By Martin Beckford
Growing numbers of motorists are installing video cameras in their cars to protect themselves against being wrongly blamed for crashes – and to shop other drivers to police.
So-called ‘dashcams’ record the view from the windscreen and are already used in police vehicles and lorries.
Popular in other countries, the gadgets, which can cost up to £300, are starting to be used by British drivers in the hope of proving they were not at fault in the event of a collision.
Catch a thief: 'Dashcams' to record the view from the windscreen are already used in police vehicles and can be bought commercially
Footage could even be used by motorway users to defend themselves against accusations of lane-hogging or tailgating.
Clips from the cameras are being passed to police to help convict dangerous drivers and ‘crash-for-cash’ fraudsters, while some people upload dramatic near misses to YouTube.
Some of the dashcams on the market are just a couple of inches long and can be powered by batteries or car lighter sockets.
They record high-quality digital footage of the road ahead, even at night, and important clips can be saved on to memory cards before being transferred to computers.
Ian Crowder, an insurance specialist at the AA, said dashcams provided ‘excellent protection’ against crash-for-cash scams. He added: ‘They can be very helpful in the event of an accident to work out who was involved and who was to blame. Footage could be useful to support an insurance claim. The insurance industry would consider them to be a good thing.’
Mr Crowder said they could also be used by drivers to show they were not lane-hogging or tailgating, offences that recently became punishable by a £100 fine and three penalty points.
But he added: ‘We would not be very happy if people were using them for vigilante purposes.’
Insurer Adrian Flux has for the past year offered discounts of up to 15 per cent to drivers who have dashcams fitted. The company believes the devices encourage safer driving as well as establishing fault in accidents and protecting against scams, particularly when fraudsters deliberately brake in order to cause an innocent motorist to collide with their car, or invent extra passengers who were supposedly injured in a crash. General manager Gerry Bucke said: ‘Using an in-car camera can provide valuable evidence to insurers.’
Earlier this year video evidence from a lorry’s dashcam was used to help convict a gang who deliberately drove into the vehicle in an attempt to make a fraudulent insurance claim.
In a separate case, a motorist was disqualified for 12 months because of footage taken on a dashcam that showed him attempting a dangerous overtaking manoeuvre.
The film was supplied by a member of the public to Police Witness, a firm set up by a former police chief and a businessman which advises clients how to persuade police to view videos of bad driving and also how to secure better insurance deals.
Its records show that several motorists have been given penalty points and fines after footage of their bad driving was sent to police. Chairman Matt Stockdale said: ‘There are literally tens of thousands of people now recording their journeys in Britain.’
Source: Mail Online
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