Dash Cam with speed monitoring.

[scotview]

I'm travelling on a minor road, fairly regularly, to a new fishing venue and I'm astonished at the speed some (young) drivers travel at, especially at blind corners. I think a dash cam might be a good idea.

Can you recommend a reasonably priced dash cam, ideally with speed monitoring. Can a rear view camera be used to show my simultaneous speedometer reading, to prove my driving speed, for example.

Many thanks.

[bungeejumper]

My pretty basic Nextbase (412GW) has speed monitoring as standard - along with geo-position info and all the rest of it. It's a six year old model, though, and I'd be a little surprised if they don't all have that info these days.

On mine, at least, you can turn off the speed recording if you don't want the cops to know how fast you were going before the incident. Some do, apparently.

It's worth spending on a reasonable level of definition (1440 pixels would be a minimum if you want to capture numberplates (and you do ). And the more memory in your microchip, the better. They tell me you can get 128 gb for a fiver these days?

BJ

[bungeejumper]

Should have added: Plod can work out your speed pretty accurately without a speed read-out, given that they've got your geo-positioning data and they know the frame rate of your camera. They probably wouldn't bother with that, though, unless there had been a major incident.

I'm not aware of any generally-available dashcam that can tell you the speed of an oncoming motorist, though - I suppose it would have to have focused itself on the car, like a police cam can do? Happy to be wrong, though.

Around our way, it's the cyclists you need to watch out for. Our narrow lanes are on a national cycle route, and club racers come round blind bends four or five abreast, which can be a bit Darwin Awards at times.

Then agan, I recently got some footage of my having to brake like hell when six or eight sunday-rideout cyclists massively cut the corner on a road intersection and effectively ran us into the side of the road. (We were doing less than twenty as we approached the intersection.) They were at least six feet over the dotted centre line marking. And as we sat and got over the shock, the entire thirty-strong peloton followed them. I did wonder whether to hand the footage over to plod, but since none of them were carrying any identifiers it would have been of only limited use. Harrumph.

BJ

[Howard]

I'm travelling on a minor road, fairly regularly, to a new fishing venue and I'm astonished at the speed some (young) drivers travel at, especially at blind corners. I think a dash cam might be a good idea.

Can you recommend a reasonably priced dash cam, ideally with speed monitoring. Can a rear view camera be used to show my simultaneous speedometer reading, to prove my driving speed, for example.

Many thanks.

I have a simple Nextbase forward facing dashcam which cost less than £100 a few years ago. It continuously records the car’s speed and acceleration/deceleration and obviously exactly where the car is on the road using satellites.

Assuming one considers oneself a law-abiding driver it’s a brilliant safety feature. The videos are clear and it rewrites over videos every two hours or so. If one wants to record a particular incident a press button will save it and it can be downloaded onto one’s computer.

Having not had any insurance claim for twenty years or so, a few months back, having stopped at a T junction with a major road in a town, a young man ran into the back of the car at speed. I got out to check within a few seconds to find he was quite shaken but was holding his phone! He said that he thought I was going to turn rather than stop. We have a nice car so the repair was going to be expensive. When I spoke to the insurance company, given the rear collision, they immediately suggested it would be a no fault claim. I offered to send the dashcam file which they said would be helpful. Obviously I’d looked at the file and it showed the three minutes or so preceding the accident. I’d been driving at around 30 mph, briefly touched 32, and then followed a car in front at a sensible distance as he/she drove at 27 and the video showed I’d slowed down gently and come to a complete stop because of traffic on the major road. Then bang! The dashcam had also recorded the rather mundane conversation with Mrs H which indicated I’d been concentrating on driving.

I guessed the repair would cost a lot and wasn’t wrong. Couldn’t resist asking how much my car repairs cost and it was nearly five figures. The bodyshop guessed that his car would have been written off, so total cost was well over 10k. My insurance company wrote to me to confirm that it was a no fault claim as the other insurer met all the costs.

It was helpful that the forward facing dashcam footage showed exactly what had happened although not recording a rear view. I wasn’t asked about the other driver’s concentration so didn’t report the phone issue. Hopefully he has learnt from the experience.

So, yes my advice would be to get a dashcam. As a fast driver myself, I have found it makes me concentrate on driving safely.

regards

Howard

[BullDog]

I also recommend and use Nextbase. I have a rear facing cam module too that fits into the Nextbase dash cam USB port and records the rear as well as forward view.

My son was quite severely T boned by a driver crossing a red light. My son was found to be at fault simply because he was emerging from a minor road onto a major road and there were no witnesses. A dash cam would have proved his innocence and possibly got the red light jumper prosecuted. I now never drive without a dash cam. Neither does anyone else in the family.

[scotview]

Thanks all for your comments.

As a solution to my dashcam needs I'm using the free, android Autoboy Blackbox app. I have it running on an old but usable Sony Experia, without sim card.

Is serves my purpose, showing MPH and can also show the journey plotted on Google maps. The screen grabs were from this morning at the blind corner quoted on my OP. It seems to work fine.

Thanks again.

[servodude]

Thanks all for your comments.

As a solution to my dashcam needs I'm using the free, android Autoboy Blackbox app. I have it running on an old but usable Sony Experia, without sim card.

Is serves my purpose, showing MPH and can also show the journey plotted on Google maps. The screen grabs were from this morning at the blind corner quoted on my OP. It seems to work fine.

Thanks again.

Looks really useful.
How have you mounted it to get such a clear front view?

[scotview]

Looks really useful.
How have you mounted it to get such a clear front view?

This mount
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B003WUJV1O? ... ct_details

Mounted exactly as shown in this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zrBPCZl50o

I will trial this to see how it does. It has lost GPS a couple of times, so no speed or route on map. I'll see how it goes

I've got a USB cable from the Xperia to the Dacia USB charging socket, about a metre of cable, so not too obtrusive and no panels disturbed. The phone hasn't overheated so far and the battery keeps its charge even recording at 1080P. Good way to recycle an old phone !

I put this card in the phone and told the app to write to external storage.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07YGZ7JD5? ... ct_details

I grabbed the image from the Xperia screen snapshot function and it gives a very high quality photo grab.

I wasn't looking for anything too special and this seems to be doing what I want. Removing and replacing isn't too onerous and stops prying eyes.