We’ve all seen footage of dangerous drivers posted on social media, but can dash cams actually be helpful when you’ve had an accident? As sales rise significantly, we take a look at what benefits they can have and how insurance companies have reacted to them.
What is a Dash Cam?
You can install a car dash camera front and rear which will record everything that occurs while you’re driving, and some have additional features such as sound recording, night vision recording and GPS systems to show where you were at the time. They record on a continuous loop and capture images that could be useful in the event of an accident.
Between 2014 and 2015 the sales of dash cams surged, with a 918% increase as they became more widely available in high street outlets.
Can a Dash Cam Help with an Insurance Claim?
Where you need to prove an accident wasn’t your fault some insurers will accept footage taken from a dash cam. However, even if you have fitted a car dash camera front and rear, such as those available at http://www.vehicle-accessories.net/Driver-Recording-Systems, it’s not guaranteed that the recording will be used.
In some instances they don’t give a clear enough indication of exactly what took place to cause the accident, but if it made it obvious that one driver was at fault an insurance company would likely give more weight to it.
One of the issues of dash cameras is that they only face in one direction and cheaper models don’t tend to provide the best picture quality, so, though they might show that an accident has occurred, they might not show why it happened. This is often the most important element in deciding which driver was at fault.
An area where dash cams can be useful is when dealing with injury compensation claims, as often the degree of injury that is possible is determined by the amount of damage to the vehicle. However, as cars are becoming safer, this is not always an accurate representation and being able to see the exact force of the impact through video footage would make an injury assessment more accurate.
Currently dash cams may not be the element that has the final say in an accident claim, but they can be of benefit in some circumstances.