Be Aware: Details Do Matter

[JooVuu]

Any information on the relative values of front|back|dual|side|mirror cameras?

This information is priviledged but the common sense approach is what they usually go with - if you crash into the back of someone - it's usually the fault of the person who went into the back of a car. As such no need/reduced need for a dash camera.

If a person hits you from the side your front facing camera should capture the information needed (ie stop signs, traffic lights, obstructions etc) which negates the need for side facing cameras.

Hope that helps.

 

[Nigel]

This information is priviledged but the common sense approach is what they usually go with - if you crash into the back of someone - it's usually the fault of the person who went into the back of a car. As such no need/reduced need for a dash camera.

If a person hits you from the side your front facing camera should capture the information needed (ie stop signs, traffic lights, obstructions etc) which negates the need for side facing cameras.

Hope that helps.

How about sound? If someone hits you from the back when you have no back camera, is good audio quality of value?

 

[JooVuu]

How about sound? If someone hits you from the back when you have no back camera, is good audio quality of value?

I only touched upon sound briefly with some insurers - sound is useful as it provides extra details.

Going back to being hit in the back - the assumption is they did wrong and not you. They should have been a safe distance from you etc.

 

[2000rpm]

..... if you crash into the back of someone - it's usually the fault of the person who went into the back of a car.

Earlier this year someone reversed into my car. I'm glad I captured it on cam because based on probabilities nobody would have believed me when I said that I didn't drive into the back of the other car.

Any information on the relative values of front|back|dual|side|mirror cameras?

I think the more cams the better, but front is the most likely to be useful because it sees what you see and in general it's a driver's responsibility to read/interpret the road ahead and act accordingly. What's happening behind or to the side is less of a concern since there's a lot less you as a driver can do about it, although if someone was tailgating you it might help explain why your actions weren't quite textbook.

In the front-cam clip below, my longer-than-usual stopping distance was due to traffic travelling at around 50mph with a BMW tailgating. At 47s into the clip a dog runs into the road but fortunately there's a small parking area/driveway where I can go and decelerate moderately so as to avoid the dog and avoid being rear-ended by the BMW behind.

 

[tooshy]

While I agree that the picture quality should be important, I don't think the resolution is that much of a factor in the case of 4k or even 1080p. I've seen plenty of 720p videos that look amazing. Each and every dash cam video you see on Facebook are downgraded to 720p. While some are crap, many are pretty decent and you can get a good amount of detail from them.
I think the most important factor is the actual cmos, hw and lens. I've seen absolutely ****ty 1080p dash cams, while the good dashcams product very good and acceptable videos even when you put them at 720p (Joovuu-x included). It's not about the resolution, it's about the picture quality.

 

[Kip]

I still think the insurance company is only interested in making a profit

Couldn't agree more.

Also it is not the job of the Police to take them to court over an accident.

Depends. If you could convince the police with your dashcam evidence that someone was guilty of a hit and run, they would pursue it as that is a criminal offence. How minor the actual crash was is irrelavent. Failure to stop after causing damage to property or injury to a person carries quite heavy penalties, which is totally seperate from the insurance side of things. Of course, if you can't convince the police that the suspect is guilty, they won't feel obligated to take it any further.

if the damage is only to a single panel and the customer is paying the first £200 then it is just not worth the insurance company taking someone to court, even if the evidence is 100% proof!

If the police think they are guilty and do go ahead and successfully prosecute (I'm sure they would if the evidence was truely 100%), I think the insurance company would find it quite hard to argue against making a claim against the hit and run driver. You would, after all, have a whole court case to back you up.

 

[SawMaster]

Here in the US, it costs an insurance company about $5K to take a case to court. They will pay most substantiated claims less than that to save money even when they should fight I've been involved in and have seen quite a number of crashes where a side or rear cam would have carried far more weight as evidence than only a front cam, but a front cam is usually enough to show they you did no wrong.

1- Some sports-kid overtakes you at speed and clips your side. A rear cam could show them driving wildly before it happened as well as show your lane position and speed like the front cam did. Your word alone won't carry any legal weight when they claim it was simply an accident and they were driving safely otherwise.
2- Someone driving beside you was busy with something other than driving and hits you. Any cam will show your lane position but the side cam will clearly show the full extent of their miscreance. Similar for recording cars at 4-way stops and "T" intersections where the other cars are usually just beyond the FOV of most cams and not well seen with wide-angle lenses- again a side cam shows all of their actions even if the pic quality isn't the best.

I'm certain you too can see many other limitations of a front cam alone no matter how clear it's images are. It is still your most important cam but as long as it's adequate for the job you'd probably be better off spending any extra money defending your back and sides (even marginally) than in having a better cam up front. That's my approach, YMMV.

Phil

 

[GTA Driver]

Another thing to remember during this time of year, is to keep the windows clear of salt. What is clean enough for you to see out from may not be clear enough for the dash cam.

Close to three years ago, a suv behind me gave me a slight bump. We both got out our vehicles, he looked at the light damage and drove off. I followed him, reading his plate. Thought the windows were clean enough. There weren't. The slight salt smear, and reflection made reading the plate impossible from the video.

 

[kamkar]

Yeah with all the poison they put out on the streets keeping windows clear as a issue, but i must admit no matter what i put in my sprinkler it dont seem to be ideal, or only working on the parts of my windscreen and rear window that have wiper coverage.

I have been wondering for some years how a country like Denmark that claim to be on the environmental frontline can still put all that crap out on the streets.
It destroy out cars - it destroy the roadside flora and probably more i cant think off right now.

 

[ChibiSqueeze]

Most people have smartphones these days. Couldn't we just take a picture or video of the license plate with the damage for further proof?

 

[GTA Driver]

I have been wondering for some years how a country like Denmark that claim to be on the environmental frontline can still put all that crap out on the streets.
It destroy out cars - it destroy the roadside flora and probably more i cant think off right now.

Yeah , here in Ontario we can't get some pesticides for the lawn like they have in the states, but it doesn't stop us from dumping a few tonnes of salt on the road each year.

 

[Module 79L]

Yeah , here in Ontario we can't get some pesticides for the lawn like they have in the states, but it doesn't stop us from dumping a few tonnes of salt on the road each year.

I don't know about you but here in Portugal the salt used on the roads is 100% natural.

 

[kamkar]

Same here, but its still poison.

Salt in those amounts need to be down in the ground where it belong, they can use gravel on the streets and people can drive slower and put proper winter tires on their car.
The salt on the roads are not needed. ( at least not in a flat country like Denmark )
And if it get really bad they can give all the unemployed people a shovel and make them work a little for the welfare money they get.

 

[GTA Driver]

I don't know about you but here in Portugal the salt used on the roads is 100% natural.

True, if I had a choice of drinking saltwater or water laced with pesticides, I would drink the former. Also people have started using "Saltwater Swimming pools".

Salt is still pretty bad. I notice the vegetation close to roadways or sidewalks tend to be in worse condition due to the saltwater run off than that a few feet off. I believe the wineries complained about the salt having a crippling effect on their grapes vines. Also the salt has a detrimental effect on cars, contributing to cars rusting. In Halifax, they dump the excessive snow banks in the saltwater harbor, but we can't dump snow directly in the fresh water rivers or lakes due to all the salt and other containment. Any rate, when the snow thaws, it still gets into sewer and water system.

 

[kamkar]

The fresh water here is 100% ground water, and already a lot of wells are closed due to excessive use of pesticides in the old days.
So if more "poo" get down there the Danes will have nothing to drink, and i am not sure we could use desalination plants to make fresh water out of salt water due to the state of the seas around us.
And the only chlorinated water we have is in the swimming pools, the tap water is strait out of the ground and drinkable, and i would prefer to keep it that way though i have no kids myself.

This is also why Danish grain is much leaner than grain from other countries, we are not allowed to fertilize fields like farmers elsewhere, and so our crop yeld is lower and protein content lower too.
But its the only responsible thing to do.

 

[c4rc4m]

As it was explained to me - the car had a dent and scratch that matched up - paint exchanged etc - but the person simply said - this was from an accident a while ago and not now - without that proof - nothing could be done. I think a lot of people are under a misconception that just having a dashcam is fine - who cares for quality - and whilst just having a dash cam over nothing is better - unless you just want to show you aren't a fault in a head on collision or something - then you do need more - especially if you want to protect yourself from bad drivers etc.

KamKar1, it can be proven. The problem is the police won't go the expense for anything other than a crash involving life changing injury or death. Every batch of paint is unique, so can be tied to only a handful of vehicles from the production line. With transfer each way, it makes it almost like a finger print. The issue is analysis is expensive.

I agree entirely with everything JooVuu has said. Image quality (as I keep pushing it also) is everything. The vast majority of accidents are not head on collisions where everyone comes to a dead stop and the vehicles are un-driveable. The majority of accidents involve side swipes or minor damage an unscrupulous driver can drive off from. Not having clear footage therefore is a fatal floor in any self defence plan for your insurance. Although to an extent, the insurers are their own worst enemies here as they will often put up your insurance even if you were not at fault 100%. So it kind of makes proving fault pointless.

 

[kamkar]

No doubt, i wish they was able to make 4k sensors work as good in low light as 1080p sensors, i would jump that bandwagon in no time.
And while hit and run is on the up over here i hope i can still avoid it with my current statistic of a crash every 30 years.

 

[c4rc4m]

I should also have said that although hit and run is a big risk, even someone who side swipes then stops behind and denies later is also a problem if the camera caught neither face nor plate as they approached.

As for low light, yes low light is an issue. However, it seems from many video clips that daylight is a significant issue as well as many cameras are focused too close to the lens and so render lovely sharp dashboards and blurred number plates!

Similar issues arise from movement and resulting issues probably caused by compression rates / codecs, software, lens, reflection, dirty windscreens, exposure etc.

4K low light sensors are out there. Just not at low cost / size from what I'm aware of. eg. http://4k.com/news/meet-sonys-extre...hot-capacity-an-astonishingly-high-iso-13480/

No doubt someone might produce something suitable for a dashcam in time.