Does Your Car Really Need a Dashcam? |
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Does Your Car Really Need a Dashcam?
Don’t rely on hearsay after a car accident to make your case. Rely on cold, hard pixels in the form of a dashcam video.
By Matt Jancer | Reviewed by Ysolt Usigan
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Some bonehead merges onto the highway without looking and crumples your car’s fender into modern art. A coked-up doofus throws their car into reverse at the stoplight and rearranges your bumper with the back of their truck’s tailgate. Or maybe it’s you who backs into somebody reversing out of a parking space, but even though he walked away just fine at the time he shows up months later in court in a wheelchair.
Wouldn’t it be good to have proof of what actually went down? Don’t let an accident become a case of he-said-she-said. Dashcams don’t have to be expensive. You can get a decent one for a tick under $100. Hard evidence when you really need it, though, is priceless.
better than an action cam
It’s tempting to just think you can use your existing action camera—you know, that GoPro Hero 13 Black or Insta360 X5 you take dirt biking and snowboarding—and repurpose it as a dashcam, but it’s inferior on several fronts.
Dashcams are more “set it and forget it.” Most start recording automatically when the vehicle starts and turn off when you shut off the car. You don’t have to risk forgetting to hit an action cam’s on button every time you set off on your drive or not pressing off when you get out of the car, leaving the action cam’s battery drained. And that’s another thing. Dashcams plug right into the car’s 12V electrical outlet and run off the car’s electrical system. You don’t have to constantly take them inside to recharge them, as you do with action cams.
When that action cam’s internal memory or removable memory card fills up, it’ll record no more........