Quote:
Originally Posted by Huntingwhale
Peace of mind for $75 plus shipping.
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This 10000%.
My first dashcam was a cheap $50 hunk of plastic off eBay. It claimed to record in 720p, but it was just a 1280x720 potato. I only bought it to have as a toy, never thinking it would be useful. As much as I didn't like the video quality, it was good enough to capture everything that happened in the first accident it captured, only 6 months after I bought it.
I was changing lanes on my way home from work, and when I looked in my mirrors and shoulder checked, the lane was clear. By the time I had finished changing lanes, I felt an impact, and my car pulled to the side. The jackass in the right lane had apparently sped up in an attempt to not let me in.
I was completely in the new lane, but I was just straightening my wheels at the point of impact. When I showed the photos to a friend who was a police officer, he said that I may be found at fault for an unsafe lane change.
But that little hunk of plastic with a lens in it, although facing forward, not backwards, clearly showed that my lane change was completed, and I was in the process of straightening my wheels when he hit me.
The insurance adjuster told me that after reviewing the video footage, he concluded that I was 100% not at fault. The cost of this damning evidence? $50.
That camera always had the power cord dangling from the windshield down to the power outlet, so I didn't always have it plugged in. Until a lady in an old Mazda pulled out from a parking lot directly into the left lane, where I was, and then proceeded to drive away as if nothing had happened. The camera was not operating (my passenger and I realized afterward that we should have had the presence of mind to plug it in after impact), but I followed them and called 911. The police obviously took down the description and told me to pull over, but she was eventually tracked down, charged, and convicted by way of a guilty plea.
Now, the $50 eBay cam has been replaced with a higher quality Ojocam that is hard wired to the accessory circuit in my fusebox.
These things may seem like a useless waste of money...but when you are a victim of another driver's stupidity, they sure do come in handy.
/wall of text