Club Arnage

Because of the high mileage I do and the high volume of numpties on the roads I use a forward facing dash cam recording video on a continuous loop.
I understand that the use of radar detectors in France is illegal but does anyone know what the French law is regarding these cameras?

Steve

Steve those things are for sale in Leclerc auto so must be legal i guess.

There are numerous places here in the States that the use of a radar detector is not legal, however the purchase and ownership thereof is legal....

Just had a look at a number of articles on t'internet and the consensus is that they're legal in France.

However illegal in Austria and apparently it's frowned upon in Germany if you post up dash cam footage due to violation of personal privacy.  In fact you can be fined in Bavaria for such matters up to a max of 300,000 euros!

Take a look at the following article, your Lordship: -

https://www.rt.com/news/194236-germany-dashcam-video-fine/

Lofty / Landman
Thank you for your advice. If they are good enough for Leclerc that'll do for me.
I've decided to avoid Austria, Germany and Bavaria en route to LM this year.

Steve

...and Luxembourg.

Lord,

I'm intrigued by dash cams.  Have you found it of benefit?

Aricus

Aricus
I've been looking at them for some time and am pleased to report that hitherto I have had no reason to download the content of the memory disc as evidence!
It's a bit of insurance against spurious claims and idiotic driving standards.
These things are available from about £60 to £200 but I picked mine up at an Esso forecourt for £19.99 including a memory card which is worth £20 alone and, if I ditch the recorder the card will fit in other devices I have anyway.
So, I'm using it as a trial unit which I may upgrade later.

Steve

Wow, that was cheap, and I bet the quality is good enough?

I don't do big miles these days, but have always wondered about them, especially as the motoring I do is at weekends when the standard drops dramatically.

(When I did big business miles, I did witness a few incidents, including two cars somersaulting, and a transit drive off the M1 motorway and up the backing before taking a tumble).

I have considered a helmet cam for cycling, and an in-car for track days, but I'm not sure that you'd spend your winder nights watching these whilst there's watch paint dry instead.  >:D

Aricus

I have an Android app which I can use but I rarely do. There's a few of them, none as good as a dedicated device but they are free, and I have a screen mount for the phone for when in use as a satnav. I missed one spectacular incident when on my way down the M6 in the outside lane a couple of years back - an artic turned 180 degrees right across the motorway in front of me, lucky I was concentrating!! It would have been good footage but I didn't have the cam on...

I think I need a rear facing camera because I see lots of accidents happening in the rear view mirror.

 ;D  ;D  ;D

BTW - last year my son Tristan (FezBoy) was in BBC's Chinese School.  (I hope you didn't see this pile of  misleading rubbish).  The film crew asked me if I would put a camera in my car. In my nievety, I thought that they wanted it pointing out to get footage of my "spirited" driving.  My wife told me that they wanted to film us talking on the way to school, at which point I declined.

Aricus

I bought a pretty decent one 14 months ago after some yoof slid into me on a single-track country road (I was stationary at the time).  "Your word against mine, guv - you ain't got no witnesses".  Cost me £400.

I did quite an exhaustive analysis of what's out there and what facilities are available (such as parking sensor, full 1080 HD, larger memory card), and bought one which gives me everything I wanted for £130.

Had a couple of near misses which were interesting to watch after the event, and also caught out the mechanic at my local Audi place doing 43mph in a 30 area.

You don't have to do a big mileage to warrant one - the prang I had was less than 2 miles away!!

Del

PS.  You can get systems with  two cameras for fore and aft recording.  I also know of one 'enthusiast' who also had one each side of his vehicle!!

D

If anyone is interested then Which Magazine's "BestBuys" are the Nextbase In-Car Cam 512G Ultra and the Nextbase In-Car Cam 402G Professional.

There are quite a few models on their "Don't Buy" list and they are not all cheap either, but that said the two models with the lowest score retail at £18 and £39.

I think I've been ripped off at £19.99 then.......

I've got a Nextbase 402G in my daily hack.  Very good quality recordings and it's on all the time it has power.

Unfortunately, almost a necessity in today's world. I got hit a couple of years ago and the driver failed to stop. Fortunately it was only minor but the dash cam caught the incident showing the van that did in full company livery. One mention of I have the video evidence and everyone falls over themselves to sort the matter out.

I have also seen another incident of a driver claiming that the car following had run into the back of them. The dash cam footage clearly showed that he had been stationary and never touched the car in front. Once she knew she was on video she became very abusive, got in her car and drove. The driver then handed this footage over to the police, where after a little investigation it was discovered she was involved in a cash for crash scam.

Should we have these then the answer is no. However, some of the low life in today's society mean we have  no choice but to have them, and I've had mine for three years. Also the police actively encourage users to now provide dash cam footage of poor driving/incidents.

We all use them in our family. They have come in useful, my son was pulled by police who said he was driving to fast and erratically, he said he wasn't, and asked the policeman would he like to take a look at the footage on the camera to prove it. The policeman left. I also drive a lot of miles and the standard of driving especially in London is bad and I don't want a dispute with someone who all of a sudden can't speak English, it cost a mate of mine a fortune when he shunted as they could not prove who was driving the other car. He has one now.!!!!
  One the original topic I used mine in France last year{just unplug it if you feel the need for speed or it can be used against you)

My excellent value dash cam gave up the ghost today after two weeks. Still, I can still use the sd card for something else!
Right chaps, what are your recommendations for a replacement?

Hi Steve

I did a lot of investigation before buying mine 14 months ago.  The best place to get a lot of info and comparison is dashcamtalk.com.  I eventually settled on the Panorama G (now the Street Guardian SGZC12SG), because it provided all the facilities I wanted, is one of the few out there which can handle a decent-sized memory card (most are max 32gb), and I got to speak to the developer and the distributors (Jokiin, and Jon and Nico on DCT), all of whom were very helpful.  One of the most important properties is HD recording.  When you are at a closing velocity of >60mph, number plates are very difficult to read, and whilst there are occasions that recordings are a bit dodgy even  for the 'G' (low light conditions etc), it is one of the best, especially the Mk 2 version now available.  Once you decide on full HD, then a larger memory card is almost mandatory, as a 32gb card gives you less than 4 hours recording.

Not the cheapest, but you get what you pay for.

Del

That's very helpful, thanks Del.

steve

Hi!

What about power? Do they have rechargeable batteries or do they need plumbed in?

I'm surprised that no manufacturers have added them as option, or maybe they do and I just don't know about them.

Aricus

I don't think it will be long before manufacturers start offering "plumbed-in" versions.

I think your right Steve and then next question is how long before all cars have black boxes in them?

Some have batteries.  The trouble with batteries is that these devices have to operate in a very wide temperature range, and batteries are not good at that.

The one I went for has a capacitor which holds enough power to write the last block of data away to the memory card should the supply fail, for whatever reason.

Del

Hi Aricus,
             Between you , me and Google.. we know frikin everything  ;D
some of the Hybrids use Capacitors which are a similar, in some ways, to rechargeable batteries.
It just Electrickery to me  ;D But I like to watch  :angel: (wait for it)
Phil

One thing that has always confused me with these cams is -

Do I have to take the memory card out each day to wipe it or can you make it overwrite old data as I can see me forgetting to do it. I am awaiting a influx of morons putting them in the middle of the windscreen like they do sat nav's at the moment.

I have an app which records your journeys and you can configure how many minutes it records for (I think) and how many old recordings it saves. I never use it though.

They automatically overwrite the oldest file once the card is full - this is obviously a constant process.  A recordable segment is usually a given time span and can be set on the device.  Mine is set to 3 mins  Any segment can be marked as an 'Event' (simply by pressing a button on mine), in which case it is transferred to a different folder on the card and will not be overwritten.  Most devices are fitted with a sensor which detects a prang - in which case the previous 30 seconds (or so) of recording plus the following 30 seconds are also automatically written as an 'Event' and will not be overwritten.  It is only these files in the 'Event' folder which have to be manually deleted - on mine this can be done on the device itself or on a PC.

And for Kev's edification, I'll take myself out of the 'moron' classification - you can see the camera tucked behind the mirror, and the satnav in the bottom left corner of the photo.

Del

My parents gave me a DrivePro 220 made by Transcend for Christmas.  No idea why they gave it to me but never mind.  It plugs in tot he cigarette lighter and starts recording as soon the cigarette lighter is made live by starting the car.

As someone else said it records in 3 minutes segments  and overwrites when full.  If the camera is jolted it will go in to emergency mode and save to a different area that is not overridden.  It will also go in to this mode if it is jolted whilst off and turn on and start recording.

In a remarkably annoying feature it reads the white lines on the road and bleeps at you if it thinks you are too far to the left or right, it also bleeps if it thinks you are too close to the car in front, and I think it may also read speed limit signs and complain about that too, however obviously I never speed so wouldnt know this

Hey Chris,
               That sounds more like a Nanny Cam to me  ;D
Phil

Last person I know who filmed their nanny ended up in a very tight spot.
H

Is a pain, mind you benefit is it also records my wife's driving.  On reflection maybe thats not a benefit!