I get asked alot why i would buy a dash cam, now no one got hit but had this turned into a accident i have a feeling without evidence it would have been ruled my fault

 

Whoa now you're making me want to get one. That was a close call. Thanks for sharing!

 

Wow... (it appeared) you were flying down that merge ramp. Did you not see him up ahead? I don't know... that could have gone either way.

That said I have one for my truck and bought one for my wife's car as well as she does a lot of driving...

 

I would have slowed down.

 

I've been wanting to get them for my cars.

Does anyone have their hard wired? I don't want cables hanging.

 

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^ +1.

OP had a solid 5 seconds to identify the truck was moving towards shoulder and to slow down ...

 

I hit the brakes as soon as I saw him start moving, so I mean I did everything I could

 

I saw him from the top but he was parked, he didn't start moving until I was almost up on him, 3 witnesses said the same thing that pulled over as well so. The video may appear as he is moving, I'm going to fast ect but witnesses said otherwise

 

I have a papago! clip-on type. It is great. My previous one was mounted with a suction cup. Horrible.

I captured one crazy event involving a car descending a viaduct ramp and scraping its front-end.

 

This video is unavailable.


I have a dash cam and it is nice to have.... personally have the a119 model

 

Brake harder next time because the video didn't look like you braked hard at all.

 

OP, video seems to be private?

I have mine hardwired into the car, that way I can get parking recording. I bought a hardwire kit and a second rear facing camera for the Camry and all I need to do is swap the front facing unit from car to car (mentioned this part because it seems you have multiple cars). Sorry OP, don't want to seem like I'm threadjacking, but here is what it looks like. The front facing main unit I can't see when I'm driving. The rear facing camera is barely visible from the driver seat

 

What model cameras do you have? I like how unobtrusive they are.

 

Ours came with a looooong cigarette lighter power cord... so I just ran that around the roof liner, down the pillar, then to the lighter so it's pretty discrete. I am thinking about getting the hardwire kit projektvertx mentioned so it can monitor her car while parked as well.

I have a previous version of this:
My wife has this:

 

Mine is a Thinkware F750. I was looking at the F770 the other day, they did make it a bit more compact.

 

Pricey at $400 x2 for both cars, but peace of mind.
Thanks for the link.

 

Definitely pricey, but like you said, peace of mind is worth it. I remember buying mine over Black Friday from Amazon, and at the time Chase Freedom was also offering 10% cash back on amazon purchases so I ended up saving something like 25% off everything.

 

^ Nice, I'll have to keep an eye out for sales. Looks like they're sold at Best Buy as well, so I may keep an eye out for them running any sales.

 

ive got one of these in each truck

https://smile.amazon.com/A118-C-Capa...keywords=a118c

and this in the MR2.

https://smile.amazon.com/Vision-Came...keywords=i1000

 

I have the A118C from Kamlung's link.

I ran the cable in the gap between the windshield and headliner and then down the A-pillar, behind the glovebox, and spliced into the power cable running to the cig lighter. It turns on when the car is on and turns off when the car turns off.

You'll need a hardwire kit. I bought this one:

 

i also have that hardwire kit...

 

Dashcam user here also. Was in an accident 3 months ago where I rear ended someone. Submitted the dashcam footage of how they illegally cut me off (crossed 2 solid lines) and then slammed on the brakes. Insurance report came back and showed 0% liability for me and 100% for the other driver.

Without the dashcam I would have been screwed, I will never drive without one.

 

it's cheap insurance... for under $100 all you get a decent camera and 32GB SD card...

which reminds me, i need to get two more...

 

I have the wedge one that Kam linked as well, with the hardwire kit; awesome, cheap insurance.

This video still private?

 

The first thing I buy for our cars is a dash cam. In both our cars I am running BlackSys ch-100b which is a front and rear setup and has built in voltage regulation and cutoff (no need to buy a separate device). We use them for peace of mind and to protect ourselves. Everyone should have one

 

Wait for it....

 

Wow ... I'm glad you didn't get stuck. Given those circumstances, you handled that really well.

How did you not lose your cool?

 

Holy shit that is crazy. Nice job staying calm and avoiding the accident.

 

I just sat there stunned for a minute. I did utter a few choice words after the shock wore off, but I cut the tape before that.

 

i can't see the video. What happened?

 

Looks like OP removed it or set it to private. It was nothing super exciting... he was merging onto a highway and a construction truck was on the highway shoulder, then crossed the merge ramp in front of him causing him to brake (to avoid) and stop on the shoulder.

If you want to watch dash cam vids... check out the Russian dash camera videos on YouTube

 

Got ya. Thought his car exploded or something after impact

I have tons of dash cam vids so I am good on that.

 

So just to confirm... if I add this to my camera it will turn the camera on and off with the car, plus allow for parking surveillance?

 

this just firms up my decision to get one...glad everyone is ok

 

If you hook it up to a keyed source, yes it will turn on and off with the car. As for the parking, are you asking if it will turn on when the car is bumped? If so, I don't think the hardwire thing will do that but I know those cams exist.

Edit - on further reading, it appears it is saying "Parking surveillance" by leaving the cam running all the time. If you hook it up to an always on fuse, you could do this but I would think your battery would drain but it says it protects from that, just not sure how.

 

Yeah, that last part is what I was wondering. Seems like if it's always on, your battery will suffer. So it seems like you can hook it up to a keyed source (or use a cigarette lighter) which doesn't give you parking surveillance, or you can just hook it up to be always on with the hardwire kit.

Wonder if they make a camera that has a battery in it... so it comes on and off with the car when plugged in (and that also charges the battery), then the internal battery keeps it running while parked. I mean, I don't need it filming when it's home... just a couple hours (tops) when it's parked somewhere...

 

IIRC, some of the parking surveillance enabled cameras shoot 1 frame per second & automatically shut down if the battery voltage drops to a certain point.

 

alright let me clarify some things since i've used 3 dash cams in the past and have done much research to get the features i want or think are key.

there are 3 types of dash cams: non parking ones (turn off with car), cams with parking mode, and cams with parking mode and built in voltage regulation. for the parking mode only ones, you will need a separate voltage regulator like others have linked to. the top dash cams integrate the voltage regulator into the camera.

now let's talk about the parking mode ones:
parking mode dash cams have features built in that tell the camera when to record video. usually it's by motion detection and g-forces. the good cams have motion detection and allow you to pick where in the camera's view it will be turned on by motion. the g-force recording means if your car gets hit or bumped and the force is high enough, the camera will record. the camera constantly buffers video (but doesn't record), so when something happens (movement or bump), it saves 10 seconds prior to "event" and then 20 seconds after event.

how the battery cutoff works:
the cam will pull power from the car's battery to buffer the video as described above. however once the car battery voltage hits a predetermined amount, the regulator cuts off power completely so your battery doesn't drain. there's also settings that allows the camera to turn off after a set amount of time, such as 6 hours of parked mode.

i do lots of research when i buy things and the best deal for the price is the blacksys ch-100b. i have this in my car and my wife's car. it constantly gets great reviews compared to the more expensive blackvue
- it has a great app to view and download videos
- has motion detection parking mode and you can choose its "sensitive" areas
- has built in voltage regulation
- front and rear camera
- low profile

i buy a dash cam for every car we have and i hope everyone buys one as well. they really provide peace of mind and can be very helpful for insurance reasons

 

Just to add something into the mix as well, they do sell backup battery packs as well so you're not relying on your car's battery to power the camera in Park Mode. I bought a battery pack for the RL. I have it installed in such a way that it charges when the car is on and discharges when I turn the ignition switch off.

 

My #1 criteria (bar far) is how easy it is to install / remove on a daily basis. My previous cars has been vandalized and I lost two Garmin GPS and a radar detector (almost $1500 + damage to the cars). No way I would leave a dash cam at the sight of a thief , even discreet. Clip-on installation of the Papago is the best fit for me.