To cover what's happening in front, behind, all around..?
Any recommendations?
Any ways of modifying non-specific equipment to use in such a capacity?
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I'm in two minds about this... yes it would be useful to have the antics of some drivers caught on camera, but I'm pretty sure that it will get misused in the wrong hands and innocent motorists (how I hate that phrase) will find themselves in trouble... In the right hands (the Police, for instance) I don't have a problem with them, but with the ordinary motorist, I do.
Sorry, FT, I'm not sure if you were inviting discussion on the pros and cons of them... if you weren't I'd quite happily set up a seperate thread to discuss?
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I would seriousley consider getting one now the two youngsters are driving, on the basis that the presumption would probably be that in an otherwise 50/50 call they would be deemed to be more liable.
Like for istanance at lunchtime today I had the daughter out, met an oncoming car on a narrow country road I told tiddles to pull in and oh boy did she pull in, right into the gutter,( I can photo the car with the clabber if anyone is interested) except the oncomer virtually straddleded the middle of the road, now iffen we hadda caught mirrors? And it absolutly would NOT have been 50/50 liability.
Plus when waiting to turn right offen a main road, having had to stop for oncoming traffic, just as she started to move forward, a KPL trucK came steaming up the side road and, never pausing, pulled on out in front of us. a very cheeky manouver indeed. Again in the event of a collision, Hmmm? I wonder.
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I googled in-car cameras and there are some that give a wide angle field of view. Many are designed to be clamped to roll cages for sports car footage so will be quite robust but bulky.
One alternative is smaller cheaper cameras that come with various clips and velcro straps that fix onto almost anything. You could position them around the vehicle to suit but their recording ability and battery life might be an issue.
Perhaps just having two cameras, one pointing forwards, the other rearwards will be sufficient to capture the majority of incidents which may result in a long drawn out insurance claim.
BTW you may want a camera you can quickly unclip so you don't have prying eyes looking to pinch it when you're parked up.
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For £200 that looks really good. and if it helped preserve your no-claims it could pay for itself.
Of course if you don't have an accident it won't.
And there is just something that makes me feel uneasy about my driving and where I have been getting recorded!! :)
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What is position re legality of these cameras.
OK on the public road but what about private car parks and drive ways?
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vision-uk.co.uk/productPage.php?productId=153
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FT I have 4 in car camera's from Road hawk & the service has always been 2nd to none, my wife has one on her car my daughter has one in her C1 & I have one in my landrover & Passat.
I feel more at ease with one especially with my daughetr having one,because as diesel dog quite rightly says if your a youngster your going to get the blame.
I bought one because I was hit whilst stationary but the insurance company insisted on 50/50 because no witnesses bothered to stop & I decided I wasn't going to get nailed again. My excess was £400 so that would of bought 2 camera's.
The fottage is quite interesting sometimes & sometimes I leave mine on im the landrover when its parked & its very suprising just how many undsirables hang around & peer in the car or try the doors as the axis sensor dectects the door handles! I have had a few amusing moments & think it was fairly close to someone attempting to lift the car the other day had I of not returned.
The camera is hidden above the mirror & in the tinted part of the screen so its not noticable from outside unless you know exactly where to look.
Lets just say the cockpit voice recorder is very usefull if your stopped by someone with attitude & I think may end up quite amusing ( can't say too much about that one at the moment)
My daugher is well pleased to have one & it makes her drive more carefully.
I doc
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What is position re legality of these cameras.
I guess a lot of it would depend on what you intended to do with the images captured.
In the absense of no photography permitted bye laws & signage, i think it would be a tough case for the prosecution (whether state, or for example private property owner) to claim anything against you. On top of that, who would know you were recording?
From a legal POV my question would be around the right to remain silent. If i caused a fatal accident, could i refuse access to the contents of my camera (e.g. my right not to self incriminate)?
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Craig I agree I wouldn't declare the camera untill I have seen the fottage played back but I am very confident after I had a seroiusly near miss & when I played back it didn't matter how many times you watched it the other driver would of been 100% to blame & the fottage would of been sent to the insurance company.
My insurance company said its legal & good evidence & totally acceptable
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>> What is position re legality of these cameras. I guess a lot of it would depend on what you intended to do with the images captured.
www.sirimo.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ukphot...f
From a legal POV my question would be around the right to remain silent. If i caused a fatal accident could i refuse access to the contents of my camera
No.
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basically FT my camera's are fairly obscure & I wouldn't declare it at the seen of an accident unless it was fatal or if I didn't have direct involvment, I would then chack out the fottage & forward it as neccessary. Camers are not a standard fitment yet so why would anyone know a camera was fitted unless you mention it & cars retain crash data anyway after an accident so if its a fatal the police can retrive the driving data from the vehicles modules.
The data they can retireve is quite interesting so the camera info would be a bonus!& on the road hawk it displays GPS & XYZ axis G forces on a graph so how hard you brake or swerve etc can all be interpreted.
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I'm sold. I just bought one via www.dogcamsport.co.uk/
Will see how i get on with it once it arrives. Looks to be well thought out & feature complete.
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Have fun craigp, make sure byou configure the SD card & set all the XYZ axis to .6g & set warning beeper to OFF otherwise it will beep at you everytime you hit a pot hole! To be honest its great & the play back quality is very good. Have fun & enjoy. I use the sticky pads to install as the suction pad is the size of a breast pump! I have put black tape over the red warning light & the GPS light so if I leave the camera on in a carp park at night its not spotted! as i said earlier, if TV is boring one nite then i play back some of the footage when its been on in a remote car park & its scary who's about & how nosey some people are!
Each car took me about 20 mins to fit invluding tucking the cable under the windscreen trim & rooting the cable down the side of the door shuts etc but its worth it as its all very neat.
I would be interested to know what you think when you have tried it ?I had some very negative comments on the forum but I think its great & when my neighbour had there 2 week old suzuki hit hard in the side & the driver that T boned them claimed the young girl was driving too fast she wished she had installed a camera! Fortunatley a witness came forward & stated the girl was driving carefully so she was lucky!
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On ebay there are cheap keyfob "spy" camcorders that produce very respectable video at 640x480x30fps for around £7 delivered. I've been playing with one recently for this purpose and am getting good results, velcroed onto the top of the binnacle.
I suspect that the bare bones of these devices are the same as put into many more expensive items.
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don't suppose it has GPS & voice record & XYZ impact axis record etc etc
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No it doesn't, although I question the usefulness of most of the extras anyway -- the police cameras are static.
It also doesn't cost much.
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Criagp, another tip, when you install the sticky pad it can be used both ways depending on the rake of your screen & the lens angle can be adjusted, I have fitted very close to roof & over the top of the mirrors so its more obscure & on my passat it was tight so fitted it on the left side of mirror. make sure lens isn;'t too close to mirror mount on screen otherwise the wide angle lens will pick up the mirror mount! There is a tiny ( YES TINY) clip that retains the cable in the mount! if your car has a black interior like my landrover be warned do not drop the tiny little cable clip ( looks like a horse shoe) does a brilliant job & very neat but I dropped mine & spent 4 hrs trying to find it! Just a tip
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injection doc, many thanks for these tips have bookmarked this thread for when it arrives.
primera driver, i've been known to crash a few r/c planes and i love seeing footage from the air. To that end, i have one of the ebay jobs already (they're extremely lightweight) but the field of view is terrible on mine.
No doubt the roadcam will find itself strapped to a 60 mph dart in the not too distant future as well as it's road going duties :-P
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strange, seems much the same as any other camera on mine. Certainly enough to see the whole road ahead.
I suspect that at the price, quality control might not be the best...
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I think a friend has just bought something from Dogcam. He and I do a bit of 4 line power kiting and he wants to attach it to the kite for some 'extreme in-flight footage'.
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How's the camera going CraigP ?
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It arrived Friday morning, special delivery as well and i had just went with the free postage.
I'm impressed with the quality of the camera, it feels really decent. Packaging is pretty nifty too. See what you mean about the (slightly) oversized suction cup, think mine with be going on the 3M stick pad mount supplied.
Not mounted it in the car yet, not connected it to a computer yet either as the instruction manual says to insert the SD card into the camera first so that the camera can setup the SD card as required, only then should you pop it in your PC. Whatever's clever.
The software looks pretty complete from glossing through the manual.
Hopefully get a play with it on the drive into work 2moro. This weekend has been spent wrestling with a rear ABS sensor on the wee golf... (how can you remove an ABS sensor without destroying it, i think it's impossible! Struggled for ages fitting the new one, had to sand it down a bit in the end!! anyways... haha)
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When I had a look at a downloadable demo of the Roadhawk software a while back I noticed that the files are in a proprietary format (not surprising because they contain the video, plus the GPS, speed and force data).
I just wondered if anybody knew whether it was possible to extract the video (without the aid of a screen capture tool).
I might want to share a video with others, without them having to install the Roadhawk software, or I might want to review it years from now, when I may not be able to run the original software.
It does seem that there are a lot of other video only cameras available, but the other information is very appealing (would like to check exactly how fast I was going when I passed that speed camera, for example).
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Yeah you can export the video only. However you loose the google maps overlay and the graphs of the accelerometers too so im thinking best way might be to use screen capture software to capture the window of roadhawk so you get a video of the whole shooting match.
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@injection doc, couple of questions if I may...
I'm guessing you've hard wired the cam in, for discreteness, rather than leaving it obviously plugged into the 12v cig socket or something where it can be seen.
How did you do this? Via an empty/spare fuse socket. Does it come with any extra wiring? Also I'm guessing if you've left it on while parked up it uses very little juice. Does it stay switched on all the time then, by default, or can you turn it off?
Thanks in advance! I don't think I'd bother if I had to remove it all the time, but if I could pretty much hide it up out the way and forget about it (and no intrusive wiring) I'd be more likely to use it, if not just to playback my own driving, or for the "interest" factor.
subject line fixed
Edited by Pugugly on 22/02/2010 at 09:17
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Hi Devolution
The cable for the camera is more than generous & you can cut the plug & wire into a live with ign fuse.
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I think this has been mentioned on the forum before.
Roadhawk car black box camera catches driver doing 125mph
www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZbQ_KOGBcQ
The news story can be found on SkyNews[*] on google by searching for " Mechanics' 125mph Joyride In Customer's Car "
[*] part of the Times empire and hence link not posted here.
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Hi devolution
I have actually set up a two way switch on a feed so i can leave a camera on when the cars parked ie in supermarkets! where people tend to hit cars the most & drive off! I reverse in & leave camera on otherwise its just set to come on when the cars running.
The draw is about 700 ma so it s negligable & have left on before for a couple of days inadvertantly & the cars started fine.
I wonder how craigP is getting on with his?
I doc
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@injection doc
Thanks for the replies, very useful. Will consider getting one in the near future. Love my gadgets and I think it could easily come in handy.
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I'm sold. I just bought one via www.dogcamsport.co.uk/ Will see how i get on with it once it arrives. Looks to be well thought out & feature complete.
Have one of those two. excellent bit of kit.
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