Wanted to reply to the earlier replies too, but wanted to wait for the "official answer" first
In the UK, we have a common law system. So we can video and keep whatever we like provided it is visible from a public place. It is a freedom that is regularly tested by "auditors" on YouTube as UK citizens do not like the concept of an authoritarian State. The only issue with dashcams is whether they obstruct the driver's view of the road.
Yeah it's a bit weird and tricky over here.. We are allowed to film the public, as long as no individual can be seen as individuals. It's a bit tricky, but basically you can film a busy park, but you can not film a group of 3 people directly.
Filming passing cars is "okay", but filming 10 minutes of driving behind a single car is not really.
The issue is, like I wrote earlier, that cars are similar to "private property", so filming someone inside their car is like filming your neighbour in their living room.
Anyway. lecture over. Your problem is that regardless of what is "locked", your dashcam will record and store data continuously when in use, the amount of data being governed by bitrate of the audio/video and the capacity of your storage card.
I agree but it's not a problem:
You can use a 128 GB card, access it via the Disk Management in Windows and create only a 2 GB partition.
The dashcam will think there's only 2 GB of space, but the card-controller will still use every sector of the card evenly to keep it healthy.
From what I've read, the A139 Pro writes with 60 mbps when using 2 channels at max resolution and bitrate.
This equals 7.5 MB/s. If you want to store about 3 minutes, this would be 180 seconds -> 7.5 MB/s * 180s = 1350 MB = 1.32 GB.
When set to 1 min loops, the Viofo cams would write 3x 1min and then overwrite the oldest of the 3.
If you'd lock a video, it would only write 2x 1min and then overwrite the first of these 2.
You can probably guess, where I've read this...
German dashcam forum after someone posted his nice 551€ fine after telling the police that he had surely recorded the accident he witnessed and stayed with the parties. The police took his SD card and a few weeks later he got a nice letter
I've never quite understood the strict German laws about dash cam usage either, especially in this day and age where surveillance cameras seem to be everywhere.
Here in the US the law is based on a "reasonable expectation of privacy". This means that if you are out in public where anyone and everyone can see you anyway, you don't have an expectation of privacy. If you are inside your home you do have an expectation of privacy. Also. if you are in your car you can't record audio without first informing your passengers that a recording is taking place and obtaining their permission. Some dash cams sold in the US come with a little sticker you can use that warns that conversations are being recorded.
It's slowly getting better. Many police officers like dashcams, but some sadly don't. The laws need to be adjusted but that takes time and has no priority.
The audio recording part is the same over here. I need to tell everyone inside my car that their voice will be recorded. But it's rarely the case, so that's no issue, luckily.
While this is true it presumes the g-sensor is functioning properly and is activated. Additionally, it could be beneficial to have more than just the previous video segment to provide more understanding of events leading up to the incident, be it a few minutes or longer.
My experience is the reliability of g-sensor detection is erratic at best and often too sensitive causing many 'false alarms' (particularly true in my wife's car) so my preference is to use large memory cards and rely on their raw capacity to insure I have whatever I might need, going back hours or even days/weeks depending on how much driving I'm doing.
That's true.. Guess I'll need to test it. Dashcam will arrive tomorrow.
I'll do some heavy braking, hit some of the little-medium potholes nearby and test the g-sensor detection.
Absolutely agree on more information probably being beneficial. But it is, what it is and from what I've seen/read, you mostly only need about 15 seconds to prove who's guilty.
I realize this is meaningless in the context of you having to live with the law as it is, but is more of a rationale for why the law could be described as short-sighted and should be changed.
Hehe yeah. And I agree, hopefully it'll get adjusted soon.
Dashcams are ilegal in Portugal or better it's a very grey area. A police officer can confiscate it if he wants.
On the other hand you have 20.000 teslas driving around that record from every possible angle 24/7...
I see a long legal battle ahead of me if some authority goes after me for having a dashcam because I simply won't accept it.
Dashcam footage has even been accepted in courts to prove crimes (the penal code supersedes privacy rights) but not "acidents" or "infractions". Depends on the judge really.
The ADAC has an overview/guide for driving through Europe with a a dashcam and yeah, for Portugal, you should take if off.
And people say Germany would be too strict
License & insurance info was then exchanged.
