Toronto STAR and CBC article, with an interesting caption on Insurance

[GTA Driver]

Today, Toronto Star and CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corp) had an article on dashcams. The usual, a victim in an accident has an impartial witness and it cites the 2012 case in Toronto where a driver reversed into a car on a busy highway in a fraud attempt. Also the discussion about costs and how it operates, such as overwriting an SD card, use for filming vandalism.

Summary, including things which was news to me.

1. A shop in Calgary has installations "equally split these days between business vehicles and personal car".
2. Quote "Insurance companies in Canada don't offer premium discounts for dashcams yet, said Pete Karageorgos, director of consumer and industry relations for Ontario for the Insurance Bureau of Canada, but they might in future if they find the cameras reduce the risk of having to pay out a claim."
3. A shop owner that does installation states may come in AFTER they have been involved in an accident, wishing they had one before had
4. Legal perspective - no privacy issue as the roadway is considered public place.
5. Courts consider dashcams to be admissible as evidence

Points 1, 2 and 5 are news to me. So it appears commercial vehicle operators are turning to use them on their fleets and insurance companies may offer discounts. Its strange, but some companies offer incentives for using Snow tires. To me, a dash cam would be a slam dunk to insure a company does not need to pay a settlement for where the client is NOT at fault.

The following are the same article, from different news sources, with different titles

• CBC: Dashcams in cars proving helpful when bad things happen to good drivers
• Toronto Star: Dashcams may prevent disputes