Dash Cams

What is a dash cam?

The dash cam is a camera that is mounted on the windscreen or dashboard of a car and captures traffic images. In recent years there has been an increase in consumer demand for this camera. Mainly to be able to deliver images of incidents as evidence to the insurer and/or police, but also to be able to capture vandalism. In addition, this camera offers the possibility to take beautiful pictures of landscapes during a holiday or outing. Key players in the current dashboard camera market are Blackvue and Nextbase.

Car camera with many functions

The dash cam is mainly used to record the driving behaviour of other road users and this camera therefore also makes continuous recordings of the environment. In addition, this type of camera offers numerous functionalities that improve the quality of the recordings. Many dash cams, for example, have a bright wide-angle lens, which, in addition to bright shots, can also be used to film from a wide angle of view (often between 130 and 160 degrees). The ability to record in Full HD allows you to capture razor-sharp images of the traffic situation around you. More and more dash cams have high resolution recording capabilities. Another important part of the dashboard camera is the presence of a motion sensor (motion detection), which automatically starts the camera when activities are detected. In the dark, infrared (IR) light ensures that vehicles and objects are sharply observed.

GPS and WiFi

The high-end dash cams feature a GPS receiver that displays the coordinates and associated maps of your route. This records the journey and links it to the speed driven. Speed in particular plays a major role in incidents and this can therefore serve as evidence for the insurer or police. In the event of theft, the car can even be tracked via a tracker and any perpetrators still present can be stopped. A built-in Wi-Fi function allows high quality dash cams to stream images directly to mobile devices.

Loop recording and G-sensor

Today's dashboard cameras feature loop recording. Recordings are made at intervals of a few minutes and if the memory card is full, the oldest recording is overwritten by the most recent recording. The G-sensor detects hard blows in the event of a collision and protects the images around the incident from overwriting. This way you can always be sure that the most important recordings are preserved.

Legislation and safety

Filming with a dash cam is legal in the Netherlands and Belgium. If you want to publish the images, you must respect privacy rules and the persons in the video must in most cases be portrayed unrecognisably. In other European countries, you should make sure you are aware of the rules governing these cameras and people's privacy. Dashboard cameras also provide a sense of security, as they both take into account maximum speed and register other users. So you don't have to worry about other road users' dangerous driving behaviour going unnoticed, you capture the images yourself.