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Car Tech

Top Five Reasons to Own a Dashcam

Jacob Black
Apr 17, 2015

Dashcams are popping up everywhere these days. The phenomenon really took off in the Eastern Bloc, where dashcams protect law-abiding Russians from unscrupulous people faking traffic accidents/causing traffic accidents/pretending to be hit by a car. Throw in a few meteors, a hilarious compilation of dashcam crashes or 12, and it wasn’t long before dashcams became a key part of the automotive landscape.

Here are the five reasons you should own a dashcam.

1: To Protect Yourself from Insurance Claims

Let’s say you’re driving casually down one of Canada’s congested highways in your brand new car. The person in front’s smoke-billowing crapwagon is acting strangely, and the driver is watching you keenly in their mirror. All of a sudden, at a stop in traffic, their reverse lights come on and BANG – they back into you at full throttle. For all the world, this looks like a typical nose-tail collision in a traffic jam, and you’d be on the hook for the insurance deductibles, perhaps a fine from the cops, or worse. You protest your innocence, but it’s he-said-she-said and you’re not looking good on evidence. Stock photography

Let’s say you’re driving casually down one of Canada’s congested highways in your brand new car. The person in front’s smoke-billowing crapwagon is acting strangely, and the driver is watching you keenly in their mirror. All of a sudden, at a stop in traffic, their reverse lights come on and BANG – they back into you at full throttle. For all the world, this looks like a typical nose-tail collision in a traffic jam, and you’d be on the hook for the insurance deductibles, perhaps a fine from the cops, or worse. You protest your innocence, but it’s he-said-she-said and you’re not looking good on evidence.

Dashcam to the rescue! A quick glance at the old faithful video recording device shows the clear actions of a lunatic, and you’re exonerated on the spot. Bada-bing, bada-boom.

2: To Fight for Justice

Have you ever been pulled over by a cop who swears black and blue you rolled through a stop sign, when you know for a fact you didn’t? A dashcam can help prove that you came to a complete and legal stop. Beware though – the dashcam can also prove that you didn’t…. <br><br>Still, a dashcam gives you an opportunity to prove your case in any situation, and that’s good insurance. Photo from Wikimedia Commons (Coolcaesar)

Have you ever been pulled over by a cop who swears black and blue you rolled through a stop sign, when you know for a fact you didn’t? A dashcam can help prove that you came to a complete and legal stop. Beware though – the dashcam can also prove that you didn’t….

Still, a dashcam gives you an opportunity to prove your case in any situation, and that’s good insurance.

3: Because You Park in Public

The worst fear for anyone who uses public parking, street parking or worse – park-n-fly – is that you’ll come back to your pride and joy to find the side stoved in and not so much as a note on your windshield. Your car is busted, and you have no way of knowing how it happened, or who did it. This one will be recorded on your insurance as an at-fault, even though it wasn’t your fault, and you’re on the hook for the whole deductible. Stuff that for a joke! A dashcam with an automatic recording setting will trigger when it suffers a bump, recording the preceding and following couple of minutes so you have a chance to track down Mr. Parking Moron and do the old, “You dirty rat… you dented my Nova!” Photo from Wikimedia Commons (Adrian Pingstone)

The worst fear for anyone who uses public parking, street parking or worse – park-n-fly – is that you’ll come back to your pride and joy to find the side stoved in and not so much as a note on your windshield. Your car is busted, and you have no way of knowing how it happened, or who did it. This one will be recorded on your insurance as an at-fault, even though it wasn’t your fault, and you’re on the hook for the whole deductible. Stuff that for a joke! A dashcam with an automatic recording setting will trigger when it suffers a bump, recording the preceding and following couple of minutes so you have a chance to track down Mr. Parking Moron and do the old, “You dirty rat… you dented my Nova!”

4: To Record Your Mad Skillz

Ever do a track day? Abracadabra! Your dashcam is evidence of your mad apex-clipping skills. If it’s got a time stamp, you can even prove your mad-skill lap times. As always, beware – the camera can also record that dude who passed you on the outside, in an Aztec, sideways. Still from YouTube video by HavenRacingUK

Ever do a track day? Abracadabra! Your dashcam is evidence of your mad apex-clipping skills. If it’s got a time stamp, you can even prove your mad-skill lap times. As always, beware – the camera can also record that dude who passed you on the outside, in an Aztec, sideways.

5: Because Carnage!

The world is full of exciting events, from furry road rage and hilarious crashes to magic lightning storms and falling space debris. But if a tree falls in the forest and it’s not on youtube, did it really happen? Having a dashcam means you too can be part of the worldwide festival of schadenfreude taking place in email chains, Buzzfeed articles and Failblogs on a daily basis. Still from YouTube video by HaRiZhu

The world is full of exciting events, from furry road rage and hilarious crashes to magic lightning storms and falling space debris. But if a tree falls in the forest and it’s not on youtube, did it really happen? Having a dashcam means you too can be part of the worldwide festival of schadenfreude taking place in email chains, Buzzfeed articles and Failblogs on a daily basis. Want proof? Check out this list of lessons we learned from dashcams….

Jacob Black

Jacob Black
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Jacob is a writer and a journalist who enjoys cars, driving and jokes. Sometimes he writes a series of jokes and loosely connects them to a car he was driving. Jacob Black is not a werewolf.