OT: Dash Cam recommendations, What not to do after an accident! Options

[fiacra]

A recent accident on the freeway made me realize the value of a dashcam. Rearended at high speed traveling at the speed of surrounding traffic. Clearly the fault of the other driver, which he admitted on scene, but then later tried to claim that I had cut in front of him and slammed on my brakes. I had been in that lane for several miles at that time. Nobody stopped, so no witnesses, other than his passenger. Ultimately his insurance company took responsibility, but there were a few days where I had to consider that I might have to pay for both my damages and his, not to mention potential medical costs. Since I own a number of vintage cars I also have always owned a heavy duty pick up truck in case I need to tow one of them. It has come in handy a number of times, and fortunately this was one occasion when I was driving it. A former PG&E truck that I bought at their surplus auction, and it is set up for towing heavy equipment with a strong tow hitch and a super heavy duty bumper. Nonetheless the impact was strong enough to slightly buckle the bed of my truck. Thankfully still drivable and usable and I'll probably take a payout rather than fix it. A few lessons learned: always call the highway patrol and have them respond to write it up no matter how seemingly responsible the other driver is. Take pictures and record conversations on your cell phone (recording conversations in public places is allowed in California). The pictures I took helped convince the adjuster I was telling the truth but I didn't record our conversation. Get to a safe place to exchange information and try not to do it a foot or two away from highway speed traffic. I was in a rush to get to a safer place so I hurried up the process. With hindsight I would have handled this differently, so learn from my mistakes and by all means make other suggestions so everybody can benefit from my stupidity (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) . So, this has convinced me I need to put dashcams in all of my cars. I'm going to use any money I get for my damages to pay for them. Anybody out there have dashcams installed in their vehicles? Recommendations? Ones to avoid?

[oakdalecurtis]

After reading of Sir Andy's unfortunate traffic incident here, (glad you're Ok Andy), I thought some of my 914 collegues might be interested in this product. I have always wanted a dash cam for my 914, but did not like the idea of a suction cup device on the windshield that could easily be stolen when my roof is open, which is most of the time. I saw an ad on tv and ordered several of these HD Mirror Cams for my cars. Before I say anything else, you should know that I have no connection to this product in any way, other than as an end user. The HD camera is located under a rear view mirror that straps right over your existing mirror in your car. Other than the small rotatable camera under the new rear view mirror, you can not tell anything is on the car. The HD video starts automatically when you get in the car from motion detection. A small included SDHD card records a ten minute loop of HD video, day or night. There is an HDMI adaptor included to plug the SD card into your computer to view it. The HD Mirror cam connects via a long wire to the cigarette lighter to charge the camera battery. I hard wired my camera by running the wire under the windshield rubber and down to the relay board for power. (Note: If you do this, you must connect leads to the cigarette lighter fitting and not cut the fitting off. The plug-in fitting has an e-board inside it to convert the car's 12v to the right charging power for the HD Mirror.) And now for the best part. It's only $59.95 plus shipping at this website:

https://www.amazon.com/Official-HD-Mirror-C...0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

Now I have the added protection of constant video without an ugly obvious device on my front window!