Speaker 1: Welcome to Car Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio's
Speaker 1: How Stuff Works. Hi, and welcome to Car Stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: your host Scott Benjamin. I am Ben Bolan, and I
Speaker 1: am Kurt Garren. And today, Oh you know what, actually,
Speaker 1: before we even get into our topic, yeah, as I
Speaker 1: was going to jump right in there both feet. But
Speaker 1: but I think there's something that we had talked about
Speaker 1: on the last show that I think we still have
Speaker 1: to address, and that is your brand new car. Pen
Speaker 1: you're in you're new to you car, right, my new
Speaker 1: to me car, So tell us what it is. And
Speaker 1: you've been in this thing for about a week, so
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about it. Did we did?
Speaker 1: We mentioned that did we meant not talk about this
Speaker 1: people week? So we we've talked about what it was,
Speaker 1: but you were a day away from picking it up.
Speaker 1: So I took possession on a seventeen Ford Escape, a
Speaker 1: little over sixty thous miles on it. But I got
Speaker 1: a great deal. So I I am currently seller trying
Speaker 1: to sell my Monte Carlo. That's a whole different bag
Speaker 1: of badgers, But so far I really enjoy it. You
Speaker 1: know how it is if you've owned older cars for
Speaker 1: a while, first off, Also, never buy a brand new
Speaker 1: car if you've driven around older cars for a while.
Speaker 1: It feels like the freaking future when you hop into
Speaker 1: anything that's built. More recently, I was looking into escapes
Speaker 1: because I did a fantastic, blazing road trip from Atlanta
Speaker 1: to New Orleans and back in a Ford Escape. There
Speaker 1: was a hybrid, and to be honest, I probably killed
Speaker 1: the hybrid uh with a little bit of a lead foot.
Speaker 1: On the way back to Atlanta. I shaved a probably
Speaker 1: about an hour off whatever the average drive time would be.
Speaker 1: You're gonna say your life, Well, I I may be
Speaker 1: shaved a may have shaved a few days off my
Speaker 1: girlfriend's life. She was not happy with my driving the
Speaker 1: scary trip. Well, we had places to be, yeah, I had.
Speaker 1: I had an appointment in Atlanta at that time. Anyway,
Speaker 1: But this car, this car is need and it's weird
Speaker 1: when you start driving in um you know again in
Speaker 1: newer vehicles. Is the first car I've ever had that
Speaker 1: has a backup camera that I'm like, maybe learning to trust,
Speaker 1: but I still have to you know, I still have
Speaker 1: to pop my hand over the shotgun seat and do
Speaker 1: the turnaround. You're living in the future. Man, because I've
Speaker 1: I've you know, driven relatives cars that have backup cams
Speaker 1: and they've only been around for like ten years now,
Speaker 1: but none of my cars have ever had them. But
Speaker 1: but that is definitely a futuristic thing, and it's tough
Speaker 1: to it's tough to get accustomed to trusting that is.
Speaker 1: I don't think I will. I'm gonna be honest with you,
Speaker 1: I think I'm always going to have to do a
Speaker 1: physical eye check. I don't use it, but I want
Speaker 1: to make sure curtaining experience with a backup cam very little.
Speaker 1: Maybe in a rental car, yeah, every now and then.
Speaker 1: But do you trust it? No, Because when you look
Speaker 1: at the screen, I just I can't get used to
Speaker 1: what I'm seeing exactly, Like looking to the right and
Speaker 1: the left. You have to just you have to be
Speaker 1: familiar with the visual that the screen gives you in
Speaker 1: order to get a good feel about what's to the
Speaker 1: right or left of the car. And you can see
Speaker 1: behind you, great, but then this little fish i'de off
Speaker 1: to the sides. Yeah, you don't get a good sense
Speaker 1: of distance and size or even if what it is.
Speaker 1: It's always good to look like there's nothing coming from
Speaker 1: the left except a greyhound. It's just and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's not a dog, that's a that's painting on the
Speaker 1: side of a bus. If I yeah, if I had
Speaker 1: a it's a terrible joke. You're working life. So if
Speaker 1: I had if I had like a kid or a
Speaker 1: new driver, and I was, uh, letting them learn that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff, then I would probably do the old
Speaker 1: you know, parking lot of a school on a weekend
Speaker 1: kind of thing and be like, all right, just turn
Speaker 1: on that back camera and just go in circles. Well,
Speaker 1: use that to drive. So aside from aside from the
Speaker 1: backup camera, what's your overall impression of this thing? I mean,
Speaker 1: is it you It's like it's like future. Oh you
Speaker 1: do love it? Okay, So you're not like it, are you?
Speaker 1: Are you still reminiscing about what it was like to
Speaker 1: drive the money car lot? Yeah? I kind of thought
Speaker 1: you would. Absolutely, So anything that you're looking forward to, Oh,
Speaker 1: have you jumped it yet? Have you jumped? I jumped?
Speaker 1: Come on, you've had it like two weeks now. What's
Speaker 1: going on? Uh? Yeah, not yet. OK. I'm doing a
Speaker 1: lot of I broke out my old map where I
Speaker 1: have the you know about this, and it's gotta have
Speaker 1: these concentric circles where I mapped out how long it
Speaker 1: takes to drive somewhere and back. So that and I've
Speaker 1: had this since I started driving, so that I could
Speaker 1: figure out, you know, if I have forty eight hours
Speaker 1: and I cut in like of that forty eight hours,
Speaker 1: I cut in six hours of sleep every twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: then how far can I get? How far can I
Speaker 1: come back? Right? How how obviously want to get in
Speaker 1: that time? We'll see, man. It's also it becomes, uh,
Speaker 1: it transcends habit into addiction. But I've got some cool
Speaker 1: day trips lined up. I've got one really close by
Speaker 1: the way. This weekend as we're recording it. I'm taking
Speaker 1: some of our colleagues up to a Hindu temple in Georgia.
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty neat, it's legit, man, And also, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm still a cheap skate. It's also free to go.
Speaker 1: So it's like if you ever, you know, Scott, if
Speaker 1: you want to you want to get the kids some
Speaker 1: culture on a on a little day trip, It's it's
Speaker 1: very reasonable to get there. And they've got a got
Speaker 1: a cool temple. They've got a they've got a can
Speaker 1: I say kick ass? They have a kick ass gift shop,
Speaker 1: A little snap shot. The only thing they ask is that,
Speaker 1: you know, you have to not wear shoes in the temple.
Speaker 1: You have to not speak in the temple, a rule
Speaker 1: that is regularly disregarded by children. I should I should mention.
Speaker 1: And the third one, the third rule, which might be
Speaker 1: a little weird, is they they ask you not to
Speaker 1: bring meat onto the premises. And it's worded in such
Speaker 1: a way that, like you ever read laws or rules
Speaker 1: and you think, what the heck happened? I feel like
Speaker 1: some somebody must have run in there just like covered
Speaker 1: in barbecue sauce and ribs or something. Because they're very
Speaker 1: hardcore about the meat thing, and that's literally the only thing.
Speaker 1: They're very hardcore. Surely can bring beef turkey, and it's
Speaker 1: got to be exception to the will ask cured meat
Speaker 1: this weekend. I will ask to dried meat, and you
Speaker 1: can put in your pocket. It's gotta be all right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm like, oh me, this is just my pocket, jock.
Speaker 1: It's just this pepperoni way that it came with the pants. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, long answer, short man, yeah, I am really
Speaker 1: happy to be back on the road. Is are there
Speaker 1: other cars that I would you know that that I
Speaker 1: would want? Well, sure, they're always going to be other
Speaker 1: cars I got. I got close to, I got close
Speaker 1: to making some less well informed decisions, let's say, because
Speaker 1: you know how it is, like it's an emotional decisions sometimes, yeah,
Speaker 1: and you're making it. Whenever you're making a big purchase.
Speaker 1: You know, there are all kinds of psychological factors that
Speaker 1: come into play where you think, for instance, I'm just
Speaker 1: I'm making up numbers, right, But let's say you're gonna
Speaker 1: pay You're getting some super high end car and it's
Speaker 1: like eighty thou dollars, and then you see another car
Speaker 1: and it's thousand. But by the time you're already spending
Speaker 1: eighty grand, you're like, well, how much is it? You know,
Speaker 1: what a price can you put on happiness? Right? And
Speaker 1: go back and you try to persuade your significant other
Speaker 1: that you're not crazy. You know, we've all been in
Speaker 1: some variation of sure. So it's here's the thing, though,
Speaker 1: we've also been whenever we buy a car new to
Speaker 1: us or brand new, new or used whatever, we always
Speaker 1: know that there are some owner modifications we have to
Speaker 1: make right. It could be something as simple as, you know,
Speaker 1: getting some tuning done, getting some wheels that you prefer.
Speaker 1: It could be oh god, like, what's that stuff? I
Speaker 1: hate rain X? You know, like it's time to put
Speaker 1: the rain X on and Scott Scott on the sea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, all all those little things. But one thing
Speaker 1: that I've been considering, and I am not alone in this,
Speaker 1: one thing I've been considering adding to this new car
Speaker 1: would be dash camps front and back, nicely done. I
Speaker 1: would as well enjoy a dash cam. I don't know
Speaker 1: if I wanted all the time though, And I've got
Speaker 1: kind of a few stipy lations that would have to
Speaker 1: be in place, I guess before I ever purchased one.
Speaker 1: Maybe we'll discuss those at some point. But what about you, Kurt,
Speaker 1: do you think you would ever go for a dash cam? Yeah,
Speaker 1: especially after doing a little research for this conversation here, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: And we're going to talk about some interesting things in
Speaker 1: this kind in this podcast that maybe people haven't really
Speaker 1: considered when they're looking at the dash came because I mean,
Speaker 1: we've we've all seen dash cam footage that's you know,
Speaker 1: either one it's either hilarious, right, or you're watching something
Speaker 1: that is well, it's practically like tragedy unfolded in front
Speaker 1: of you. If you happen to see one that's like that.
Speaker 1: You see some interesting things like newsworthy things you find, um, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe maybe we should just let some
Speaker 1: of these go until we until we actually get to them,
Speaker 1: because there's some there's some other twist to this whole
Speaker 1: thing that I find fascinating in some ways that you
Speaker 1: can use dash cams either to your advantage or maybe
Speaker 1: even to your disadvantage as well. Will discuss. But we've
Speaker 1: probably we've got we wanted to do a show on
Speaker 1: dash cams for a long time. It's not like their
Speaker 1: brand new technology of course. And I know we've talked
Speaker 1: about you know, dash camp footage that we've seen, you know,
Speaker 1: some some funny some unique things that we've seen or
Speaker 1: just in passing, you know, nothing really in depth, but
Speaker 1: um we have really talked about like you know, who
Speaker 1: needs them, or how much they cost or what they
Speaker 1: do or you know, the real the intent behind them,
Speaker 1: the real purpose behind them. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: angles here that we just have never covered over the
Speaker 1: over the past years. I mean, I know we've we've
Speaker 1: again just touched on a few things, but we've never
Speaker 1: really talked about them in one complete show. And I
Speaker 1: think with Kurt here and with Ben here and myself,
Speaker 1: we should be able to have a pretty decent discussion
Speaker 1: about what we've seen, what we know about them. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know if this is necessarily the place, and
Speaker 1: I hope I'm not reigning on anybody's parade here when
Speaker 1: I say that, I don't think we're gonna, like, you know,
Speaker 1: recommend one specific model for you to get that that's
Speaker 1: the best one or anything like that. This technology changes
Speaker 1: relatively quickly, just like you would expect. There might be
Speaker 1: some that are that are recommended by certain websites like
Speaker 1: c net or you know, any consumer consumer guide or
Speaker 1: you know places like that that might say the is
Speaker 1: the best one right now for the its price point,
Speaker 1: and that's fine. We can talk about those. And there's
Speaker 1: such a variety of price point, Oh there really are. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's another thing is is the incredible right of prices.
Speaker 1: I think Kurt and I were talking off air about
Speaker 1: the gap between the lowest and the highest price one
Speaker 1: that I was able to find. It's it's uh, it's immense,
Speaker 1: it's a huge difference, but what you get is also
Speaker 1: completely different, So we can we can dive into all this,
Speaker 1: but I think that it's something that's it's worthwhile talking
Speaker 1: about because it seems like we would all benefit from
Speaker 1: something like this, I mean almost everybody. And Ben you
Speaker 1: had mentioned to me off air as well that UM
Speaker 1: and and a Kurt that you almost see this as
Speaker 1: becoming like maybe a UM have required feature on cars.
Speaker 1: Absolutely that is mandated, right, And the reason yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And the reason I feel that's a solid bed is
Speaker 1: because of the rise of onboard camera technology that we
Speaker 1: already have for you know, parking assistance, like a rear
Speaker 1: view camera. Right. Also in terms of insurance and determin
Speaker 1: need liability, it's it's a no brainer for insurance companies.
Speaker 1: The way that I would see it happening is I
Speaker 1: would see I would see certain models or types of
Speaker 1: dash cams being incentivized by private insurance companies. So it's
Speaker 1: just like a lot of these uh, insidious kind of
Speaker 1: overarching systems. It rarely starts out as something you have
Speaker 1: to do. It starts out as something you can opt into.
Speaker 1: For a discount, right and then a few years later
Speaker 1: the discount becomes less and less important because the true
Speaker 1: cost of insurance in everybody's head is the cost of
Speaker 1: insurance that you pay when you have a dash cam.
Speaker 1: Because of course you would why wouldn't you, of course
Speaker 1: normalize it. That's what I think is happening. It's going
Speaker 1: to become normalized technology. I think, yeah, I really think so.
Speaker 1: I mean, but right now, I think about who needs
Speaker 1: these right now? For for my short list of people
Speaker 1: that needs them, and it's probably includes everybody really, but
Speaker 1: for now, you know, truck drivers, fleet owners, bus drivers,
Speaker 1: anybody that drives for maybe a shared ride company like
Speaker 1: Uber or Lift. You know those drivers they need them.
Speaker 1: They point them the opposite direction to uh point inside
Speaker 1: the vehicle for safety, so they use them as well
Speaker 1: taxi drivers of course. Um. And then the general idea
Speaker 1: is that you know, you get this camera that that
Speaker 1: records a wide angle of view. A lot of times
Speaker 1: you'll see the the angle as one of the selling
Speaker 1: features on the on the cameras typically like a hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy degrees, So you get a wide angle and
Speaker 1: it's just a constant recording of of what's happening in
Speaker 1: front of the vehicle or wherever that lens happens to
Speaker 1: be pointing, if it might be pointing inside the vehicle,
Speaker 1: as we said for a share driver. But you also
Speaker 1: could have multiple cameras on the car. You could have
Speaker 1: all all different variations of this. But you know, so
Speaker 1: these views are all from you know, one or more viewpoints.
Speaker 1: And as Ben said, this could be extremely valuable for
Speaker 1: insurance companies if they decided that, you know, if you
Speaker 1: have a dash cam on your car, we're gonna get
Speaker 1: of view a bit of a cut rate on your
Speaker 1: premium for the next six months or the next year
Speaker 1: or whatever, as long as you keep that on and
Speaker 1: make that available to us if there is an accident,
Speaker 1: if there is a problem, and uh, and of course
Speaker 1: you would agree. You have to agree to that, you know.
Speaker 1: I guess once that's all in place, you can again
Speaker 1: count on that benefit coming through, even though you have
Speaker 1: to invest in the technology to begin with, or if
Speaker 1: you're lucky enough, maybe you've got a car that already
Speaker 1: has this built in, because there are cars that have
Speaker 1: systems built in that will do this already. Now I
Speaker 1: would have to assume that this encompasses almost any car
Speaker 1: right now that is claiming to be driverless, any car
Speaker 1: that is claiming to have an autonomous mode. Because the
Speaker 1: one in particular I'm thinking of is one that we've
Speaker 1: seen in recent news and maybe the two of you
Speaker 1: have also seen this. But there's something in the Tesla
Speaker 1: models that's called Centry mode. If you heard Tesla center mode. Okay,
Speaker 1: so this is uh something that uses the Tesla cam
Speaker 1: videos I guess as a dash cam footage, and Centry
Speaker 1: mode is something is a mode that you can put
Speaker 1: the car in that again uses the cameras. And there
Speaker 1: are eight cameras in total on the new Tesla model,
Speaker 1: so there's a lot of them. I mean they're forward facing,
Speaker 1: rearward facing, you know, left right that you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's they're all over the place. These these cameras. You
Speaker 1: can look up the locations if you want, but they
Speaker 1: capture video of vandals that might be up to no
Speaker 1: good around your vehicle. And it does this in a
Speaker 1: pretty cool fashion. I think. Um I've watched some people
Speaker 1: try to trigger the system. You know, just see what
Speaker 1: it takes to activate this system, because you have to
Speaker 1: put your car into centry mode. It's not going to
Speaker 1: automatically do that, and you do have to they say
Speaker 1: install the dash cam, but it's not really installing, it
Speaker 1: is just more like having access to it. So there's
Speaker 1: very specific steps you have to go through in order
Speaker 1: to set up your Tesla cam system in order to
Speaker 1: make it work this way. But if you have a
Speaker 1: Tesla car that was built after August of any of
Speaker 1: these models, the Model three, the Model S, or the
Speaker 1: Model X, you will have that feature available to you
Speaker 1: as of February of two thousand nineteen, so you can
Speaker 1: activate this, but again you have to go through the
Speaker 1: process us to be able to do. It's very effective,
Speaker 1: but it does activate all these cameras when there is
Speaker 1: a presence noted around your vehicle that looks like they're
Speaker 1: up to no good. And it's funny to watch, you know,
Speaker 1: the videos, and you can watch them on YouTube or
Speaker 1: whatever video platform you want, but you'll see an owner
Speaker 1: trying to trigger his own sentry mode, you know, trying
Speaker 1: to trigger the camera, and sometimes it works, sometimes it
Speaker 1: doesn't work. So it's kind of comical, you know, like
Speaker 1: what works, Like, all right, I'm I'm pretending as if
Speaker 1: I'm walking through a parking lot next to my car,
Speaker 1: and you know, he said his driveway doing this like
Speaker 1: I'm walking next to the parking a parked car here
Speaker 1: doesn't turn on, but he'll stop and look in the
Speaker 1: window of the car and it will turn on. It'll
Speaker 1: activate it. And one of the most clever things about
Speaker 1: this is that the cameras pick up you know, all
Speaker 1: of them activate, and you know, it picks up audio
Speaker 1: and everything. The really cool part about this is that
Speaker 1: it's always recording anyway. So if you've got it in
Speaker 1: the centry mode. Let's say that an action happens, like
Speaker 1: someone bumps into your car in the parking lot and
Speaker 1: they leave. You know that it happens a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll open the door into it or park you know, parking,
Speaker 1: they may bump your bumper. What's really cool about this
Speaker 1: is that the recording is actually beginning there. The recording
Speaker 1: that you're accessing is recording ten minutes before the action
Speaker 1: was detected. So it's because it's continually going, it recognizes
Speaker 1: that moment when something happens, that's the moment that it
Speaker 1: actually activates and turns on. But you get video and
Speaker 1: audio from ten minutes prior to that because of the
Speaker 1: continuous record, which is smart. You know. I like that
Speaker 1: because we've all been at least adjacent to a situation
Speaker 1: where we see a bumper, like a little a little
Speaker 1: bit of paint has lost on one bumper another it's
Speaker 1: a parking lot. Someone misjudged the distance or something, or
Speaker 1: someone was jerk with a shopping cart. I saw something
Speaker 1: years ago on the internet and this was a true story.
Speaker 1: So somebody got their car hit and then they came
Speaker 1: out of you know whatever story they were in, and
Speaker 1: they see this little like piece of notebook paper on
Speaker 1: the windshield. And this person said, Hi, I'm sorry bumped
Speaker 1: into your car. I don't have any money, uh, and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give you any of my information. But
Speaker 1: somebody saw it happen. So I'm writing this note and
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, that's it's pretty cold. That's pretty cold.
Speaker 1: A sociopath is out there in the parking lot of
Speaker 1: the bed bath and beyond or whatever. Also, you know,
Speaker 1: you're captured on on surveillance cameras. You're gonna get caught.
Speaker 1: My conscious wouldn't allow this. Yeah, there are people out
Speaker 1: there who will rationalize doing completely irresponsible things. And that's
Speaker 1: why I think it's better for everybody if we all
Speaker 1: have dash cams as stick because I do have some concerns.
Speaker 1: But um, to step back. You know, one thing we
Speaker 1: didn't say the way that a way that a dash
Speaker 1: cam is to biically gonna work. It's gonna be uh,
Speaker 1: it's not going to be as fancy as the testlas
Speaker 1: centry mode that's like very high end. Instead it's going
Speaker 1: to be something like a small thing mounted on your windshield,
Speaker 1: often with a suction cup, right um, and some you
Speaker 1: can use permantent adhesive on. But it's a commitment, especially
Speaker 1: if it breaks or you want to upgrade. To your
Speaker 1: point Scott about how fast the technology is evolving. And
Speaker 1: then it typically records on micro SD card, right yeah,
Speaker 1: some sort of internal or external type of storage. And
Speaker 1: then you have to be careful because in many of
Speaker 1: these devices the footage will just be collected until that
Speaker 1: card is at capacity, and then it'll just loop and
Speaker 1: start erasing everything. Yeah, it starts to rewrite the old
Speaker 1: files and so old videos are often recorded over unless
Speaker 1: you stop them. If there's an event to some sort,
Speaker 1: you know, an accident or you know, in occurrence of
Speaker 1: whatever that you want to see like maybe maybe we
Speaker 1: were driving home and you know, a deer in in
Speaker 1: front of you, in front of your car and it
Speaker 1: was so close you couldn't believe it. But then you
Speaker 1: want to check the footage of being home to see
Speaker 1: how close it really was. Just you know, something cool
Speaker 1: like that might have happened, or you might have witnessed
Speaker 1: an accident and you want, you know, that person to
Speaker 1: uh have some sort of benefit from your foot at
Speaker 1: your file footage. You know, you can you can offer
Speaker 1: that to them if you wanted to, or you know,
Speaker 1: it could be something that you're involved in as well.
Speaker 1: It could be that it could just be a picturesque drive.
Speaker 1: Maybe you want something kind of cool to upload if
Speaker 1: you're driving the Tail, the Dragon or something like that,
Speaker 1: some really interesting road or um, you know, some somewhere
Speaker 1: like that. Now we've we've seen, you know, people use
Speaker 1: go pros for this for a long long time, but
Speaker 1: it's slightly different. The go pros just record until the
Speaker 1: battery is dead or you know, the space is filled up.
Speaker 1: And their thirsty beasts, Yeah, they really are. I mean
Speaker 1: we've had experience with them in the road rally that
Speaker 1: we did, but we were continually changing batteries and locations
Speaker 1: and moving it all over the place, and we had
Speaker 1: we had several of them going all at once. That
Speaker 1: was kind of a different thing. It's not it's not
Speaker 1: like a purpose built dash cam that is mounted in
Speaker 1: one spot all the time. It never moves, it's got
Speaker 1: power from the from the car systems. You know. It's
Speaker 1: it's like an accessory that's running all the time. It's
Speaker 1: just a it's a different beast, really, But I will
Speaker 1: tell you this, I was surprised to find that you can.
Speaker 1: He wanted to. You know, everybody's got a smartphone in
Speaker 1: their pocket, right and chances are you've got an old
Speaker 1: smartphone that's sitting in a desktore somewhere. Likely you can
Speaker 1: turn that old smartphone into a dash caam if you
Speaker 1: want it. There are apps that are available that you
Speaker 1: can use to you can download the and use your
Speaker 1: smartphone as a dash cam. And it does have a
Speaker 1: lot of features that you would expect in other dash cams,
Speaker 1: only the storage is a little bit different. The way
Speaker 1: the files are saved and rewritten are different on some
Speaker 1: I know that you know that doesn't apply to every
Speaker 1: single app that might be out there, but it will
Speaker 1: give you things that you didn't expect to have on
Speaker 1: a smartphone type device like this, Like you know, we're
Speaker 1: a little time stamp that the image you'll also tell
Speaker 1: you, you you know, critical information like your speed, your located,
Speaker 1: your maybe your location probably if you have GPS involved,
Speaker 1: but um, it could also show you you know which
Speaker 1: direction you're at. It just it could be a lot
Speaker 1: of valuable information for you if you need it in
Speaker 1: let's say a court case, because you can take footage
Speaker 1: from dash caams into a courtroom situation and show them
Speaker 1: They've been used many, many times to prove innocence in
Speaker 1: a lot of cases. Ah, yes, yes, because we're also
Speaker 1: interacting with the world of scams here, right, Yes, So
Speaker 1: we've got to think about it this way. All right.
Speaker 1: So you're you're the esteemed Kurt Garin, and you are
Speaker 1: driving down the streets of Mumbai or something, and you've paused, Kurt,
Speaker 1: You've stopped maybe at a stoplight or stop sign or something,
Speaker 1: and then out of nowhere, someone runs towards your car.
Speaker 1: They slam their hands on the hood and then they
Speaker 1: throw themselves on it, then throw themselves back on the ground. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then have some accomplices who are ready to go
Speaker 1: to court and say that you hit this person. They
Speaker 1: saw it right. Yeah. Luckily for you, you have a
Speaker 1: dash cam. It's right there, uh, in the vicinity of
Speaker 1: your rear view mirror. And that dash cam, let's say
Speaker 1: you have a sixteen gigabyte SD card. It's been recording
Speaker 1: for up to two hours, and so you can say,
Speaker 1: all right, that's fine, buddy, I will see you in court.
Speaker 1: And then, like you said, Scott, you can play the
Speaker 1: footage of you at a full stop when this guy
Speaker 1: runs up and then you know, fakes his injury or
Speaker 1: fakes this accident. And as ridiculous as that sounds, how
Speaker 1: many videos of that have we seen in the last
Speaker 1: week when we were researching this. This is a real thing,
Speaker 1: that Kurt. That's probably the reason that we see a
Speaker 1: lot of cameras in certain areas of the world. I
Speaker 1: think so too. I mean, how many how many times
Speaker 1: did we see the scenario that that Ben was talking
Speaker 1: about play out in the videos that we watched, you know,
Speaker 1: the compilations of a dash camp footage, Yeah, there are there.
Speaker 1: It's different this scenarios. But there was a guy. There
Speaker 1: was a guy that I saw running dive onto someone's
Speaker 1: hood and he and this is the worst one I saw.
Speaker 1: He repeatedly mashed his own head into the windshield until
Speaker 1: the windshield broke and then he fell on the ground.
Speaker 1: So this guy was really into it. I mean, he
Speaker 1: was going for big money. It wasn't just you know,
Speaker 1: you knocked me down and I'm a little hurt. It's
Speaker 1: it's I've got a cut on my head. Now you
Speaker 1: have me hard enough and fast enough. But the footage
Speaker 1: shows that the guy, you know, the driver had stopped
Speaker 1: long before the man even you know, was near the
Speaker 1: veal ten feet in the car. He dove onto the
Speaker 1: hood and then smashed his head into the windshield three
Speaker 1: or four times and then rolled onto the ground. And
Speaker 1: that happens over and over and over again. It happens
Speaker 1: with You'll see bicycle riders doing trying to pull the
Speaker 1: same scam. Of course cars will try to pull the
Speaker 1: same same scam. And and Kurt, you and I talked
Speaker 1: about this before. This is this is a big time
Speaker 1: insurance fraud, right yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a couple of
Speaker 1: different ways that they can do this. There's um there
Speaker 1: actually I've looked this up. There there four main types
Speaker 1: of staged accidents that scammers will try to pull on
Speaker 1: you on the road that can be thwarted with the
Speaker 1: dash cam. No, I remember we talked to years and
Speaker 1: years ago about common accident scams. But this list maybe news.
Speaker 1: I suspect, I strongly suspect, as some golden oldies on that,
Speaker 1: I think that it does. Yeah, these are now these
Speaker 1: are staged accidents. You gotta remember this. But I guess
Speaker 1: the golden the golden lining and this silver silver I'm
Speaker 1: terrible with these things. That the silver lining on this cloud,
Speaker 1: this puffy cloud. Yeah, you had a real hard time
Speaker 1: with leading a horses somewhere. But okay, whatever, it's the
Speaker 1: idea that the good part about this is you can
Speaker 1: have a dash cam and uh and get out of
Speaker 1: any of these situations if you happen to have this recording.
Speaker 1: Now here's the problem. Yeah, still a lot of people
Speaker 1: don't have dash cams, right, I mean, they're not mandatory,
Speaker 1: no one, So it's an expense. Well, no one in
Speaker 1: this room has one, yet I am getting something. I
Speaker 1: honestly think that it's not a bad idea for you know,
Speaker 1: all of us to get one. And probably I might
Speaker 1: even look into the one from you know, my wife's car,
Speaker 1: my daughter's car, just because of what we've seen. But
Speaker 1: these four types of scams, these four accidents, um they
Speaker 1: actually named them. There's the drive down on, which involves
Speaker 1: a scammer who motions for a victim to move forward
Speaker 1: or to you know, merge into a lane, or to
Speaker 1: go ahead. Like you've all seen this right, you stop,
Speaker 1: someone kind of motions you through, you start to go, well,
Speaker 1: they would then begin to go as well, and then
Speaker 1: the person that you know they have motioned would wreck
Speaker 1: into them. That would be the problem. You would be
Speaker 1: your problem. They would be the merging victims problem, because
Speaker 1: the scammer would deny motioning them forward at all. They
Speaker 1: would say like no, I never did that. I don't
Speaker 1: know what happened. He just cut right into me. But
Speaker 1: you would be able to spot that on a good
Speaker 1: quality dash cam. There's the panic stop. I think this
Speaker 1: is one that we're all familiar with from those videos
Speaker 1: that we've watched the compilations. Uh, this is one where
Speaker 1: someone in front of you just jams on the brakes
Speaker 1: for no reason. It could be a green light. They
Speaker 1: slam on the brakes and you're you just smash right
Speaker 1: in the back of and partially what happens here, it's
Speaker 1: not just you know, like they slam on the brakes
Speaker 1: and hope someone isn't paying attention. They're watching the rear
Speaker 1: view mirror for somebody to either look down or to
Speaker 1: look out the window to the left or right, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe maybe hold up a phone like this. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: they are. They're watching for something like this to happen,
Speaker 1: like for you to just for a second not pay attention.
Speaker 1: That's when they apply the brakes, and that's when you
Speaker 1: smash into, making it your fault of course. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: dirty games. Also sometimes they'll even back up into you.
Speaker 1: There's no one else around, so you've seen that then, right, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so what happens, Well, they're trying to get you to
Speaker 1: where you're in them by repeatedly hitting their brakes, and
Speaker 1: then if you're paying attention, they'll just ease back into you.
Speaker 1: See on the dash cam you actually see the reverse
Speaker 1: lights as they back into you, which is super frustrating
Speaker 1: that it happens, But it seems like a lot of
Speaker 1: times the second that the driver gets out of you know,
Speaker 1: the victim gets out and points at dash cam or says,
Speaker 1: I have a dash cam the car that's in front. Besides,
Speaker 1: they're just going to take off and and they leave you.
Speaker 1: Of course you've got their license plate information, You've got
Speaker 1: now maybe even a physical description of them if they
Speaker 1: get out of the vehicle. Um, you know, and you're
Speaker 1: able to see that on the that at footage. But
Speaker 1: it's it's invaluable because otherwise I guess who's at fault
Speaker 1: in that situation. All they have to do it's just
Speaker 1: that he said, she said situation in court, right, and
Speaker 1: given the location of the damage, it's gonna be the
Speaker 1: person in the car, in the rear car exactly right.
Speaker 1: And but unless there's a witness. Unless there's a witness,
Speaker 1: but there's sometimes there's cameras everywhere, so you never know
Speaker 1: if you're going to back into somebody and make it
Speaker 1: look like a rear under though you're pretty desperate, you
Speaker 1: know your stam has gotten to the desperate levels. Good point,
Speaker 1: you have just touched on something that I feel. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're in the middle of our list here. Two more.
Speaker 1: But um, a lot of times, what will happen when
Speaker 1: something like this happened, especially the pedestrian accidents that we
Speaker 1: talked about before, Suddenly out of nowhere, there are many witnesses, right,
Speaker 1: you know, they look like about the same age and
Speaker 1: you know, the same group of people as as the
Speaker 1: person that's wrong. Yeah, but they'll step out from the
Speaker 1: shadows and there's like three witnesses. They've got, you know,
Speaker 1: phones in their hand. They take and still photographs of
Speaker 1: their friend who was on a skateboard seconds ago, laying
Speaker 1: in front of your car, you know, saying that they
Speaker 1: were just hit. But they weren't even hit at all.
Speaker 1: They just laid down in front of you. So they
Speaker 1: these witnesses appear and you know, you get out again
Speaker 1: and show them. I've got a dash cam. A lot
Speaker 1: of times they will just take off running and I've
Speaker 1: seen it many times on these dash cam videos on
Speaker 1: both sides. And the other thing that happened, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: the other the other thing. The other thing that that
Speaker 1: occurs is they may have even you know, somebody that
Speaker 1: comes by and says, hell, hey, you know what, I've
Speaker 1: got a repair shop nearby. Um, I can I can
Speaker 1: hook you up with you know, um just a cash deal,
Speaker 1: So why don't you just come over and pay me
Speaker 1: five dollars cash and I'll replace that bumper and you know,
Speaker 1: no insurance will get involved that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: that happens. And then there's other another scam where people
Speaker 1: pull up like suddenly, what do you know, there's a
Speaker 1: tow truck right there, happens to be two cars away
Speaker 1: from the car that you just hit, and they stop
Speaker 1: and offer their assistance. And it's the same situation. Now
Speaker 1: they've got your car where the the the other car
Speaker 1: and they're saying, well, why don't you just pay for
Speaker 1: the tow to this shop and we'll figure it out,
Speaker 1: and it ends up being like a cash transaction. Never
Speaker 1: never let that happen. But um, there's so many different
Speaker 1: levels to these scams. It's unbelievable when you really think
Speaker 1: about it. I had two more real quick ones if
Speaker 1: you don't mind, but these are these are the stated accidents.
Speaker 1: There's also the side swipe, which is you know, we
Speaker 1: can all picture this too, I think, and it's one
Speaker 1: we've talked about Ben the old side swipe. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is when there are two turn lanes like picture two
Speaker 1: left turn lanes, and the scammer will take the outside
Speaker 1: lane and as the victim starts to make the inside turn.
Speaker 1: The scammer just waits for them to get a little
Speaker 1: bit too close to that outside lane, which often happens,
Speaker 1: you know, right front of your car, and they will
Speaker 1: they will side swipe you. And then they'll say or
Speaker 1: they'll move their car so that your car side swipes
Speaker 1: their car is more accurate to say, so that you
Speaker 1: hit maybe the back quarter of their views exactly right,
Speaker 1: and then they will speed up and and you know,
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, of course, cause this accident to happen,
Speaker 1: and then of course say that you know, you you
Speaker 1: came over too far into the outside lane, it was
Speaker 1: your fault at Sarah. But dash cams will take care
Speaker 1: of this as well. There's another interesting thing there too
Speaker 1: that makes that scam believable, and it's that a lot
Speaker 1: of people, when they're taking turns on a double turn lane,
Speaker 1: whether right or left, a lot of people are really
Speaker 1: garbage about staying in their own lane. Anyway, Yes, and
Speaker 1: I don't understand why. It's one of those many, many
Speaker 1: things that I will not hesitate to go. A little
Speaker 1: road rage Judge drew its jud jury execution happens daily,
Speaker 1: doesn't it, I mean, it really does. I mean, just
Speaker 1: it's it's just it's so elementary. Well, it's usually the
Speaker 1: outside person cutting in right, it's usually going too far,
Speaker 1: you know, lanes in the intersection, you know, because they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's easier to make the right on red here. But
Speaker 1: then I'll just sort of, I don't know, I just
Speaker 1: sort of wobble my car into the lane that I
Speaker 1: would ideally have liked to have been in at some point.
Speaker 1: That's that's that's really hoping. That's that's putting a lot
Speaker 1: of faith in and the fact that somebody's gonna allow
Speaker 1: you into because a lot of people that are aggressively
Speaker 1: defending that for whatever reason, they're aggressively defending that fifteen
Speaker 1: feet of pavement in front of their car. I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but but it happens. Hey, what's number four?
Speaker 1: The number four? Oddly enough, it's named my favorite dance movie,
Speaker 1: The The The Swoop and Squat. Oh yeah, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't dance, Scott, I kind of. You know,
Speaker 1: It's been said around the office that I do have
Speaker 1: a bit of a dancer's body, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's true or not. I think it's because going
Speaker 1: back to the same bolt stuff from previous episode. I
Speaker 1: think it's because of the energy you put into your
Speaker 1: daily running. It must be, yes, your training. It probably
Speaker 1: is my training. Yeah, I'm pretty intense. Um. And you
Speaker 1: know you see pop, you can see that. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've seen how how I eat. You know I eat
Speaker 1: a lot. I mean, so you know it's just fuel
Speaker 1: for the machine. Well, also, you know this the swooping squat.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know this. Kurt uh Scott
Speaker 1: is the what was it it was? He is the
Speaker 1: champion of the sup swooping squat in southern northwest Ohio.
Speaker 1: It's a very small region, but one I'm the best.
Speaker 1: That dance is really so that's where if you're gonna
Speaker 1: do the swooping squat, that's where you go. That's where
Speaker 1: you have a have a satin jacket with that embroidered
Speaker 1: on the back. It's very classic because again it's a
Speaker 1: very discreet part of Ohio. So sorry, man, what's number four? Okay,
Speaker 1: this has gone silly enough. I guess the swooping squat.
Speaker 1: This is another um of course, another stage accident, and
Speaker 1: of course this involves where the scammer passes the victim
Speaker 1: and emerges ahead of them while applying the brakes, and
Speaker 1: then the victim can't react in time and then rear
Speaker 1: ends the scammer. Now that this sometimes will be played
Speaker 1: out with two cars to to scammer cars, which is
Speaker 1: I find I find kind of extra elaborate, really um,
Speaker 1: And this is when the first car has passed the victim,
Speaker 1: the sec car then pulls ahead of both of them
Speaker 1: and then slams on the brakes, then making the middle
Speaker 1: car then have to slam on their brakes and that's
Speaker 1: where the accident happens. And then the first car that
Speaker 1: caused all this leaves, And of course there's no blame
Speaker 1: to be had in that right because hey, I had
Speaker 1: to stop fast as well because that car was stopping,
Speaker 1: so they had an extra level to this whole thing.
Speaker 1: But that has also been captured by dash cams many
Speaker 1: many times in the past. You can watch examples of
Speaker 1: all of these happening on dash cams, which I find
Speaker 1: really fascinating because you can just watch these things unfold
Speaker 1: once you know what to watch for. And you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know for sure, but have you ever felt
Speaker 1: like you've been like kind of part of something like that?
Speaker 1: I mean, you're in traffic and someone is just breaking
Speaker 1: completely irrationally. Someone is you know, almost it feels intentional
Speaker 1: that they're trying to get you to ram the back
Speaker 1: end of their car and you're trying to be careful,
Speaker 1: and it just feels like that. Yesterday I had a
Speaker 1: very close moment on the freeway, which is terrifying. Someone
Speaker 1: came to a near dead stop, I mean from freeway speeds,
Speaker 1: almost dead stopped to get over a lane for no
Speaker 1: good reasons. It was unbelievab. There's that there's that like
Speaker 1: three or five seconds where you are just confident that
Speaker 1: you're not only gonna hit that bumper in front of you,
Speaker 1: and that luckily didn't happen. And then you look behind
Speaker 1: you and you're like, oh, that guy's gonna hit me.
Speaker 1: It's gonna it's gonna happen. Here it comes, and then
Speaker 1: it doesn't, and you're just like so happy when all
Speaker 1: that has passed, but also angry at that person because
Speaker 1: you know, what, what kind of fool does something like
Speaker 1: that on a freeway. But again, you know, there's moments
Speaker 1: like that when you think, all right, if something bad
Speaker 1: did happen, I would have been in a much better
Speaker 1: condition going into court trying to fight this thing if
Speaker 1: I had footage from a dash cam, and furthermore, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna hoppy horse. This is second because I'm setting
Speaker 1: something up here, Guys. Furthermore, if everybody has a dash
Speaker 1: cam because it's mandatory, then you will have multiple reports
Speaker 1: of anything like that, even if it's not a scam,
Speaker 1: even if it's someone who was just januine when lee
Speaker 1: a bad driver because they're a dumb person, you just
Speaker 1: you're just really terrible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, even then, there
Speaker 1: will be multiple angles. It will be impossible to try
Speaker 1: to spin a different narrative. I'm setting that up because
Speaker 1: I would like to take a moment if it's okay
Speaker 1: to talk about my pressing concerns, my anti dash cam
Speaker 1: oh philosophy. Do I feel like we need to say this?
Speaker 1: So not only will not only will this sort of
Speaker 1: technology in my mind, become mandatory in the near to
Speaker 1: mid future, but also cars will The trend of cars
Speaker 1: being connected to the web is unfortunately going to continue. Right,
Speaker 1: everything your phone can do, your car can do, and
Speaker 1: then your car will be able to do more. You'll
Speaker 1: be connected, especially like you said, Scott, with the rise
Speaker 1: of autonomous vehicles will be connected in these massive citywide
Speaker 1: regional grids, right, and that will happen way before we
Speaker 1: get any kind of federal level thing, of course, because
Speaker 1: technology always outpaces legislation. The problem with this is that
Speaker 1: we will have very few privacy like actionable privacy guarantees,
Speaker 1: and this stuff will start running through Like as soon
Speaker 1: as these dash cams are connected to the cloud, right,
Speaker 1: they'll be on all the time. Why wouldn't you turn
Speaker 1: it off? Right? It may be illegal top rated vehicle
Speaker 1: without a working dash camp at some point where am
Speaker 1: I supposed to smoke by crack? Right? Where is Scott
Speaker 1: suppose to smous? That wasn't mean that someone in the
Speaker 1: back of the room didn't hear that. It was like
Speaker 1: it's short for Scott ethan No, no, really like what
Speaker 1: I mean? So the stuff that you do in your
Speaker 1: private car is then going to be public knowledge or
Speaker 1: that's the problem right right right? Uh? And that could
Speaker 1: go with you know, that's gonna be tied to GPS
Speaker 1: data as well. Um, it's not I'm not of course,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that anybody is uh smoking drugs or
Speaker 1: that they're doing illicit stuff automatically for yourself. Okay, sorry
Speaker 1: Scott Athan, but I will say I will say that
Speaker 1: it is a terribly misleading argument for anyone to say, well,
Speaker 1: if you're not doing anything wrong, what are you still
Speaker 1: worried about when you're not doing anything more? That's just
Speaker 1: that's that's disingenuous. It's misleading, and there is there are
Speaker 1: potential there are potentially profound privacy concerns when it comes
Speaker 1: to dash kims Hi. Okay, I've had this argument for
Speaker 1: a long time about the you know, I understand the
Speaker 1: the thought behind this too. You know a lot of
Speaker 1: people are is like, well, I'm I'm not doing anything.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not saying anything interesting enough on my phone.
Speaker 1: Why would anybody really care about listening in I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't care. Anybody can listening if they want to.
Speaker 1: It's boring, right, it's not the point. The point is
Speaker 1: that somebody is listening into a private conversation on your
Speaker 1: private phone. That's the problem. And if it becomes like
Speaker 1: this with dash cams inside your car, um audio inside
Speaker 1: the car, because you know, the audio is another element
Speaker 1: of this whole thing, and then you know, early on
Speaker 1: I tell you this is one reason that I probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to get a dash cam in my car now.
Speaker 1: I I do think I want one that has video,
Speaker 1: but I don't think that I want one that has audio.
Speaker 1: And there's a couple of reasons. One is because my
Speaker 1: taste in music might suck. And you know, any type
Speaker 1: of video that might appear might have some terrible music
Speaker 1: applied to it, you know, which we've all seen that too,
Speaker 1: Like you like, have you ever seen those videos? And
Speaker 1: it's like a great video, something's really cool is going
Speaker 1: to happen, but you're like, what is that person listening
Speaker 1: to voodoo music or something? I don't know what's going on? Russian? Yeah,
Speaker 1: Russian dash cam music. That's what. It's terrible. It's terrible stuff.
Speaker 1: How many just like inane conversations have you heard on
Speaker 1: these as well, Like people just talking with their girlfriend
Speaker 1: or their husband or their wife or whatever about whatever,
Speaker 1: you know, like one of the grocery store and then
Speaker 1: something happens and they both go oh my, you know,
Speaker 1: or whatever happens in front of them. You know, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's adds a little bit of drama, sure, but
Speaker 1: you got to listen to them just chat chit chatting
Speaker 1: before and that's a private conversation that's now public right right,
Speaker 1: they're saying stuff like, well, you know that that other
Speaker 1: yogurt just gives me the gas I got, I got,
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't sit in the room. Holy hell,
Speaker 1: what is that guy in the BMW? And suddenly bam, yeah,
Speaker 1: and then something happens, and you know that's the trouble, right,
Speaker 1: I mean that you get that that five or ten
Speaker 1: seconds of conversation that you wouldn't necessarily want anybody to hear,
Speaker 1: but it adds to the video. It's part of the video.
Speaker 1: And then the other thing is like, I don't know
Speaker 1: about you. Sometimes, like when that happened yesterday, that an
Speaker 1: event that that near accident, all filters are off at
Speaker 1: that point when I'm when I'm speaking, I'm I was angry.
Speaker 1: He might just consider that. You know. There's also some
Speaker 1: sometimes when something that you say could be misconstrued or
Speaker 1: applied to whatever. You know, like they might hear you
Speaker 1: say something aggressive or angry about that driver or whatever.
Speaker 1: And if you think that they're not going to go
Speaker 1: back that far in the footage, you're wrong. They're gonna
Speaker 1: take all of that and maybe even more. They might
Speaker 1: take additional footage from you for a court case, the
Speaker 1: entirety of the two hours on that on that sixteen years.
Speaker 1: Here's one example that I can point to in particular
Speaker 1: that the showcases this, UM, there's a there's a guy.
Speaker 1: This is a very recent case, and I know there
Speaker 1: have been other ones, but this is a recent one
Speaker 1: that happened in UM. I'm scanning the notes to South Wales,
Speaker 1: South Wales. So this is a guy. His name is
Speaker 1: Scott Curtis. He's forty five years old from South Wales,
Speaker 1: and he just received a jail term for two years
Speaker 1: and six months based on footage from his own dash camp.
Speaker 1: So his own dash cam convicted him and he was
Speaker 1: apparently Scott Curtis was up to no good. He's a
Speaker 1: drug dealer and he was jailed by his own you know,
Speaker 1: caught by his own dashboard camp. He was recorded saying
Speaker 1: as he sold, he sold gear, which gear means, I
Speaker 1: I guess, um, in pairs it's meth amphetamine. Gear is
Speaker 1: particularly meth ampheta. He was, He was, yeah, he said,
Speaker 1: well I didn't know either. I didn't. I guess Kurt
Speaker 1: knew that. Kurt, why don't you call it gear? Did
Speaker 1: you know that, Kurt anyway? Because I say gearhead all
Speaker 1: the time, I think it's just a different meaning, I guess.
Speaker 1: But but he was saying something. I mean, he said
Speaker 1: a few real damning things here and is he said
Speaker 1: something like he doesn't do valium, but he said he
Speaker 1: does sell gear as what he sold. What he said, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they suspected him of selling this, but his
Speaker 1: he was caught throwing little baggies of heroin and cocaine
Speaker 1: out of his car in some car chase. Uh, then
Speaker 1: they caught him, you know, he claimed it wasn't he
Speaker 1: wasn't doing anything wrong. Of course, they see that he
Speaker 1: has a dash caam, so they go to the dash
Speaker 1: cam footage. They take it as audio as well, and
Speaker 1: they go back two hours in the footage and it
Speaker 1: shows him like I think, he's like polishing the hood
Speaker 1: of his car and he's talking to someone on the
Speaker 1: phone and you can hear it outside and again he's
Speaker 1: talking about you know, like he doesn't sell valium, but
Speaker 1: he does sell gear and he's talking about other other
Speaker 1: um class A drug deals that he had done from
Speaker 1: this yellow forward focus that he was driving. And uh
Speaker 1: and apparently like once he was shown this, he said,
Speaker 1: you know, I've still was made here. He was still
Speaker 1: maintaining his innocence in court even and they said, look,
Speaker 1: here's here's the footage, here's what we've got, and he
Speaker 1: just completely admitted to the whole thing went away for
Speaker 1: two and a half years. But again, that's one case
Speaker 1: where you know, as a lot of lawyers have said,
Speaker 1: you know, these dash cam footage, you know, these these
Speaker 1: files can cut both ways. It can help you or
Speaker 1: it could really hurt you in some cases. You know,
Speaker 1: if it shows you've been driving aggressively up until the
Speaker 1: point of that accident, and then you're trying to say
Speaker 1: this accident was caused just by another bad driver, they
Speaker 1: may have, you know, a different opinion if they look
Speaker 1: at that. I'm also wondering, now that you mentioned it
Speaker 1: for audio enabled dash cams, I'm wondering if the content
Speaker 1: there could be pulled without an accident occurring, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like maybe somebody's got a messy divorce proceeding, yeah,
Speaker 1: or maybe somebody is, uh, they're doing some financial crimes.
Speaker 1: I don't know, they're having a conversation on the phone
Speaker 1: that gets picked up. Like you said, we'll take your head.
Speaker 1: We'll think about this also. Like let's say that you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about uber and lift drivers and you know
Speaker 1: drivers that are just shared right maybe taxis or something.
Speaker 1: They've got the camera lens facing backwards, but they've also
Speaker 1: got audio once they can record what's happening. It's for
Speaker 1: their own safety, really, and I understand that it makes sense. However,
Speaker 1: it's also illegal unless you're telling them that you're recording them.
Speaker 1: You know, they can see the video. They can you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you've even got a little sign. But it might
Speaker 1: have to might have to say recording audio as well,
Speaker 1: because you might pick up their private conversations and then
Speaker 1: be able to use that against them somehow, or use that,
Speaker 1: you know, in a different way, or might become public.
Speaker 1: Now they that's different in every state, right right, George's
Speaker 1: one party. Well that's a good that's a good point.
Speaker 1: I mean, so so it varies state by state, but
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's so many different concerns here with
Speaker 1: audio and video and and what you're picking up and
Speaker 1: what you're using it for, and also when at what
Speaker 1: point do you have to give someone your private footage
Speaker 1: that you you know you've taken or how far back
Speaker 1: can they go in that footage? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: That's there's a lot of gray area here, which is
Speaker 1: another reason to be concerned about the use of the cameras.
Speaker 1: And you guys are automatically calling me tinfoil, hattish and crazy. No,
Speaker 1: of course not, of course, now we do that? Wh
Speaker 1: do that off, Mike? Now, you know what, I think.
Speaker 1: I've only had a couple more things here and then
Speaker 1: we'll maybe wrap it up. But I did want to
Speaker 1: say that there are some some brands out there that
Speaker 1: are expensive, and there's some brands out there they're inexpensive.
Speaker 1: We haven't really talked about the disparity and price yet,
Speaker 1: and I will tell you that you know, you can
Speaker 1: pick you can pick one up from like some of
Speaker 1: the big names that you would expect, like Garment or
Speaker 1: Cobra or Pioneer, and I think there's even some called
Speaker 1: like there's one called falcon I which has some real
Speaker 1: high end equipment. Is Ken would um lots of different
Speaker 1: makers and lots of different features you can look for.
Speaker 1: But when I said, you know that Kurt and I
Speaker 1: were talking about the disparity and prices, you know that
Speaker 1: the difference in like the from Low to High. The
Speaker 1: cheapest one that I found online that you can buy.
Speaker 1: I couldn't hardly believe this when I found it. You
Speaker 1: can buy a seven twenty DP full HD car camera
Speaker 1: recorder that has a hundred and seventy degree wide angle
Speaker 1: and night vision h claims hdm my hookups for three
Speaker 1: dollars and sixty four cents. I know, I know, and
Speaker 1: I got to believe that that is probably not a
Speaker 1: high deaf image that you would would be able to
Speaker 1: use in court. I bet it's pretty low rez. I
Speaker 1: don't think that it's going to be as fantastic as
Speaker 1: it may makes itself out to appear in in this ad.
Speaker 1: For three dollars and sixty cents, there's just no way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I gotta be honest with you, man. If the point
Speaker 1: of a dash Kim is the stop scams, that sounds
Speaker 1: like you're injury into one. But then I was surprised
Speaker 1: on the other end of the spectrum. You know, you
Speaker 1: do the sort feature and you get the most expensive one,
Speaker 1: and you do get to a company that I mentioned
Speaker 1: just a second ago, falcon I, and falcon I has
Speaker 1: a completely different set of clientele. I believe they've got
Speaker 1: the fleet owners. So these are people that are adding
Speaker 1: um DEF cams to their fleet of trucks, like maybe
Speaker 1: semi trucks or you know, cross country shallers. These will
Speaker 1: have multi camera capability. They have passwords, sign ins that
Speaker 1: the drivers don't have access to. Um it has streaming
Speaker 1: capability so that you know, they can be viewed from
Speaker 1: anywhere the owner chooses, you know, like if they're back
Speaker 1: in the office or at home or wherever, they can
Speaker 1: watch what the drivers are up to. WiFi capability all
Speaker 1: that we're talking in the neighborhood of like twelve hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: But the cameras they may be equipped with, like you know,
Speaker 1: anywhere from three to eight cameras. UM Again, they have
Speaker 1: a lot of added complexity to the system as well.
Speaker 1: I mean they're they're not uh, you know, the three
Speaker 1: dollar camera that we're talking about here, UM at the
Speaker 1: cheap end. These are the real, real expensive ones, and
Speaker 1: there's everything in between. And I kind of found that
Speaker 1: UM the best ones the ones that are mostly recommended
Speaker 1: by the current list lists for you know, the best
Speaker 1: value for your money, the best you know, the best
Speaker 1: optics at night, that type of thing. The ballpark price
Speaker 1: here seems to be right around two and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: That seems to be like a topic, like a really
Speaker 1: good quality one brand name, one that has a good image,
Speaker 1: it's got good reputation, good ratings. You can get them
Speaker 1: for fifty dollars that are still decent, but they won't
Speaker 1: have the options that the ones that are to fifty
Speaker 1: will have. And I mean this is like with anything else.
Speaker 1: You can go to the extremes, you can go to
Speaker 1: the three dollar one, you can go to the twelve
Speaker 1: hundred dollar one if you want, but somewhere in the
Speaker 1: middle is usually the best, best deal for you. It's
Speaker 1: so weird too, because, as you said, this field is
Speaker 1: still evolving very quickly with the technology, right, and it's
Speaker 1: converging with other technologies, cloud connections, so on. Uh. But
Speaker 1: I don't think we mentioned how new dash cams are,
Speaker 1: Like dash cams really started mainstreaming for civilian drivers in
Speaker 1: two thousand and twelve. Yeah, that is nuts, because you know,
Speaker 1: we've seen so many dash cam footage clips from police cars,
Speaker 1: police police if you use these for seems like ten
Speaker 1: twelve years. Some of the best television in American history
Speaker 1: is composed almost entirely of footage from police dash caam.
Speaker 1: I watch I watch hours of that every week. I
Speaker 1: think it's so it's so entertaining to me. I love
Speaker 1: because it's it's all police chase is captured on some
Speaker 1: of these dash cams, and some of that footage is
Speaker 1: just unbelievable. It's it's it's amazing to watch. But you
Speaker 1: can get similar footage. I guess if you're here, you're
Speaker 1: up to it. Then if you're out jumping your foard
Speaker 1: escape someday, I do expect that you'll have a dash
Speaker 1: cam in place when you do that. And Kurt A,
Speaker 1: you're gonna get a dash cam, do you think eventually? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What do you think I capturing? Your gonna be chasing
Speaker 1: down bikers on the road, doing a little intimidation tactics.
Speaker 1: You're you're like the opposite, right, yeah, I play? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you do. I do want to know where
Speaker 1: you go to jump your cars though, Oh there are
Speaker 1: there are places all over thanks to the fine services
Speaker 1: of the City of Atlanta. Uh, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: you can jump your car almost the big thing is
Speaker 1: whether you can land it. That's crazy. The Department of
Speaker 1: Transportation is building ramps for us. Now, yeah, yeah, it
Speaker 1: just seems like it anyway it does. Um I would say, also,
Speaker 1: this is a serious question. Do you think we could
Speaker 1: get a price break if we all went in, like
Speaker 1: if we if we each got one front, one rear
Speaker 1: camera and then we'll be buying six Uh I'm not
Speaker 1: going to go with that four dollar And you know
Speaker 1: that's that's something too, like you might be able to
Speaker 1: buy a set up that has a front and rear, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, it makes for really great footage, you know,
Speaker 1: if there is, there's a lot of footage online, so
Speaker 1: if you if you haven't done this yet, I can't
Speaker 1: imagine that many listeners have these, but check out dash
Speaker 1: cam footage. Most of it is going to come as
Speaker 1: as Kurt said, from Russia. Check out the Russian dash
Speaker 1: cam footage. There's other there are other players in the game,
Speaker 1: but Russia is by far and away the best when
Speaker 1: it comes to dash cam footage. Primo Russia, and it's
Speaker 1: just the wacky stuff seems to happen there. Yeah, Russia
Speaker 1: is to dash cams as as the United States is
Speaker 1: the baseball. There are other people doing it, but there's
Speaker 1: one country that clearly is the best. I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm prepping for the s a t here when I
Speaker 1: hear a question like that. You know, you can see
Speaker 1: some you can see all kinds of things. You can
Speaker 1: see meteorite, you can see a meteor shower. Yeah, Kur
Speaker 1: was just talking about this. That was that's one of
Speaker 1: your favorite ones, right, the meteorite strike in Russia. Yeah, crashes,
Speaker 1: you can see some air disasters happen unfortunately in front
Speaker 1: of you. There's lots of natural disaster footage, Bridges collapsing,
Speaker 1: that type of thing. Um. Just there's a multitude of
Speaker 1: things you can you can look for, but they all
Speaker 1: come up under the keyword of dash cam footage. And
Speaker 1: it's something worthwhile to watch, just to kill a little
Speaker 1: time if you need to. Uh, It's it's entertaining. It's
Speaker 1: also a little scary and it may even kind of
Speaker 1: shock you into wanting to get one of these for yourself,
Speaker 1: just to protect yourself. When you really start to look
Speaker 1: at some of the scams that are pulled and some
Speaker 1: of the uh, the dire consequences that could result if
Speaker 1: these people didn't have a dash cam, you know that
Speaker 1: they could have be in real serious legal trouble. Better
Speaker 1: safe than sorry. And then also I would I would
Speaker 1: consider for anyone who is just concerned about documentation in general. Uh,
Speaker 1: I do want you to know it is not illegal
Speaker 1: to have your dash cam running if you are pulled
Speaker 1: over by law enforcement or anything like that. So, um,
Speaker 1: you know it's it's it keeps everything transparent. There's plenty
Speaker 1: clips of that online too. Yeah. I think we're at
Speaker 1: this stage. We're at kind of a sweet spot because
Speaker 1: once this stuff comes becomes cloud connected, guys, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: freak out. I'm gonna I am going to freak out
Speaker 1: and go a little bit like uh, conspiratorial, and I'll
Speaker 1: probably I'll probably try to find some way to disconnect
Speaker 1: mind from the web. We'll just hang onto that escape
Speaker 1: and you'll be okay, right, yeah, I hope. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, um, when we were lost in
Speaker 1: that great North American quiet own or something, we had
Speaker 1: to use your old tomahawk. Yeah, yeah, that's right. It
Speaker 1: was a garment, Yeah, an ancient garment u um GPS
Speaker 1: device and it worked perfectly. It really got us out
Speaker 1: of a jam. Yeah that place. And now is the
Speaker 1: time to buy your dash cams and then save them
Speaker 1: for when you can't find one that doesn't automatically connect
Speaker 1: you to the NEDA a good idea. Yeah, alright, no,
Speaker 1: I'm in. I'm in. My new business is going to
Speaker 1: be vintage dash camps. Wait aren't you also stockpolling light
Speaker 1: bulbs for some reason? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Okay, Well, I
Speaker 1: mean you don't like that information? Oh sorry, sorry, No,
Speaker 1: you're fine. I like the teaser. We don't know where
Speaker 1: you store them. No, that's that's critical. Yeah, that's mission
Speaker 1: critical for me in that bunker. Okay, Look, I'm leaving, alright,
Speaker 1: I mean I wouldn't hear from other people. Find us
Speaker 1: on Facebook, find us on Twitter, find us on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Let us know your experience with dash cams. No, obviously
Speaker 1: we're not saying driver as a criminal. Obviously we're not
Speaker 1: saying anything derogatory about the fine men and women in
Speaker 1: law enforcement who are literally risking their lives every day. Uh.
Speaker 1: But law enforcement caught onto dash cams way before the
Speaker 1: civilian world did, and they did so because there's a
Speaker 1: reason they work. They can save money. More importantly, they
Speaker 1: can save your life. Yeah. They protect them, right, They
Speaker 1: protect them against many many legal battles that would have
Speaker 1: been lost had there not been uh kind of that. Well,
Speaker 1: the only blinking eye, right, and that's that's like, it
Speaker 1: just shows you what's there, simply that no more. I mean,
Speaker 1: you get you get the audio, you get the video.
Speaker 1: It's all laid out right there, and let the judge decide.
Speaker 1: And I guess I save your life. I mean, you
Speaker 1: can save you from a life in prison. Well that's true,
Speaker 1: yeah too, yeah, all right, well alright, so I think
Speaker 1: we've got the social media taken care of. But if
Speaker 1: you want to check out our archive of information or
Speaker 1: archive of shows, you can do that at iHeart dot com,
Speaker 1: where you can go to Apple Podcast you can leave feedback,
Speaker 1: hopefully positive feedback, but you can leave any kind of
Speaker 1: feedback you want there at either one of those. And uh,
Speaker 1: as always, we were trying to grow our audience. So
Speaker 1: you know, anytime you hear something you like, maybe tell
Speaker 1: a friend, you know, get somebody on board listening to
Speaker 1: car stuff. And if you do so, Ben will send
Speaker 1: you a special gift in the mail. And now I'm
Speaker 1: just kidding, No, that's true. No send us your address.
Speaker 1: Uh no promises that you will enjoy said gift, nor
Speaker 1: any promises as to the monetary value of said gift.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, hit us up, uh and maybe we'll
Speaker 1: have like a drawing. No, Scott, you painted us into
Speaker 1: this corner. Now, now we're doing I'm not giving away
Speaker 1: anything from my desk. I love everything on my desk.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, Well I think that's about it. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks everybody for listening. We appreciate it, and we'll catch
Speaker 1: you next time. Car Stuff is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my
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