by db8cn
After my wife telling me numerous stories of being ran off the road and close calls, I researched and ultimately purchased two $100 dash cams for both of our vehicles for a total of about $198 on Amazon . They came with a power adapter and a 16GB Micro SD card as a part of a limited time promotion. I installed both of them earlier this year by myself within a few hours by using barebones soldering skills and some common hand tools for a “stealth wiring” configuration.
Recently, my wife was in an accident and our dash cam has definitively cleared us of all liability. The other party claimed that my wife was at fault and that her lights were not on. Her dash cam showed that not only was my wife’s lights on prior to the impact, but the other party was shown clearly running a stop sign which my wife failed to mention in the police report due to her head injury. Needless to say, our $200 investment has already paid for itself.
With all of that in mind, I highly recommend a dash cam in addition to adequate insurance coverage for added financial peace of mind. Too many car accidents end up in he said/she said nonsense with both parties’ recollection being skewed in favor of their own benefit.
Car accidents are already a pain. Do yourselves a favor and spend $100 and an afternoon installing one of these in your vehicle. Future you will inevitably thank you someday.
Thanks everyone for sharing your stories and asking questions. I’m glad I can help some of you out. With that said, I keep getting the same question frequently so here’s a copy/paste of my response.
Wheelwitness HD is the dash cam I own.
Honestly, anything with an above average rating of 4 stars in the $100 range that isn’t a recognized name brand is pretty much a rebrand of other cameras. If it has a generic name, I can guarantee you that they all use a handful of chipsets that can record at different settings depending on how capable it is. The only difference will be the physical appearance but guts will mostly be the same.
As a rule of thumb, anything $100+ will probably be a solid cam. I recommend a function check monthly at a minimum. I aim to do it once a week. I found mine frozen and not recording one day. Just needed a hard reboot.