Dash Cams Are a Great Idea Unless You Do This
I've been seeing videos of dash cams for many years now. They're really popular over in Europe as a way to prevent insurance fraud. I keep telling myself that I want to get one and install it on my car so I can show videos of some of the idiot drivers that I encounter here in the Binghamton area on a daily basis.
I've also been involved in two accidents since moving up here many years ago. Neither one was my fault and both times the cops agreed with me on that. Once I was passing a car on Route 17 just past the Airport Road exit when the person in the middle lane decided to come over into the left lane because of the car in front of her slow down quickly. The problem was, I was right alongside that car when she tried to change lanes and pushed me into the guardrail, then I bounced off the guardrail and hit the same car that hit me. Then in 1998, I was driving the car down Country Club Road in Endwell. It was a car that I bought brand-new less than a year prior. When I got to the intersection of Country Club and Hooper Road, there was a truck in the Middle Lane. I pulled into the right lane to make a right-hand turn at the light. As I was about to go past the truck, the driver decided at the last minute he needed to go to that gas station. So he cut across the right lane from the middle lane to head to the gas station. The truck basically drove right up over my front fender. Again cops said the other driver was at fault. I think it would have been cool to have that on a dash cam
Now, this morning I found a Strange But True story on the Palm Beach Post website where a guy turned his dash cam over to the police to prove that he was not at fault in an accident. It seemed like a good idea at the time because the cops agreed with him that the other guy cut him off. The problem was, he didn't realize the dash cam also recorded him robbing a store hours before the accident took place. Dumb-ass! He wasn't charged in the accident, but he was charged with burglary.
So I guess dash cams are a great thing unless you do something stupid in front of them.
[via Palm Beach Post]