Dash Cams - are they a good idea?

Thinking about getting one, I see that Swiftcover give 10% discount on insurance if you have one fitted so maybe they are worthwhile. Any experiences?

 

Yes, I had checked back on one of his threads to see what sort he uses, a Transcend DrivePro200 which gets good reviews.

 

Fantastic bit of kit, especially for the money - happy to email/dropbox some footage at the full quality if it helps

The Transcend comes with an SD card so no hidden costs, and a two year warranty. One small scrape and it has paid for itself

 

I can see from your previous threads that it is very good quality.

Without going into specifics, how did it pay for itself? Presumably on an insurance claim? Did you submit the video to the insurers?

 

Yep, quite often. I'd like to think if I was in an accident and it was my fault I'd own up to it, but that's just me being old fashioned. If the video helps then why not use it.

 

It's not so much the nutters pete as everyone and anyone. I've had a little old man drive straight across a roundabout in front of me, don't think he saw me or any other drivers although we all had to brake and swerve. No harm done that time, so I'm just wondering if it's another useless gadget I'll only use for five minutes or will save me a fortune in insurance costs.

 

Good evening I have always had one very useful and helped my case enormously when somone ran in to me I asked him what he thought he was doing and he said sorry I had just glanced at my Dash Cam for a second

 

Sorry @JWK - that was badly phrased, one of the joys of writing on a phone. I meant that all it would take would be one small scrape that you could prove wasn't your fault, and it would have paid for itself. I haven't had to use my footage in that way - yet. However, I know of someone who had his car damaged when a tractor started to pull out of a side road that he was passing. The tractor could be seen moving forward as he was approximately 10ft away from the junction - front of the tractor tore a gouge right down the nearside of the car. From what I recall, there was some initial denial on behalf of the tractor driver (think he was trying to insinuate that my mates approach speed was way over the top), and the footage demonstrated that not only was this not true but also that my mate had moved over toward the offside as far as he possibly could to avoid the collision, but could not move any further due to oncoming traffic.

I believe he submitted the footage via Dropbox, although that may differ from insurer to insurer. The one thing I know for sure is that he got his car back, fixed in a reasonable amount of time and had a courtesy car whilst it was being fixed, without all the nonsense of having to claim back excesses and car hire costs.

Yeah, £80 or so is a small price to pay for the peace of mind in my book.