Dash cams

I'd also consider an additional camera for the rear of the vehicle.

A few years ago my husband was starting to back out of a parking spot near a stop sign (hotel parking lot). A person ran the stop sign and hit the back bumper of our truck. Confident they were driving faster than they should've been since their car was damaged from bumper to bumper on one side. Police didn't come out (no injuries), insurance info exchanged (they had the same as us). Hubby checked with the hotel to see if they had an outside camera to catch what happened - nope. Insurance paid for bumper repair on our vehicle. Then they increased insurance and have on record that we have 1 at fault accident. Rear camera on our vehicle may have helped us.
 
I'm surprised this isn't a more common factory installed option at this point. I would think it would be fairly cheap to add for the carmaker and would at least be a high margin option. It may even drive more sales of higher trims, packages or subscription services.
 
I recently got the VIOFO A129 Pro Duo, and the picture quality is fantastic. I also use mine for data collection for work, and the front 4K camera is so crisp. You can make out license plates from a dozen yards away. The back camera is 1080p which is enough for my purposes.

The main annoyance that you'll have with any dashcam is that if you want it on while the car is parked, you'll need to tap two fuses in the car's fuse box. It's not that much work, but requires a few extra tools, watching some youtube videos, and a bit of comfort digging around in a car.

I wish I had installed my dashcam a week earlier. It was sitting on my shelf and my husband's car got sideswiped while it was parked on the street, and if it was installed with parking mode, we would have been able to get the plates and report the hit and run.

We have RedTiger brand cams in each of our vehicles and they've worked great. Got on Amazon for ~$100 give or take, think they came with rear cams too but I didn't take the time/effort to install those.

I also wish I didn't procrastinate in putting mine up, missed a high speed chase flying by and getting in a big accident with my cam still on the counter.

Also it depends on your car charging ports whether you'd need to hardwire for the always on feature. Cam turns off when my wife's car is shutoff, but stays on in my truck.
 
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We have RedTiger brand cams in each of our vehicles and they've worked great. Got on Amazon for ~$100 give or take, think they came with rear cams too but I didn't take the time/effort to install those.

I also wish I didn't procrastinate in putting mine up, missed a high speed chase flying by and getting in a big accident with my cam still on the counter.

Also it depends on your car charging ports whether you'd need to hardwire for the always on feature. Cam turns off when my wife's car is shutoff, but stays on in my truck.
I have RedTiger as well, mine shuts off as well with the vehicle off but no issues thus far. I'm thinking of replacing it as I am 90% sure it's a CCP data collecting tool, ha.
 
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We have this one, a "Rove" - it's not fancy, plugs in with a USB cord, turns off when car is off, but works fine for us. ~ $100. Easy to use, don't have to think about it. Micro SD card.
Probably not the best but def. in the "better than nothing" category. Also, the microphone is very good.

LINK HERE


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I've had a Viofo A129 Pro Duo for the last 3 years. I installed it myself and hardwired it to the fuse box. No complaints and I like having it. The Tesla system is a lot better, but this one is pretty good.

 
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Some footage from my camera last night for this threads reference. (Note: The time stamp is an hour off, and I have since corrected it. Also, the rear camera is pointed through a window with 15% tint on it. )

Front:


Rear:
 
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Following the thread. Been thinking about getting one for both of our cars.
 
Dash cams are great. They're common in Russia, and have resulted in lots of crazy youtube vids:

 
I'm surprised this isn't a more common factory installed option at this point. I would think it would be fairly cheap to add for the carmaker and would at least be a high margin option. It may even drive more sales of higher trims, packages or subscription services.
I suspect its related to product liability. Lots of automotive standards talk about addressing known misuse cases. If they put recording devices in the vehicle, then they are potentially getting access to info they don't have now that could put them in legal jeopardy later.

They can argue that it's not reasonable to scour the internet for other people's videos, but if it's their cameras the obligation to review it get blurrier.

I'm not saying it's right or wrong, just how it is.
 
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