• MangoCats@feddit.it
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    18 hours ago

    I “calibrate” my speedos vs GPS every so often, they’re reasonably close (+/- 2mph at 70).

    I waffle about the dash cam, of course I’ll want it after something happens and I don’t have it, but on the other hand I also hate the thought of a protracted court fight for what?

    • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      There are tons of nightmare scenarios you can avoid by having a dashcam including the police lying about something you did while driving, which could lead to all sorts of awful things for you.

      For $50, it’s a no-brainer to me.

      • MangoCats@feddit.it
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        3 hours ago

        Yeah, and I’ve faced a couple of those potential nightmares… unfortunately, my experience has been: the cops act a lot worse when you have “anti-cop tech” visible in your car, for instance I got the most bogus speeding ticket of all time when a radar detector was visible. Times I’ve been “at their mercy” where they could plant anything, claim anything, do anything, no witnesses around just me and them, they’ve always been more decent - almost never wrote anything up, just waved me on about my business after the stop.

        For awhile, I ran around with 10 old registrations in the trunk but “couldn’t find” the most recent one, even though the sticker on the tag was updated. I must have gotten 3 written warnings for “no valid registration” when I thought I was going to get a speeding ticket. They got a free look inside my trunk, got to write something up, and didn’t have to hit me with a speeding fine. It’s far from ideal, in the ideal world everything is on audio/video record and we base everything on the actual truth, but cops being human (and subject to human pettiness) sometimes having that record just makes them want to show you everything they can do to you without you being able to effectively fight back - including dragging your ass in to court for no reason whatsoever, they don’t even bother to show - or maybe they do and they lie when they get there and they know (and in some towns are related to) the judge… If they know they have nothing of substance to present in court (like that radar detector cop) they just don’t show up.

        • HCSOThrowaway@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          A radar detector is very different from a dash cam, including in law depending on your area.

          I think you’re just doing mental gymnastics to make a reason for not getting one. Just be honest with yourself and say “I don’t feel like it.”

          It reminds me of the people who point out that seat-belts trap people in cars so they won’t wear a seat-belt. They don’t think rationally about the very remote odds of that, they just latch on to it as an excuse to do what they were already going to do.

          • MangoCats@feddit.it
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            12 minutes ago

            Agree to disagree. I have all kinds of tech from GoPros with mounts for the car to phone holder that can make my phone serve as a dashcam in 5 seconds flat. I also have several exterior facing cameras around our home, and the software ready to switch on and archive all the footage, and multiple 2TB drives laying around doing nothing at the moment. If I wanted to record looping video at the house I easily could - and do what with it? Fight in court. Do you enjoy fighting in court? I don’t. I’d rather not do things that encourage fighting in court, and so I don’t record the video. It’s a deliberate choice - maybe “I don’t feel like it” - but not because I can’t push a button on Amazon and get one delivered.