The secret to defensive driving (and a lifetime of no
collisions / no tickets) is to realize that there are many more Assholes among us than is generally believed – especially drivers with new cars equipped with GPS, Sirius Satellite Radio, Pandora, pop-up iPad-style consoles, Bluetooth, OnStar FMV Rearview Mirrors , movie players, and an interminable litany of built-in, useless distractions – not to mention those
Assholes driving while DUI, texting or bullshiting on their cell phones, putting on makeup, or being distracted by back-seat drivers. These use of these devices should be OUTLAWED in moving vehicles; the manufacturers should have never included anything other than GPS, and you can get a much better GPS from TelsonUSA than you can get built into a car, and the advantages are 1. You don't have to bring your car in for service if the GPS craps out, 2. Thieves or vandals can't do thousands of dollars in damage trying to steal it, because you can grab it and take it with you, 3. Upgrading a removable GPS with new maps and firmware is easily done by connecting it to a PC..... but I digress....
Dash cameras will catch the idiots and their distracted driving habits in flagrante delicto,
and I have started a
Web site exclusively for exposing the idiots I catch with my cameras (if
you have a dashcam, you can contribute to the video collection if you want –
see the Web site for details).
If the idiots cause an
collision (or crash into you), your lawyer will have a slam-dunk case when you take the Dipshit to court and sue....
and as Warner Wolf used to say,
"Let's go to the video tape!".
They also record sound, such as the screeching of tires, horns, and the
sound of your turn signals and brakes being applied if you have a
Trailering Package, a
Monitor Box and Turn Signal Beeper circuit.
These are relatively easy to build and install for anyone who has a bit of electronics
skill. Dash cameras are also a neat way to capture that scenic drive through New England (east coast US) when the forest foliage changes color, or to capture the thousands of other beautiful landscapes across America. A good camera will provide quality video you will want to archive, but an inferior one will just give you a record of where you've been. The price between the two is almost negligible – we have selected a few from the thousands available that we are familiar with, and confident that will serve not only the purpose of providing great quality video records for legal purposes, but video that is up to the standard of the digital TVs most of us have in our homes. |
In the two
photos below, a 1080P Full HD camera is shown mounted on the same
bracket as the camera above. This particular camera is much smaller, and
is flat, which made it a better fit than the camera shown above (the
screen is on the back side; not shown in the photos). This camera also
did not require an
extension bracket, so the mounting and
positioning is much less complicated. |