about cameras and drive logging

[iconicflux]

So... I have a teenage driver. When I gave him a car to drive I put a camera in it that records front, rear, and the cabin also. Additionally, I put in 2 different methods of recording his speed during a drive.

Lately, this has been a huge benefit for him and me...

He was pulled over for speeding on a road where they took down the speed sign but the cop apparently wasn't up with things. He thought the cop gave him a warning just because and so I went and looked and found out that he was NOT speeding. I explained to him that I have proof that his speed never reached what the cop claimed at any point and it was likely to have been a fishing stop. We live in an area with a very high rate of drug trafficking so it's not uncommon to get this kind of stop especially for kids.

He was surprised though that I could pinpoint his speed as 38mph where the cop claimed he was going 45 in a 35 (which is actually a 40mph zone). (I haven't bothered telling him that his mph gauge has an error that makes it read faster than you're actually going by 2-3mph depending on your rate of travel.)

Last Friday he got into a minor fender bender where he rear-ended someone. I was able to reconstruct the accident with him and show him exactly where he went wrong and why people suddenly braked. (An emergency vehicle got to a light with it's lights going and everyone in front of him threw their brakes on because of the emergency vehicle in the other lane that turned off their flashing lights once they got through the intersection.) They were going 28mph when he rearended the other car so it was minor but he now knows that he can't lose attention and needs to look further forward.

[ggunter]

If my dad had put a camera in my car when I first got my license, (i'm glad they weren't invented 55 years ago) He would have taken my license within the first week. I now have one in all my cars including the Cobra to be able to prove what happens in case of an accident. It has happened to me twice where someone has run into me, and then said I ran into them when the cops came, and I was able to show the cops that they were lying. Then they changed their tune. I travel 65 miles each way on interstate 95 to work each day and I wouldn't drive that road without it.