I’ve been thinking of this a lot lately. Especially more so after my 2016 car accident where my beloved Chevrolet Cobalt SS (“The Blackbird”) was destroyed on a North Carolina highway when some schlub from an RV dropped bicycles from the back of the RV, which fell on my car, while at the same time a Ford F-150 plowed into the back of me and shoved me into a third car. Yeah, I got Malachi crunched.
That was nearly eight years ago. And although I was found 100% not at fault for the accident, I sometimes wonder if having some sort of computerized video camera on my dashboard would have helped speed up the investigation.
Then I stumbled onto this YouTube channel. It’s a collection of dash cam footage, including car crashes, police chases, and idiots behind the wheel.
And this is just accidents from New York. There’s dash cam videos from other municipalities on this channel.
I mean … I’m sitting here watching these videos, and the next time I’m on the road, my peripheral vision is on red alert. Every single car around me suddenly becomes a “he could hit me” situation. Especially on Alternate Route 7, that stretch of road is just a death trap.
Okay. I don’t need any more accident flashbacks.
But I am thinking … wouldn’t it be a good thing to get a dash cam for my current car? I mean, if nothing else, I could protect myself from sphincter-brains who got their driver’s license from sending in two UPC codes of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I could protect myself from insurance fraudsters who might walk up to my stopped car, jump on it, and then fall to the ground, writing in pain, claiming that I hit them.
I asked people online for some dash cam recommendations, and most responders recommended a brand called Viofo, so I’ll look into that.
But I also wanted to know if getting a dash cam would help on my insurance rates. So I called my car insurance. And after 25 minutes of being passed from person to person … I was told that although personal video dash cam footage can help you in an insurance investigation, it will not give you a discount on your car insurance. Not even if you talk to Flo, the cavemen, that emu, or the guy in the military costume. Nertz.
Still … I’m contemplating the idea.
Because as much as there’s a plethora of safe, conscientious drivers out there …
There’s always one shithead that can ruin it for all of us.
I’m just sayin’ is all.
Chuck The Writer 
FYI dashcams don’t work very well. They try to cover a wide angle of view to get the approach of the attacking vehicle which reduces detail such as license plate numbers to the point of being unreadable. Yes, I’ve had a couple. There’s one in Jojo right now (not in Clifford), and I’ve never finished putting it in because the hardwire connections are a nightmare. The ‘cigarette lighter’ plugs tend to disconnect without warning. What’s more, the settings are done through smartphone which means I can’t adjust it. This is a Thinkware version. I had a cheaper one before, and it worked better – right up until it quit working at all. Mostly I use them for getting bad images of wildlife on the road, but I have got a few interesting highway shots of bad drivers. Over-all I’m not impressed by them in general. For all the techno-garbage auto makers burden us with, something useful like built-in dash cams still seems to be low on the priority list. You’d need four cameras, one pointing in each direction, for the way people drive these days. As for getting a break on insurance … when does that ever happen?
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