Let me tell you a horror story . . . .
I know someone who was in a car wreck. He was waiting in a line of traffic at a red light, and a car rear-ended him. The impact force thrust his car into the car ahead of him. This was detailed in the police report.
There were witness statements and a police report. The man who hit my friend is at fault. His insurance company should cover the damage to both ends of my friend’s car. Open-and-shut case, right?
Wrong.
The man’s insurance company came back claiming my friend hit the person in front of him first. Then, the man behind my friend hit him. That pushed my friend’s car into the car in front of him — again.
The at-fault insurance company claimed my friend hit the car in front of him twice, and the first hit did most of the damage to his car. This means the insurance company isn’t responsible for the damage to the front of his car.
Incredible? You bet.
The end result? The insurance company only wanted to compensate my friend for a third of the damages.
There’s no video evidence of the event. It’s one word against the other. Not even the police report is enough to dissuade the at-fault insurance company from contradicting the obvious account.
The burden of proof for recovering money for damage lies on the victim. That means you, as the victim of someone’s bad driving, must establish that the other person is at fault. This requires evidence.
Video evidence is hard to refute. In this modern day and age, it acts as (if not better than) a corroborating witness.
Don’t let something like this happen to you. For around $60, you can buy a dashcam that begins recording automatically when you crank your car. It records high-quality, high-definition video. It can store over 10 hours of footage. It automatically begins recording over the earliest footage when it runs out of room.
For most cases, this is ok. This is good. Most of your driving footage is uneventful.
But if you are in a wreck caused by someone else, this might save you thousands of dollars in damage recovery compensation and legal fees.
There are no guarantees in this life except death and taxes, but there are certainly deterrents. To reduce the demand for bluffing, lying, or making attempts to obfuscate and create uncertainty, raise its price. Supply video evidence that will require much more effort and money to refute.
Camera ($55) – Blueskysea G1W-C car dash camera with rear view mount
If you don’t have a spare memory card to go with your new camera, get this one:
Memory card ($16) – 32 GB Sandisk Ultra