The goal of placing a dashcam is to record accidents and other happenings on tape. These images can then be sent to insurance companies or be used in the court of law. Furthermore people can also buy a dashcam because they enjoy watching their recorded footage, for entertainment purposes.
A dashcam is a handy sized camera that is conveniently placed behind the windshield. From here the road is easily videotaped. This video footage is recorded on a MicroSD-card that is placed inside the camera. When the memory is full, older recorded material is deleted to make space on the SD-card. Besides the filming itself, other facets of driving the car is also recorded, such as the speed of the car. It may also be possible to record sound with the built in microphone, depending on the model of the dashcam.
Dashcams are available in multiple places, especially in online stores. These offer dashcams of different brands, kinds and sizes. The price can thus differ a lot between the different cams. The price is, amongst other factors, dependent upon the quality of the video footage. Some cams are filming in HD-quality, whilst others know a lower quality. Furthermore most dashcams have a GPS-tracker inside them. With this the location of the vehicle can be looked at. Furthermore there are new gadgets brought on the market, such as motion detection. With this the camera will start recording when there is movement in the vehicle. It is thus not necessary anymore to turn the camera on and off. Moreover some cams have Wi-Fi, through which the video footage is directly saved on the computer or laptop. With this the route of the car can be tracked from the computer. There are also cameras that can film in the dark with infrared. With these cameras you can thus also film in the night.
The dashcam is easily placed behind the windshield and films in good quality, depending on the type of dashcam. There are thus also those that film in full-HD. Often a cam is not very expensive for the benefits that you get for the price. The dashcam films everything which happens in front of the car. In this way the footage in case of an accident can be viewed and you can have a look at the cause of the accident and see who is guilty.
Insurance companies like to receive the video footage, but they do not attach great value to it yet. In some cases the images are not clear enough, or it is too dark, which makes hardly anything of the accident visible. In this way the images can only cause confusion. The insurance companies thus take in the video materials for their decisions, but do not value it as final evidence. The police is also reluctant with using the video footage of dashcams. It is namely possible to edit and manipulate the footage. With the video footage of the dashcam the speed of the car is shown as well. According to the police these numbers can easily be edited, which makes it look like the driver of the car has driven slower than it really did. Moreover it is possible to delete certain parts of the film, through which only half of the truth is shown. It is difficult to detect if the video was really not processed.
The video footage will thus always be looked at properly if it wasn't edited at some point in time. The role of video footage in evidence for court is still unknown. There are countries in which dashcams are already used a lot, such as Russia. This is the most well known country in which these cameras are being used. In this country, almost every car has a dashcam installed. This is primarily because the video footage is often used there as evidence. In Russia it thus makes sense, but there are also countries in which dashcams are forbidden. This is the case in Luxembourg, Portugal and Austria. In most countries the use of dashcams is a legal affaire.
Often it is thought of that a dashcam is illegal. This is not the case, on public roads where you are allowed to film. It is however the case that you need to ask permission to film with steady cameras. A dashcam is however not a placed camera and therefore it is also not necessary to ask permission for this. You do have to keep in mind image rights and privacy. Footage that has been made with a dashcam is not allowed to simply post on the internet. First you need to fade out faces of people so that they become unrecognisable. The same goes for licence plates of other cars. If uncensored material is placed on the internet, then the people shown in the footage can ask for the videos to be deleted from the internet.
Furthermore, a dashcam needs to be installed in such a way that it does not block the view of the driver on the road.
A dashcam is thus a camera that films the road in front of the car. Often a dashcam is bought to record evidence that can be used in case of an accident. This footage will then be looked at by insurance companies and the police. But the value of this is still unknown. Footage may have been edited, through which the real situation is clouded. The police in particular is holding back in the use of video footage of dashcams. But in the future new methods will come into begin to control video footage on their authenticity. Perhaps the function of the dashcam will be valued more then.
