Video quality Still not good enough

[Sky1]

I just pulled down a video from my last night to get another look at a highway incident. I could read the plate but did not read it on the dash cam. In the future I will speak the plate number for the audio to records but Is there a camera made that has a better night quality to catch plates? Currently using a U1000 Thinkware in 4K

 

[mikek753]

I just pulled down a video from my last night to get another look at a highway incident. I could read the plate but did not read it on the dash cam. In the future I will speak the plate number for the audio to records but Is there a camera made that has a better night quality to catch plates? Currently using a U1000 Thinkware in 4K

my short answer is NO, isn't yet to get good license plate picture at night conditions
one way to address this is to have dedicated narrow POV camera, just for the front of your car is pointed to in front of you car license plate area
there is another issue that your car front lights blind your dash cam due to reflection, while human eyes can adjust to recognize the numbers, the dashcam sensor just doesn't due to low dynamic range. The WDR adds motion blur, maybe this isn't as bad for in front license plate, but overall it kills number recognition

in a way I'd prefer 1080p vs 4k of the same sensor size. the best to get 1" sensor size to get better at night picture quality, but it will be expensive, so as result there are no dashcams with large sensors.

another improvement would be to have camera outside vs inside of a car, also comes with extra costs and installation complexity.

my 2c