Just avoided pushing a car down the motorway

[Amadan]

Argh!

Saturday was a really nice day, drove up north to look at a new car for someone in my nice new (to me) car, lovely weather and almost empty motorways.

Anyways coming back down having looked at the car, I was in the inside lane doing 70ish with nothing behind me and a Nissan Micra was coming up the slip road ahead of me crawling along. I checked my mirror to see if I could pull across to help but there was an Audi 4x4 alongside me.

Well just at that moment the micra decided instead of staying at the same speed and pulling behind me they would try to get in ahead of me.

Lets just say I'm glad my new car has much better brakes than my old car or else I would have ended up parked in their backseats! Of course this prompted the 4x4 driver to attempt to take evasive action in case I needed his lane!

The worst of it was the Micra driver didn't even seem to notice the fact they had caused two cars to take serious evasive action and nearly caused both drivers to need new underwear! She just carried on at 45mph up the motorway.

As I overtook what did I see? 80+ year old, 6mm from the steering wheel! God help her if I'd have been driving a works van, in all seriousness I don't think I could have avoided an accident. I've seen what happens when a big van hits a small car - it's not pretty and that was in town not on the motorway!

Suffice to say I've now ordered an in-car dash cam which records 1080p on a 15min loop onto a SD card and the required cabling to hard wire it into the car's electrical system so it comes on when the ignition is turned on.

[edit] The recorder is 720p NOT 1080p[/edit]

[csquared]

Quoth Amadan

Suffice to say I've now ordered an in-car dash cam which records 1080p on a 15min loop onto a SD card and the required cabling to hard wire it into the car's electrical system so it comes on when the ignition is turned on.

I have been so temped to do that. I wonder if my insurance company would give me a discount for having one?

[DeltaSierra]

Quoth Amadan

Suffice to say I've now ordered an in-car dash cam which records 1080p on a 15min loop onto a SD card and the required cabling to hard wire it into the car's electrical system so it comes on when the ignition is turned on.

I'm interested in this - what kind of system and is it hard to install? Is it expensive?

[Amadan]

Just for info the recorder is 720p NOT 1080p. - checkout http://www.techmoan.com/ and scroll down the "Two smart cams" for a review.

Quoth csquared

I have been so temped to do that. I wonder if my insurance company would give me a discount for having one?

I think with the more expensive, professionally installed ones you might dependent on the company. I'm a bit wary of telling the insurance co in case I end up nailing myself!

Quoth DeltaSierra

I'm interested in this - what kind of system and is it hard to install? Is it expensive?

Well the install shouldn't be too bad although I'll need to remove some of the dash to route the cables but I want it hard wired (it comes with a cigarette lighter power adapter and sucker so it's plug and play), so far I've bought the following,

12v to 5v USB step down
Bullet connectors
The actual recorder

The other items, which I should have will be
SD card
Auto electric wire
Velcro sticky pads
Soldering iron / solder
heatshrink / insulating tape
Long USB Cable

The actual device is powered by a mini-usb plug - ie 5v just like a tomtom.

The plan is instead of using the supplied cigarette lighter power supply to wire the 12v to 5v USB supply directly into a switched feed on the car (ie one that goes on and off with the ignition) through a spare position in the fusebox.

I'll then run the cabling up the A pillar and under the headlining to hide it and attach the actual recorder to the windscreen behind the rearview mirror with velcro sticky pads (making a neater attachment than a sucker but still removable).

[Shalom]

There's a guy who puts up collections of videos from these cameras. The majority are from Russia and the Far East (China or Japan). Watch these, you'll gain a whole new appreciation of what morons are out there on the road, as well as expanding your vocabulary considerably (i.e. you can cuss in three more languages)...

I've been thinking about getting one of these myself. If I can find a windshield sucker with a tripod mount, I might just use my wife's digital cam, which does video. Only problem is that I don't know if it can run on external power, or only the 2 AA batteries, which don't last all that long in video mode. I've taken a few trips with it just sitting on top of the dash, but if you corner too hard it goes sliding around.

[PepperElf]

i've seen a lot of drivers cutting it close lately when it comes to passing. they cut in with just inches to spare sometimes.

[BlaqueKatt]

I may be investing in a helmet cam, for my commute....

[Amadan]

Just an update - I finally got round to fitting the dash cam. When I get something decent I'll post it up to give you an idea but it looks to give pretty good quality.

Of course knowing my luck I'll be sideswiped or something now.