So, you’ve recently passed your driving test, you’re shopping for a car dash cam, and have just bought your car insurance.
You’re now wondering whether it’s a good idea to buy a dash cam or car camera?
Car dash cams are a great way to reduce your car insurance with some insurance companies, and can provide crucial video evidence should you, or someone else be involved in a car collision.
Searching for a dash cam can be overwhelming, and if you’re not great with technology, the dash cam jargon might be confusing.
Not to mention, there are a lot of dash cams on the market, and choosing the right one might be hard, so I’m going to help you in finding out whether a car dash cam is worth it for young drivers (or even, older drivers).
What Is A Dash Cam or Car Camera?
A dash cam is simply a video camera, but on a smaller scale that is typically attached to the inside of your windscreen and will automatically record video footage whilst you’re driving.
Some car dash cams will attach in different ways, but most of them attach in this way.
A dash cam is capable of taking photos, and even recording video footage when your car is switched off, making it really useful for capturing video evidence of potential car thieves that are up to no good!
What Are The Benefits Of A Car Dash Cam?
There are many benefits to car dash cams, here’s a quick run down of some of the benefits of a car camera:
- Video Evidence – a dash cam can provide critical video evidence should you, or someone else be involved in a car collission. Video evidence goes a long way and can help dispute false accusations.
- Cheaper Car Insurance – dash cams are a great way at lowering the cost of your car insurance with some car insurers. When I was searching for car insurance on some comparison sites, there’s sometimes an option for disclosing this.
- Tracking GPS and Vehicle Speed – whilst you might not drive over the speed limit in your car as a new and young driver, some car cameras are capable of recording and logging the speed and location of your car.
- Easy to Install – dash cams are quick and easy to install, and most come with a quick suction mount system.
These are just a few benefits of a car dash cam, and there are many, many more.
The biggest benefit to dash cameras is almost certainly to do with car insurance though!
Does A Dash Cam Lower Your Car Insurance?
One big question you might have when you’re trying to figure out whether a dash cam is worth it, is whether it’s going to lower your car insurance right?
And there are some myths out there that will point in the direction that it won’t lower your car insurance, and this is simply not true.
Why might these myths exist? Because having an expensive car camera attached to your windscreen is going to attract people to your car and could cause some people to be interested in breaking into your car.
Ultimately, a car dash cam will lower your car insurance, but by how much, it could be anywhere up-to a few hundred pounds potentially.
How Do You Check?
Simple…
Go onto a car comparison website, and check on there when you’re filling out your information to get a car quote, if there isn’t an option to “tick” that you’ve got a dash cam or car camera, then give the insurer a call.
What Are The Negatives Of Buying A Dash Cam?
Despite the great benefits of buying a car dash cam, there can be some negatives to getting one installed.
However, I must stress, that the benefits outweigh the negatives.
Here’s some to consider:
- Price – some dash cams can be quite expensive, so it’s best to shop around first.
- Video Quality – the video quality of a car camera might be best suited to either the day, or the night, and unless you spend a lot of money, you’ll be stuck with a dash cam that doesn’t really show much detail in the video footage it captures.
- Theft – despite being great to lower your car insurance and capture video evidence about car collisions and hit and runs, some people will be tempted to leave the camera installed, and this can attract unwanted attention.
Dash Cam Features
A dash cam can be filled with a lot of technology, how do I know? Because I have one. It isn’t the most expensive dash cam, but it’s for sure got some interesting technology.
When searching for a dash cam, I recommend trying to get one that can allow you to “lock” your video footage.
What do I mean by this?
When you install the memory card (SD card) into the camera, and it’s recording, once it gets full, it will overwrite any existing footage on the memory card.
This is great because it means your car camera can keep recording, but you’ll need to make sure it doesn’t overwrite video footage right when you need that footage!
A Dash Cam Could Make You A Better Driver!
Did you know that when I bought a car dash cam, I actually felt more inclined to drive as if someone else was in the car, like my past driving instructor (not that I drive badly any way).
It’s a weird feeling that you get, and this can be good to help promote better overall driving and help keep our roads a safer place.
You don’t want to end up in a car collision do you?
Can A Dash Cam Be Left Plugged Into The Car?
It’s not really a good idea to leave your dash cam plugged into your car.
Why?
For two reasons, and I’ll cover these now:
- Battery Drain – you might end up draining your car’s battery, and will then need to jump start your car to get it going again.
- Theft – you could be putting your car at risk of potential theft as a dash cam is an asset that is worth money.
There are for sure many more reasons why you shouldn’t leave a dash cam plugged into your car, and we can’t cover all of these in this topic! So we’ll likely create a follow up topic at some point soon.
Dash Cam Conclusion
To conclude, I recommend that any new, or young driver purchase a dash cam or car camera as it’s a sure fire way to provide video evidence against car collisions and will likely lower your car insurance.
And who doesn’t want cheaper car insurance right?
Dash cams come in all different shapes, sizes and models, with many different features, do your shopping, do your research, and you’ll be on the track to choosing whether a dash cam is worth it for you and your situation.
