Do you need a dashcam? With the way many people drive these days, you’d be stark raving mad not to have one.
Do you need a dashcam? I mean, really need one? Well, maybe not, but considering the way many people drive on Australian roads these days, I reckon you’d be crazy not to run one.
Not sure what I’m talking about? Check out some of the footage uploaded to the Dash Cam Owners Australia Facebook page… but make sure you turn down the volume if you’re easily offended by colourful language.
Anyway, following on from my own near-miss last week, I started thinking about how important it was to have a dashcam fitted in my vehicle. While there was no impact in my case, if there had been, the dashcam would have provided plenty of useful information to the authorities, as well as to my insurance company. This information would make it much easier for me to prove whose fault the accident was (had there been one) and that I wasn’t driving in a careless manner leading up to it.
Most dashcams provide much more than just video footage. The unit I have fitted to my vehicle has front and rear cameras and in addition to recording video footage (both forwards and backwards) it also records other important information including date, time, vehicle speed and precise location (through GPS coordinates).
Aiden Frost at Club 4X4 recently penned a story on the importance of dashcams when it comes to making an insurance claim. It’s well worth reading. Here’s the link: Real Life Claim – How Dashcam footage helped our customer. In the article, Aiden points out that, “Dashcam footage of an incident is gold when it comes to an insurance claim. It shows in detail the position of the vehicles and exactly how things transpire, with no agenda. If a dashcam has GPS, you’ll see the location and time of the incident which is very useful, and even the speed at which the vehicle is travelling… It makes it easy to see who was at fault, and it can also help identify the offender.”
Aiden goes on to outline some of the features found in different dashcams on the market, of which there are many, from companies including Uniden, Navman, Garmin and more. In addition to front and rear footage, for example, the dashcam I have fitted in my Defender has a parking mode, built-in TPMS, forward collision warning, lane departure warning, speed zone display, speed warning, red light/speed camera locations and more. Of course, you don’t need features like this if you just want footage and details to prove innocence in the event of a collision, but they do come in handy. What you do need to look for in a dashcam is a quality high-resolution camera that offers good low-light performance (in case you have a collision at night).
When you consider a decent dashcam will set you back just a couple of hundred bucks, it’s pretty good insurance in case you ever need to use your insurance. Keep an eye out because we’ll look at some different dashcams in more detail over the coming months.
