Camera for insurance?

[OmegaA]

I installed camera on the car not because I like watching the recordings from there, but for insurance- I was hit a few times while stationary and at least once the driver run away because I wasn’t there.
I wonder if I should get a camera for the bike - I was once knocked off by a car and the driver drove away, but it was about 12 years ago.
Do you think it worths buying a camera for insurance purposes? I am thinking about practicalities- helmet camera will probably somehow affect helmet balance and increase wind noise, require regular charging, and I may run out of battery on rides longer than 3 hours, will probably need to recharge in the office, so need to carry charger with me. Installing on a bike - I saw one in Internet, it connects to bike battery, so no need to recharge the battery, but don’t like 720 resolution
Would like to hear opinions of the users
Thanks
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All-year-round rider since 2005

[RAYK47]

I also have a camera on my car, a blackvue one. It is excellent but I don't think they do a motorcycle one or if it is available in the UK

They do an action camera that seems popular with motorcyclists but it does not look as good as the car versions (750s etc).

What I would want is one a lot more descrete that you can hide and leave on.

[redeem ouzzer]

Anyone who needs camera evidence to defend themselves is a coward IMHO. Instead of spending the money and having the inconvenience of looking a twat with a camera on your head, spend more time opening your eyes. I’ve been riding 26 years and only had one interference with another vehicle which a camera would of likely proved me partly to blame. Luckily having no camera meant I got away with it.
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Be a REAL MAN!

[Pete.]

[M.C]

[SDFarsight]

[MarJay]

Bear in mind that there is a theory behind Schumacher being potato'd having something to do with him having a helmet cam attached to his ski helmet...
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British beauty: Triumph Street Triple R; Loony stroker: KR1S; Track fun: GSXR750 L1; Commuter Missile: GSX-S1000F
Remember kids, bikes aren't like lego. You can't easily take a part from one bike and then fit it to another.

[M.C]

[P.]

[M.C]

Pointless debate

[Pete.]

You don't need to see the license plate, you only need to see what happened. Having no camera wouldn't get you the license plate either.
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a.k.a 'Geri'

132.9mph off and walked away. Gear is good, gear is good, gear is very very good

[M.C]

Really f'ing pointless

[MarJay]

[Pete.]

[M.C]

I give up, I actually have footage from my 720 and 1080 to show the difference but I can't be arsed with this pointless debate.

[Tierbirdy]

Absolutely, with the state of all the fuckwits on the road and their piss poor driving a camera is pretty much vital. I got sideswiped on a roundabout, fucker didn't even stop and just drove off leaving me there lying in the road like a spastic turtle with a broken arm. Without camera footage Id have been fucked over big time. Their insurers went from "you're making this up, our client wasn't even there" to "our client accepts full liability" after being shown the footage.

Id quite like a little one permanently mounted facing backwards too, but no doubt in London it'd be nicked in seconds. Ive been rear-ended by some dopey cunt texting whilst I was waiting at a red light, no camera footage, police weren't interested.

Drift helmet cameras are amazing and worth their weight in gold. They look a little bit less tellytubby than the GoPro style boxes too.

[inline4]

[AdamEf]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQaIV66DDfc

[SDFarsight]

[pepperami]

Having a camera about your person or on your bike make you a coward?
Ensuring you can prove that an incident wasn’t your fault make you a coward?
How does that work then?

I try to ride defensively and be observant, however being a human being and having to be in the world of other humans, I can’t rely on their behaviour.
So to prove I am a man and not a coward, I must dispense with the ability to prove that I have been wronged.?

Nah! I’ll stick to having a camera
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I am the sum total of my own existence, what went before makes me who I am now!

[M.C]

[Freddyfruitba...]

[M.C]

[Teflon-Mike]

Winning the argument who might have been to blame is something of a punic victory, especially if you iz dead at the time..... Prevention is far better than a presumed cure....

And one DOES wonder how many folk drive or ride like idiots 'cos camera... means they 'cant' be in the wrong... camera proo-ooves it...... bang! See!!!! It was MY right of way,,, right up the pearly stairs!

Loads of stuff rather more important in the list of priorities to dodge an accident, or try soften the blow when one happens, than an electric widget that 'may' help show who was less in the wrong to be there, after the event, and certainly far more important than whether that widget happened to have web-cam res or 4k vidie cap-ability.... it still needs to be pointing in the right direction, and not wobbling around like an alziemer sufferers mug of tea!

Slightly more practically...... battery life is only half the problem; you need the memory capacity to at least equal if not exceed the battery life in order to capture all it might record.... higher resolution you aim for, more memory you need, and as hintimated, utterly wasted if the picture is wobbling around all over the place, and or camera not pointing at anything 'useful'.....

A wide angle lens, doesn't oft help here, and the topic starts to get a lot deeper. A very wide angle lens, distorts the perspective, far subjects appear very very far, near subjects a lot nearer, in between as the range changes, it appears to change an awful lot faster... so the lens distorts perceptions of both speed and distance.. whilst the wider the lens, to get most margin around where the cameras pointing and hopefuly get that critical angle in shot..... so the relative resolution falls, the subject a much smaller proportion of the whole frame.....

Eg.... you want to prove that it was D875OEP that hit you.... camera not only has to 'see' that bit of the subject that includes the number plate, it has to be clear enough to read, and see the rest of the wreck at the same time..... So its NOT merely the pixie count the camera might generate.... those pixies have to be in the right place at the right time, and not jumping up and down all over exited like.....

So how far do you go?

Even TV companies with the budget to buy really good kit struggle with on-board footage, whether on an F1 car or a chap in a game show..... So how much are you prepared to pay and what's the acceptable quality level, and IS a 'better' camera an awfully large part of the equation, when the mounting system is as if not more important, and you still have the matter of battery and memory capacity...

A-N-D.... what are you trying to prove, WILL this be like a flat fire extinguisher most of the time, doing nothing, but give you some false sense of security that IF it comes to, you are 'prepared'.... oh the CO2 cartridge seems to be flat... there's no foam coming out.... oooh.... its about to get a BIT hot round here...... well, that was a waste of time..... maybe I should have been a bit more careful with the lighter-fluid when the barbeque wouldn't light.......

There's no one size fits all, over the counter answer to the question, A-N-D the very fact that its being asked begs an awful lot of other questions, pulling the priorities back to check that all the basics have been tackled first, which PROBABLY make a ride-cam pretty much redundant if they have been.....

But what the heck... what would You-Tube compositors have to splice together if every-one was a b-i-t sensible on this subject......

Do or dont, its your call, but, in the grander scheme, I think that there's rather a lot more important stuff to be worried about than the resolution of a tele-tubby cam, and whether its best powered of its internal battery or a mains supply!!!!
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Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?'

[M.C]