Have you ever wished someone acting dangerously on the road would get caught right then and there? Well in this month’s Drivers Ed with Debbie, our own Debbie Lazaga takes a closer look at dash cams and how they can help level the playing field out on the roads.
Ok, tell me if this has happened to you: you’re driving along, minding your own business, following all the traffic rules, like I KNOW you do… and BAM, some yahoo, comes up on the right SHOULDER and cuts you off to get ahead of you.
Don’t you wish there was a way to catch these people in the act?!
This brings up the question, dash cams… are they really a thing?
According to Wisconsin Statute 346.88 they are legal as long as they don’t obstruct your view of the road. So at least there’s that. But you’ve got to wonder, have they always been a thing?
Insurance information institute’s Scott Holeman says, sort of, “Dash cams have been used by law enforcement for decades. It started in the 1960s, but it’s really only become popular with private drivers in the last 15 years. And right now it’s only estimated that maybe 10 to 18% of people use dashboard cameras.
But that percentage is starting to climb because it could actually affect your insurance premium.
“Some insurance companies may provide discounts by using dash cams. There’s something called telematics. That some insurance companies use to. If you have, say, a younger driver.
You may qualify for a discount if you allow a camera to be put in that card that then sends messages back to the insurance company and to the parents so that everyone know how that young driver is doing,” explains Holeman.
Beyond being something you can send in to YouTube, and get your 15 min of fame, dash cams have been typically used as an impartial witness.
And when things become a “he said/she said” situation, footage from dash cams can clarify things empirically.
Holeman says, “The benefit of them is if if something happens if there is an accident, this can help provide information about what caused that accident, or at least provide some clarity for for the situation at hand.”
What about the folks who are always on the road, the trucking industry? How do they feel about dash cams?
Craig Plewa, truck driving instructor at MATC in Oak Creek says even when he was driving, it wasn’t required equipment, but he went and got one installed himself. Now a-days, it’s a lot more common.
“I think more and more trucking companies are beginning to have these as just regular equipment. It’s in their own benefit. There’s people that go out and cut in front of trucks and slam on the brakes so they get hit and can sue them and if you have this on dash cam, it definitely helps your case in court when you can see it’s an intentional act,” says Plewa.
They’re even talking about further technology.
“They’re actually eliminating the mirrors off the side of the trucks and having cameras so you can see inside the truck. You have no blind spots. You could see all the way around and everything is recorded there too,” explains Plewa.
And we’re not just talking about America either! Speaking with Michelle Cini who was a city bus driver in Sydney, Australia, I found out that dash cams are important there too.
Cini describes, “I was driving along a motorway and a car in front of me braked suddenly, so I braked and I looked in the mirror and all I saw was the grill of a great big truck. Now I actually put my foot down and swerved to get out of the way. It then jackknifed, it slid across three lanes of traffic and missed every car in sight. Anyway, I thought it was quite interesting, so I came home and we have a YouTube channel in Australia called Dash Cams Australia. So I thought I’ll just upload it to there and see what happens.”
The next day, her friends called her up saying they saw her video on TV.
“Channel 9 put it on their news about this lucky call that we had. It was very close,” says Cini.
Let’s face it when something happens, there are going to be multiple perspectives on what truly happened in that incident. How do you know what’s true?
Bottom line, dash cams can be an objective way to get a somewhat unbiased depiction of an incident, and you don’t even have to put it up on YouTube.
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