Who needs a Dashboard Camera?

The simple answer is everyone. When I meet people on our stand at the motor show I get comments like, “I’m a careful driver”, “I don’t want to incriminate myself”, “I have been driving for 20 years without an accident”. Then there are those who unfortunately get it, having recently had an accident or been caught out by speed cameras. I was one of the first people to get a car phone back in 1985, when I sold them for a living. Once I had one, I couldn’t imagine life without one. The same goes for dash cams, where I feel something is missing, especially when it comes to the safety camera alerts and lane departure and forward collision alerts. If you drop off at the wheel, you are almost certain to die, as the ensuing impact will be at full speed and no avoiding action will have been taken. I have a horrendous video clip of a car drifting off a quiet motorway and coming to a dramatic halt, accompanied by the screams of the occupants. The funniest clip I have is of the engineer at our distributor driving his Smart Car to work, when the lost driver of a Range Rover suddenly decides he’s about to take the wrong exit of a roundabout and cuts across the path of the Smart. The Smart mounts the pavement and ploughs into a flower bed, which prevents the Smart continuing on into a row of stationary vehicles. Because the car is used for testing cameras, the one inside the vehicle captures the expletive deletives of the engineer. Luckily, he escaped unscathed, but it just shows, it can happen to anyone. Thanks to the footage, it was clear beyond doubt that it was the fault of the Range Rover driver and the engineer didn’t lose his excess nor his no claims discount. Before the footage was presented, it was considered a 50:50 accident, as is so often the case.