can misrepresent events recorded by the camera.

But all after the event type stuff. I’d prefer preventative measures myself.

I know I’m in the minority but I don’t believe that ‘Moar Tech’ fixes ingrained cultural problems.

I agree but it’s a sensible action the individual can take to protect themselves in addition to defensive riding/driving skills.

And it’s kind of ironic that the person in this case being prosecuted was driving a Tesla Model 3. A car festooned with cameras that would have been sounding loads of warnings at the driver when they did what they did, as well as automatically trying to steer away.

Funnily enough I also had a similar Tesla encounter. I could even see the warning light in his side mirror.

Installing them has already changed your life. By installing them you’ve ascribed to a worldview where you feel you need them because the world is filled with potential threats.

The road absolutely is does have potential threats to your health, money, and legal innocence. It’s not a worldview.

The road absolutely is does have potential threats to your health, money, and legal innocence. It’s not a worldview.

I agree with the first part. The worldview bit is where you decide that these threats are so prevalent or worrying that you need to record all your journeys in an attempt to protect yourself. It’s a decision based on fear.

I see, and I agree it’s a decision I would make based on fear. The fear fades but it’ll happen again in a few months and next time you might not be so lucky. I think I’m fine with that. I’m probably more bothered about injustice and damage/costs than the actual injury.

For a car at least it’s a one off buy, fit tidily out of sight, and forget. For a bike almost the same but more money and one more thing to charge along with your lights and computer.

Whilst I can’t really argue about the usefulness of footage in certain scenarios the pessimist in me wonders if say more benign incidents that get captured by cameras might get handed to insurers who will then take a more unreasonable stance and try to elevate the scene into something more than the simple human error bump or parking mishap. I can see it working both ways maybe, a benefit to some but a proverbial stick to hit us with in other cases?

but the dashcammer decides to plow on a full speed instead to teach them a lesson.

We all know that’s been going on long before dashcams were a thing.

I was knocked off last year at a roundabout (changed to safer route now), and this year a particular driver has driven intimidatingly very close by a few time, though thankfully seem to have disappeared for now. Otherwise the low number of incidents on my commute combined with the expense of front and rear cameras, and the extra faff (bike is locked outside) mean I’m not currently looking to get a camera.

Certain types of “holier than thou” bad drivers are definitely attracted to them. So often on those dashcam compilations you see a situation unfolding where a simple brake or even just slight lift of the gas would avoid an incident, but the dashcammer decides to plow on a full speed instead to teach them a lesson.

For sure, but that doesn’t mean many dashcam owners are bad drivers or even bad cyclists. If we were making generalisations based on the shite YouTube and Meta fling at you we’d be in a pretty stupid place, yes?

the pessimist in me wonders if say more benign incidents that get captured by cameras might get handed to insurers who will then take a more unreasonable stance and try to elevate the scene into something more than the simple human error bump or parking mishap

Insurers just care about liability, they don’t make judgements over whether people were driving with “due care and attention” etc., that’s the police’s job (but they’d only get involved in more serious accidents/incidents and I’d definitely want dashcam footage if someone tried to run me off the road etc.)