Mobius footage - close calls and accidents. Post your videos.

Well I never dreamed that when I installed my Mobius, I'd be in an accident so soon. I was driving home from a camping trip and the car in front of me stopped suddenly. My Smart Car with ABS breaking was able to stop in time, but the guy in the truck behind me was not able to stop in time. The Mobius flew from the mount once I was hit, but did manage to close and save the file.



Bob Diaz
 
So glad you're OK Bob! Fortunately the damage wasn't so bad.......I was expecting worse after reading your post before watching the video. That little Smart Car held up pretty well!

Edit: As I recall, your Mobius is dashboard mounted. Could you remind us of how it was attached to the dashboard now that you've "tested" the mount.
 
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I should have said "pickup truck", the word "truck" has a double meaning. Truck as in pickup truck or truck as in full sized truck.



The photo is how I mounted the camera. Nothing fancy, but the camera did fly off the mount. The funny thing is I didn't feel that strong a hit from behind.
 
Yes, that's the photo I remember from a previous post of yours. Thanks for posting it again and the explanation of what happened. You know, I was kind of expecting you to say that the whole mount came off the dash rather than the camera coming off the mount. The Mobius cradle always seems so secure. Hmm.
 
The camera slid out of the mount when I was hit. Thankfully the hitting of the front windshield didn't kill the camera.
 
Wow, glad you're ok. Tough bumpers on that smart car!

I'm guessing it unplugged itself upon leaving the case? Did the card come loose or need adjustment?
 
BobDiaz said:
The camera slid out of the mount when I was hit..
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Was the mount in its original state? Or did you mess with the lugs in order to pull out the camera easier? How often do you take it out?
I'm asking because in the begining I had to use additional tools in order to pull the camera from the mount.
 
BobDiaz said:
Well I never dreamed that when I installed my Mobius, I'd be in an accident so soon. I was driving home from a camping trip and the car in front of me stopped suddenly. My Smart Car with ABS breaking was able to stop in time, but the guy in the truck behind me was not able to stop in time. The Mobius flew from the mount once I was hit, but did manage to close and save the file.



Bob Diaz
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Glad to see you're OK after that shunt. You might want to check for damage under the bumper though - as those plastic bumpers go back to their original shape, but the metalwork underneath may not be so good. Keeping my fingers crossed minimal damage for you to sort out.
 
Glad your ok Bob. What was that object in the road?
 
Let me answer the questions:

The camera did unplug from the power upon impact. Here are 3 frames before the end of the file. I can only assume that the card did stay in place, otherwise the file would not be finished and closed properly. Looking at the last 3 frames from the video:







I didn't change the lugs to remove the camera. I had pulled it out of the mount a few times, but the lugs were untouched.

On Wednesday I'm scheduled to take the car to Smart Madness. They are a third party company that provides accessories and service for the Smart Car. They have dealt with this sort of thing before. I'll update everyone here as to what they found. I also contacted my insurance company and the guy's insurance company today.

The object in the road was a mattress. The video does NOT show who dropped it.

I did run a check on the video for today's drive to/from work. The Mobius did NOT die on me and appears to still work.
 
BobDiaz said:
I didn't change the lugs to remove the camera. I had pulled it out of the mount a few times, but the lugs were untouched.
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There must be some variation in mount fit snugness. Mine was so tight that removing Mobius was a struggle. A few strokes on the lugs with a file made all the difference for me... now easy to remove Mobius but it's held firmly enough that it's not likely to be dislodged in a shunt... I hope.

Glad you're ok.
 
BeK said:
This seemed a lot closer than it shows on camera.
It made me stab my brakes and my wife swear.
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I wonder if he was suggesting that you'd been driving in lane two instead of lane one.
 
russ331 said:
There must be some variation in mount fit snugness. Mine was so tight that removing Mobius was a struggle. A few strokes on the lugs with a file made all the difference for me... now easy to remove Mobius but it's held firmly enough that it's not likely to be dislodged in a shunt... I hope.
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I've been wondering about this too regarding Bob's Mobius flying off the cradle during his accident. Complaints about the mount have mostly been in regard to its being TOO snug and many have filed down the lugs as you have.There are even instructions for doing this on the RC Groups pages. Obviously, the designer of the Mobius intended the mount be extra secure to insure that the concept of a slide-in cradle was not compromising the integrity of such a mount. Nobody wants an action camera to fall out of its mount during an impact. In my case, I chose not to file down the lugs and I'm glad I didn't. I discovered that if I grab the mount with my index finger around the protruding tripod stud and push the camera with my thumb it comes out easily enough.
One of the things I've learned is that given some time the lugs seem to experience a "break-in" and it becomes easier to slide the camera out over time. I think this was intentional too as I've seen this approach before. Several years ago I purchased an Apple Magic Mouse which is a pretty cool gadget as far as computer mice go. I had read a review of this product and it was very positive except that the one complaint was that the drag of the mouse was way too rough when you moved it back and forth over a mouse pad. Indeed, I noticed this too after I bought one but after a few weeks I also noticed that the rough, slow feel of dragging the mouse around on the mouse pad became wonderfully smooth and fast and since then it is a pleasure to use because the rails on the bottom of the product are obviously designed to become more and more polished the more you use it and this break-in period is part of the design. Smart engineering at work.

So maybe Bob's cradle mount was just not as secure as most, has a slight flaw or was not seated properly?
 
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I took the car to Smart Madness service center today... Even a simple bump can cost a lot, $400 !!! I'm glad I'm not paying for it.

While at Smart Madness, the guy there pointed out something I missed watching the video, I may have an image of the guy at fault:







Sadly, I can't read his license plate in any of the frames.
 
Man, the guy must have been sitting there the whole time watching the situation unfold and the aftermath but never came forward.
One of these days we'll have the resolution, sharpness and frame rates to get the plate numbers of negligent people like this and nail them!
 
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When it all happened it was like having tunnel vision and missing the key things. IF I could go back in time, I'd get a still photo of the guy's license plate. The failure to read the plate from the video was the inspiration for asking for a higher resolution recording mode like 2304 × 1536 pixels.

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/mobius-requests.2702/page-14#post-60379
 
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Bob, you've previously mentioned you don't use the highest bit rate settings- that could have helped in this situation.
 
BobDiaz said:
When it all happened it was like having tunnel vision and missing the key things. IF I could go back in time, I'd get a still photo of the guy's license plate. The failure to read the plate from the video was the inspiration for asking for a higher resolution recording mode like 2304 × 1536 pixels.

http://dashcamtalk.com/forum/threads/mobius-requests.2702/page-14#post-60379
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The Mini 0803 Ambarella A7LA50D was just introduced by FoxOffer on a presale basis, so cameras sporting chips with such capabilities will soon start to reach the market. It will do 1296P @ 60 fps or 1080P @ 30 fps with WDR & HDR. Time will tell how successful this platform is but after slogging through all the various firmware updates with the Mobius let's hope the developer has plans on migrating to the latest technology in a timely manner.
 
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GJHS said:
I'm guessing it unplugged itself upon leaving the case? Did the card come loose or need adjustment?
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Good question, I remember now that we discussed this recently in your post about this from two weeks ago. From the looks of those two highly distorted images Bob posted it was still recording after the impact.
 
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