Dash Cams Can Contribute Substantially Towards Road Safety

With India’s high road fatalities and the alarming rise in road rage incidents, it is high time that Indian car owners adopt a new safety device – a dashboard camera (popularly known as ‘dash cam’). In today’s digital age, cameras and the functions they carry out are becoming more and more advanced with time. Obviously, dash cams too, are no exception. 

Initially, dash cams were simple cameras that were fitted to law enforcement vehicles so that they could capture high-speed chases and capture traffic violations in the US around the 1930s. From then to now, there have been major improvements made to dashcams in terms of video quality -- nowadays night footage can now be recorded clearly using dashcams (due to the development of low-light sensors), and some dash cams can even record up to 4k video resolution! 

Additionally, today these dash cams (both in India and across the world) consist of a variety of advanced safety functions such as:  

• Parking Guard Protection feature that provides round-the-clock protection and surveillance for your unattended vehicle. Any movement or vibration to your parked vehicle (due to windows being broken or being hit by another car) will trigger the dashcam to record the event so you can identify the assailant.
• Built-in Accelerometer senses when a driver accelerates or puts in brakes too fast. By using this data obtained from the dash cameras’ sensors, driver behavior analysis can be made.  We all like to think we are excellent drivers, but this independent analysis can point out if we are becoming too rash in our driving habits.
• Built-in 4G capability allows the video footage from the camera to be live-streamed to any remote device in the world. This function can help you keep an eye on your driver whenever needed – for instance, he takes your kids to school. It also allows a car owner to receive alerts of the vehicle’s speed, GPS position and status (like parked, idle or being tampered with) on a real-time basis.
• Built-in GPS feature in dashcams provides speed, date, location, and route data that can be used in a number of ways. From the location and speed data, you can easily tell if you were above or below the official speed limits.
• A Driver State Monitor is a dashcam that uses advanced AI algorithms to prevent accidents before they occur. These dashcams continuously observe and monitor the driver’s face and can accurately detect within a couple of seconds if the driver is not paying attention to the road ahead, or falling asleep, or displaying any other type of inattentive behavior. It then alerts the driver, so that his concentration can be refocused.
• Forward Collision Warning is a feature that warns the driver that if he does not put brakes or slow down immediately, there is a high probability that the vehicle will crash into the object in front of it. This is another example of an AI algorithm calculating the distance and speed of the object in front of the car, based on the video footage obtained from dash cams.

In Conclusion

Over the years, dashcam usage has proliferated in many countries of the world, with Russia, UK, Korea, and Australia leading the way in dashcam adoption for private vehicles. In India, even though dashcam usage is still less and the market is at a somewhat nascent stage, however as more drivers and/or car owners are educated about the significance of dash cams’ and their unparalleled safety features, the demand and use of these safety devices are likely to grow in the years to come.

With integrated technological advancements and functionalities (as mentioned above) in dash cams, vehicle owners can now be assured of their safety while on the road. Indeed, a dashcam is a great investment in your family’s and vehicle’s safety that can not only save you time and money but also offers you peace of mind, if any accident/mishap occurs. No one likes to be in an accident, but in case it occurs with your car, dash cams can prove your innocence in a court of law. As we all know, the video never lies, and therefore a dashcam effectively functions as your independent eyewitness to such unfortunate incidents, and provides a major boost to upgrade and enhance your road safety agenda!