Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've never heard of people in the US carrying around weapons purely in case of road rage, for example. I've had a friend of mine in Texas give me specific (un-solicted) advice on how to have a gun for protection in case of road rage. (Involving what features not to get, because you don't really need them and they make juries think you're a gun nut itching to shoot someone.) Also in Texas, once I got out of the car…
I've heard "that's a good way to get shot" used to describe just about every activity in just about every part of every large city. Either it's not true, or I'm doing it wrong because nobody ever shoots me.
Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
81–90 of 120 posts
Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#82I was wondering why there was so much video footage of people riding in their vehicles' when the meteorite smacked Russia. Everyone had dash-cams in their cars because they were afraid of falling victim to a street brawl. It makes so much sense now!
It's mostly for insurance fraud and accident culpability. Intentionally backing into someone's car to try to make it look like they ran into you and other hijinx aren't that uncommon in Russia. Also, accidents are more common, and the justice system isn't exactly the best, so it helps to have a record of what actually happened.
Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#83Google should use all these dash-cam clips to train their self-driving cars how not to drive;) One thing that escapes my understanding: people do not affraid to beat somebody to death, but they can't figure out how to break a dash-cam and destroy the evidence?
yeah. i totally get several uses for the cameras. but the opening argument on the article made it hard to keep reading... if someone can drag you out of the car to "smash your face" i hardly doubt the camera will help you there.
If anything, will leave you with a broken face and a $600 camera missing.
Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#84Here is a quick story about Russian police from a few years ago. This should give you an idea why a dashboard camera is not an option, but a necessity. My mother was in Russia visiting my uncle (her brother) in Krasnodar 3 years ago. He picked her up at the airport and they started their drive back -- about 2 hours away from the city. As soon as they got on the highway, they noticed a civilian sedan on the side of th…
My russian friend made me believe the only reason for those cameras was that some random guy would jump in front of your car on the express lane and then sue you for running over them.
Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#85Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#86Do they have the video upload to an offsite server in realtime? What are some of the feature people looking for in a dash-cam and/or a dash-cam service?
I would cut the video into small chunks and store them in a Dropbox folder over a wireless connection if I wanted to implement this myself in an area where you could get an affordable unlimited data plan (that is the case in some parts of Europe at least). If that's too much data for you for bandwidth and/or cost reasons you can instead grab individual frames out of the video scream every second or two and save them as a JPEG files to be uploaded to Dropbox.
I use this solution in a non-car surveillance application but, admittedly, there's an x86 Mini-ITX board running Linux involved.
Edit: phrasing.
Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#87On a related note, The New York Times just posted synced videos from a number of dash-cams showing the Siberian meteorite: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/15/world/europe/1...
Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#88 I've wanted a dash cam for years but the technology just wasn't there.
In the late 90s I drove around with my JVC GR-DVM70U miniDV camcorder on a tripod lashed into my back seat.
No I can have 1080p video from my cellphone mounted on a windshield mount. I have lots of video but it's pretty limited due to storage limitations I choose the highest quality because my reasoning is if something goes wrong there's no point in have video that's so bad that everything is blurry. A video overlay of speed, brakes, compass, GPS would be nice too.
I'd love to have a small camera always on with the option to dump the video to a safe storage area such as Dropbox or several places.
Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've heard "that's a good way to get shot" used to describe just about every activity in just about every part of every large city. Either it's not true, or I'm doing it wrong because nobody ever shoots me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivor_bias
Not all shootings are fatal.
But that entirely misses the point. Not going outside after dark is like wearing a tiger repelling necklace. See? No tiger attacks, it keeps me safe.
Re: Dash-cams: Russia’s Last Hope For Civility And Survival On The Road (2012)
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I've never heard of people in the US carrying around weapons purely in case of road rage, for example. I've had a friend of mine in Texas give me specific (un-solicted) advice on how to have a gun for protection in case of road rage. (Involving what features not to get, because you don't really need them and they make juries think you're a gun nut itching to shoot someone.) Also in Texas, once I got out of the car…
Hm, fair enough. But how often do your friends actually get attacked? Is it really a reasonable fear for them? I've never been there myself so I might be completely wrong, but my impression of Texas is that the culture there is more paranoid than necessary, and unusually preoccupied with the idea of lethal self-defense. And what kind of area was this? Part of my surprise about Russia is that it sounds like this kind…
The real trick to understand is that the culture is very diverse here in the larger cities. (I live in a very much urban, and fairly poor part of Houston, the SE side of Downtown.) There are just about as many people who would chafe at the idea that anyone would even own a gun as there are that own several. My perception is generally that the pre-occupation with self defense that people observe is not an urban trend. All of that is anecdotal and worth what you paid for it =)
However, I've lived here for about 20 years now, usually in poorer areas, mostly due to cost factor. I have generally felt safer in some of the worst urban areas in Houston, than some of the moderately bad urban areas in other places, like NYC, Baltimore, Chicago. Outside of certain areas like Forum Park [2], and the central swath of the 3rd Ward [3], I always felt the most unsafe in the suburbs. (However, my short time living in Forum Park was a rather agreeable one as long as I was in my area of the complex that everyone knew me.) But, on our side of town, its not uncommon to be surrounded by vertical gunfire on the holidays - so, there is that, I guess.
Road rage? Well, I've been known to be a pretty aggressive driver, and only had one instance of it happening. It was probably my fault though, I really shouldn't have driven up on the sidewalk to make the turn after honking at him. =) We often like to joke that the reputation, deserved or not, that everyone else is armed here keeps everyone a bit more civil.
[1] For those not from Houston, Telephone road has a very, erm, "colorful" history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_Road