[pavel_lishin]

> Some years ago, a police officer casually told me, “You should get a dashcam, insurance fraud is common around here.” His offhand comment stuck with me, but life moved on.

This is very, very good advice. Dashcams are cheap, and easy to install. Treat yourself - spending $80 on a camera could save you thousands in lawsuits, insurance hikes, costs of a new car, etc.

To me it seems nearly as important as having a smoke detector in your house.

[Noumenon72]

I don't remember them being easy to install; you need mounts and in the case of a rear dashcam, someone to wire them into your rear seat. Car dealerships should advertise adding webcams while you're in there -- that would really make it easy.

[stonemetal12]

Cars should just give you access to the cameras that are already there. Why get a rear facing camera when your car is already legally required to have one?

[jandrese]

I've wondered this too. Even if it's only the rear camera all cars should have a few seconds of rolling buffer that they save whenever an accident is detected. At the very least if the airbags blow it should trigger the save. You only need enough storage for maybe 10-15 seconds of footage.

I would also like the ability to turn on the rear camera when moving forward, for those times when the rear view mirror is blocked, especially on vehicles where the backup camera is integrated into the rear view mirror.

[umanwizard]

Cars aren't legally required to have a rear-facing camera. New cars are. My 2008 Infiniti doesn't have one, for example.

[ok123456]

You tuck the wire along the headliner with an interior tool. It's about 10 minutes of work.

[beej71]

In some cars. You're making me think of my van where installing a radio involves unbolting and lowering the steering column. :)

[ldoughty]

I got a dashcam that ran off USB, which I knew my car had a port for on the center console. There's ways to run the wire under the trim for the most part, but it's a long run.. and at the end there's a part that remains visible to some degree.

There are cams that can do a rear view as well from inside the cab, which likely provides enough evidence if you're rear ended.

I only opted for a forward facing dash cam.

In my state, you are 100% at fault for rear ending someone unless you can prove your innocence -- which a dashcam can do assuming the person in front does something shady (like lane change + intentionally slam breaks).

However, do note that dash cams are not going to magically make rear ending the person in front of you somehow that person's fault. Virtually no one seems to leave enough follow distance by default because doing so means someone merged into the space.. and a dash cam doesn't shift the blame for simple rear endings unless it can prove some kind of malice or inattentiveness on the other driver (but even then, inattentiveness of the other driver is not necessarily a legal defense for you not leaving enough room to react.. perhaps if they stopped faster than a car could be expected to break, e.g. hit a concrete wall....) -- of course, laws vary by state

[jandrese]

In my car taking the headliner off involves removing 6 bolts (one in each pillar) and then popping out some retaining clips. I was surprised at how easy it was when I ran the wire to the rear camera. Headliners were notoriously difficult to deal with in the old days. There was even space to tuck the excess wire away to keep it neat and tidy looking. My camera just sticks to the glass using a sticker so attaching it was no problem either.

[pavel_lishin]

The camera I bought came with everything I needed, including cables that let me wire it into the circuit breaker panel so it could run even when the engine is off. (It didn't work, but that was probably my fault.)

Installation was easy - glue a thing to the windshield & rear windshield, & run the wires to the cigarette lighter USB adapter (which was also included). It was a bit of a pain to tuck the wires into the trim around the doors, but overall, not bad.

But yes, it would have been easier to have a dealership install one for me.

[gruez]

>Car dealerships should advertise adding webcams while you're in there -- that would really make it easy.

And probably charge you $1000 to install a $100 dashcam.

[pavel_lishin]

I mean, they also charge you $150 to change the oil when you can do it yourself at home for free - it's a matter of whether you have more time, or more money.

[ChrisMarshallNY]

They are a big fat pain. I just added a front-facing one, done the right way (into the fusebox).

Didn't bother with the rear-facing one.

[rsync]

"This is very, very good advice. Dashcams are cheap, and easy to install."

An excellent example of the absolutely awful behavior that can be encountered on the road:

https://www.reddit.com/r/scammers/comments/1g6xcng/attempt_t...

[barbazoo]

Driving defensively and slowly is much more skin to having a smoke detector as it actually aims at preventing harm rather than just figuring out who’s at fault.

[kurthr]

The typical fraud "accident" is a vehicle with 4-5 people (including a child) who slam on their brakes in heavy traffic on the freeway. If that doesn't work, they reverse into you, and then claim whiplash for all the people in the car with a doctor who has everything to gain. It's $50k minimum.

If someone backs into you, or slams on their breaks on the freeway without reason you can drive as defensively as you want and still get unlucky. People can cause "accidents" much more effectively than you can avoid one. Careful motorcyclists know that watching the behavior of all the people around them is critical to survival, but they still get into collisions.

If you do try to drive so "defensively" that you can never get into an accident another person tries to cause, then you end up with 7-10 car lengths of separation, and people will regularly cut you off increasing risks. Please don't be that guy stopped 70ft back from the traffic light and stopping on on-ramps.

[jandrese]

Also fun to see dashcam video where someone jumps out in front of the car for the insurance claim, but the driver is too alert and stops before hitting them, only for the person to then throw themselves on the hood of the car while their friend pretends to freak out on the sidewalk and call the cops.

[pavel_lishin]

Honestly, car insurance fraud is one of my favorite guilty pleasures on the short-video apps.

[ceejayoz]

Getting falsely accused of hitting someone, being sued, and seeing a huge insurance rate hike doesn't count as harm?

[badlibrarian]

I suppose the broken metaphor would be "I don't deep fry turkeys in my living room and I have smoke detectors."

But what you're saying ignores the fact that you're not the only turkey on the road.

[beej71]

Before I had a dash cam, I had somebody at a stop sign just throw it in reverse and back right into me. I thought I was completely fucked, that they were going to say that I rear-ended them and I would have no recourse.

Luckily for me, they just gassed it and took off. They lost me at a roundabout when I had to wait for a box truck to go by in the night.

I now have a dash cam. No amount of defensive driving would have saved me if they were fraudsters.

[hermitShell]

I had an incident where an older couple were stopped at a green light, angled down hill, in a snowstorm, with parking brake instead of foot pedal, in a borrowed vehicle.

When they asked me for insurance I just dragged it out and made friendly conversation(eventually giving the insurance slip). They got increasingly irate and panicked. Maybe because it was only a glancing blow and wouldn’t exceed even a slim deductible.

Anyway, I should probably get a dash cam…

[Noumenon72]

This story doesn't make sense: it's not clear who hit who, whether you were scamming them by not giving insurance, or how a dash cam would help when no real damage was done.

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

The older couple hit him, with their motionless, parking-braked vehicle. Possibly by using dark matter/energy to cause space-time expansion that pushed his car into theirs.

[steve_adams_86]

Snow storm detail indicates the road may have been slippery. They might have locked their wheels on an icy hill and skated into the other car. It happens a lot where I live.

[jstanley]

I don't really understand what you're trying to say here.

Did you try to avoid giving them your insurance details? Why?

What would the dash cam have shown?

[Tireings]

I would find it weird too if someone would stall.

And you always need to be able to stop your car independently of the other do. You know minimum braking distance?

[InitialLastName]

If you rear-end someone, it's pretty much always your fault. People are allowed to be stopped in the road for any number of reasons, and it's your responsibility as a car operator to be aware of your surroundings and able to stop your own car without hitting anything.