Car driving recorder. Will it help or rather harm the driver?
Until recently, having a GPS device in your car may have seemed like a luxury. At present, in the era of dynamic development and miniaturization of devices, car recorders are gaining more and more popularity, i.e. car cameras, which some call car black boxes. Can having a camera be of real benefit to the driver? Is it more of a temporary fashion or just another gadget that simply distracts the lecturer's attention?
In 2013, about 35,4 thousand trips were made on the roads of Poland. traffic accidents - according to the Central Police Department. In 2012 there were more than 37 thousand of them. traffic accidents and almost 340 collisions were reported to police units. Although the number of accidents has decreased, their number remains dangerously high. Warning drivers, out of self-interest, began to install driving recorders on their cars, which were previously only in the cars of professionals or government agencies. Lately, the statistician Kowalski has been using the device on his way to and from a nearby "grocery store". “The increased interest and peculiar fashion for hand-held cameras installed in cars is primarily due to the need to have hard evidence in the event of a traffic accident, the high availability and affordable price of devices,” says Marcin Pekarczyk, marketing manager of one of the Internet shops. with electronics/household appliances and consumer electronics. There are those who will say that the fashion for car cameras came straight from Russia, where this type of device is a “mandatory” element of car equipment. This is evidenced by the huge number of records posted on websites showing how we “drive” our eastern neighbor every day.
In defense of your interests
Although the traffic in Poland is much more orderly than in Russia, supporters of car recorders claim that the device helps to feel more secure. Many people know the case of an aggressive BMW driver from Katowice, on the one hand, or a Poznań tram driver, on the other hand, who recorded the dangerous behavior of drivers and passers-by moving around the capital of Wielkopolska. In addition, the popular site YouTube is rife with amateur videos of this type. The law does not prohibit recording them, but when it comes to making them public, things are not so simple, because it can violate someone's personal rights, such as the right to an image. Theoretically, it is possible to prevent violation of the right to dispose of the image when owning a recording, but it is unlikely that someone will be able to edit a film on which faces or license plates of cars will be covered. Such recordings should be used primarily for personal purposes and not as a source of online entertainment. A responsible driver should not focus on catching “weird traffic situations” or chasing down law breakers. If he wants to use the camera - only with his head.
Webcam and Responsibility
In the video from the incidents, in most cases it is clear who is to blame for the collision. The use of a driving recorder in a vehicle is not prohibited by law. We have the right to use the material when we are upset. – A webcam recording can serve as evidence in a court case and can also make it easier to resolve a dispute with an insurer. Such material can help prove your innocence in a misdemeanor case or prove the guilt of another road user. However, it should be remembered that only the court will consider the strength of such evidence, and we cannot blindly rely on this evidence alone, says Jakub Michalski, a lawyer from a Poznań law firm. – On the other hand, it should be remembered that the camera user can also bear the consequences of incorrect behavior on the road, for example, by exceeding the speed limit, Michalski adds. Moreover, the equipment currently available on the market does not have a calibration certificate (or other legalization certificate) - a document that is usually issued by the Central Office of Measures and other administrative bodies or measurement laboratories. You must be prepared for the fact that a record of an event presented as evidence in a case will often be subject to additional scrutiny by the court and will not be considered conclusive evidence in the case. Therefore, it is worth thinking additionally about the witnesses, writing down their names and addresses for correspondence, which, in the case of a lawsuit, will help to reveal the true course of events.
Security at a low price?
Factors in favor of acquiring this type of equipment at present are the relatively low price, ease of operation and their ubiquitous availability. – Prices for registrars start from PLN 93. However, they can reach PLN 2000, says Marcin Piekarczyk. – When choosing a device, it is worth keeping an eye on its functions and choosing those that are most interesting to us. Thus, you can get very good equipment within the range of PLN 250-500, adds the expert. The consumer can choose from a full range of devices. From easy-to-install reversing cameras to in-car cameras that record driving in HD quality. There are also devices equipped with a GPS module that will enrich the user with knowledge about the speed at which the vehicle was moving.
The most important feature of the device is the wide-angle camera. The minimum field of view is at least 120 degrees, so that two sides of the road will be visible on the recorded material. Recording should be possible both during the day and at night. Stable operation of the device must be ensured even in case of blinding by the headlights of oncoming vehicles. An important advantage of the equipment is the ability to record the date and time. An additional advantage is the high resolution of the equipment. The better, the better the quality of the recording will be, although this is not a feature that the user should care about the most. Sometimes the sharpness of the image will be more important. A 32 GB memory card is enough for about eight hours of recording. The recording process starts as soon as you start the vehicle and you don't need to turn on the app as soon as you get into the car. After saving the entire memory card, the material is "overwritten", so if we want to save fragments, we must remember to archive them correctly.
Smaller models of car cameras are also used by winter sports enthusiasts (skiing, snowboarding) and two-wheeler enthusiasts. A small device can be easily attached to the helmet. In the same way, it is easy to record a route traveled by motorcycle or bicycle and use the record, for example, when analyzing training sessions.
