0:00

Welcome to Car Stuff, a production

0:02

of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. Hi,

0:08

and welcome to Car Stuff. I'm your host Scott Benjamin.

0:10

I am Ben Bolan, and I am Kurt

0:12

Garren. And today,

0:14

Oh you know what, actually, before we even get into our

0:16

topic, yeah, as I was going to jump right in there

0:19

both feet. But but I think there's

0:21

something that we had talked about on the last show that I

0:23

think we still have to address, and that

0:25

is your brand new car. Pen you're in you're

0:27

new to you car, right, my new to me

0:29

car, So tell us what it is. And you've been

0:31

in this thing for about a week, so tell us a little

0:33

bit about it. Did we did? We mentioned

0:36

that did we meant not talk about this people week?

0:38

So we we've talked about what it was, but you were

0:40

a day away from picking it up. So

0:42

I took possession on a seventeen

0:45

Ford Escape, a little over sixty

0:48

thous miles on it. But I got a great deal. So

0:50

I I am

0:53

currently seller trying to sell

0:55

my Monte Carlo. That's a whole different bag

0:57

of badgers, But so far I really enjoy

0:59

it. You know how it is if you've owned older

1:02

cars for a while, first off, Also, never buy

1:04

a brand new car if you've driven around older

1:06

cars for a while. It feels like the freaking

1:08

future when you hop into anything that's

1:11

built. More recently, I was

1:14

looking into escapes because I did a

1:16

fantastic, blazing

1:18

road trip from Atlanta to New

1:20

Orleans and back in a Ford

1:24

Escape. There was a hybrid, and to

1:26

be honest, I probably killed the hybrid

1:29

uh with a little bit of a lead

1:31

foot. On the way back to Atlanta.

1:34

I shaved a probably about an hour

1:36

off whatever the average drive time would be. You're

1:38

gonna say your life, Well,

1:41

I I may be shaved a may have shaved

1:43

a few days off my girlfriend's life. She was not

1:45

happy with my driving the scary trip. Well,

1:47

we had places to be, yeah, I had.

1:49

I had an appointment in Atlanta at that

1:51

time. Anyway, But this car, this car is need

1:54

and it's weird when you start driving in um

1:56

you know again in newer vehicles. Is

1:58

the first car I've ever had that has a backup

2:00

camera that I'm like, maybe

2:03

learning to trust, but I still have to you

2:05

know, I still have to pop my hand over

2:07

the shotgun seat and do the turnaround.

2:10

You're living in the future. Man, because I've I've you

2:12

know, driven relatives cars that have

2:14

backup cams and they've only been around

2:16

for like ten years now, but

2:18

none of my cars have ever had them. But but

2:20

that is definitely a futuristic thing, and it's tough

2:22

to it's tough to get accustomed to

2:25

trusting that is. I don't think I will. I'm

2:27

gonna be honest with you, I think I'm always going to

2:29

have to do a physical eye check.

2:32

I don't use it, but I want to make sure curtaining

2:35

experience with a backup cam very

2:37

little. Maybe in a rental car, yeah, every

2:39

now and then. But do you trust it? No,

2:42

Because when you look at the screen, I

2:44

just I can't get used to what I'm seeing exactly,

2:47

Like looking to the right and the left. You

2:49

have to just you have to be familiar with the

2:51

visual that the screen gives you in

2:53

order to get a good feel about what's to

2:56

the right or left of the car. And you can see behind

2:58

you, great, but then this little fish

3:00

i'de off to the sides. Yeah, you don't

3:02

get a good sense of distance and size

3:04

or even if what it is. It's

3:07

always good to look like there's nothing coming

3:09

from the left except a greyhound. It's

3:11

just and you're like, oh, that's not a dog, that's a

3:13

that's painting on the side of a bus. If I

3:16

yeah, if I had a it's a terrible

3:18

joke. You're working life. So

3:20

if I had if I had like a kid or

3:22

a new driver, and I was, uh, letting

3:24

them learn that sort of stuff,

3:27

then I would probably do the old you

3:29

know, parking lot of a school

3:32

on a weekend kind of thing and be like,

3:34

all right, just turn

3:36

on that back camera and just go in circles.

3:39

Well, use that to drive. So

3:41

aside from aside from the backup camera, what's

3:43

your overall impression of this thing? I mean, is it you

3:46

It's like it's like future. Oh you do love it? Okay, So

3:48

you're not like it, are you? Are you

3:50

still reminiscing about what it was like

3:52

to drive the money car lot? Yeah? I

3:54

kind of thought you would. Absolutely, So anything

3:57

that you're looking forward to, Oh, have you jumped it yet? Have

3:59

you jumped? I jumped? Come

4:01

on, you've had it like two weeks

4:03

now. What's going on? Uh? Yeah,

4:06

not yet. OK. I'm doing a lot

4:08

of I broke out my old map

4:10

where I have the you know

4:12

about this, and it's gotta have these concentric circles

4:15

where I mapped out how long it takes

4:17

to drive somewhere and back. So that and

4:19

I've had this since I started driving, so that

4:21

I could figure out, you know, if I have forty eight

4:23

hours and I cut in like

4:26

of that forty eight hours, I cut in six

4:28

hours of sleep every twenty four hours,

4:30

then how far can I get? How far

4:32

can I come back? Right? How how

4:35

obviously want to get in that time? We'll see,

4:38

man. It's also it becomes, uh, it

4:40

transcends habit into addiction.

4:43

But I've got some cool day trips lined up.

4:45

I've got one really close by the way. This weekend

4:47

as we're recording it. I'm taking some of our

4:49

colleagues up to a Hindu

4:51

temple in Georgia. It's

4:53

it's pretty neat, it's legit, man, And

4:56

also, you know, I'm still a cheap skate.

4:59

It's also free to go. So it's

5:02

like if you ever, you know, Scott,

5:04

if you want to you want to get the kids some culture

5:06

on a on a little day trip, It's it's

5:10

very reasonable to get there. And they've got

5:12

a got a cool temple. They've

5:14

got a they've got

5:16

a can I say kick ass? They have a kick ass

5:18

gift shop, A little snap shot.

5:20

The only thing they ask is that, you

5:22

know, you have to not wear shoes in the temple. You

5:25

have to not speak in the temple, a rule

5:27

that is regularly disregarded

5:29

by children. I should I should mention. And

5:32

the third one, the third rule, which might be a little

5:34

weird, is they they

5:36

ask you not to bring meat

5:39

onto the premises. And it's worded

5:42

in such a way that, like you ever read

5:44

laws or rules and you think, what

5:47

the heck happened? I feel like some

5:49

somebody must have run in there just like

5:51

covered in barbecue sauce and ribs

5:53

or something. Because they're very hardcore

5:55

about the meat thing, and that's literally the only thing. They're

5:57

very hardcore. Surely can bring beef turkey,

6:00

and it's got to be exception to the will ask cured

6:03

meat this weekend. I will ask to dried

6:05

meat, and you can put in your pocket. It's gotta be

6:07

all right. Oh yeah, I'm like, oh me, this

6:10

is just my pocket, jock. It's just this pepperoni

6:12

way that it came with the pants.

6:14

Yeah. Um, but yeah, long answer, short

6:16

man, yeah, I am really happy

6:19

to be back on the road. Is are there

6:21

other cars that I would you

6:24

know that that I would want? Well, sure, they're

6:26

always going to be other cars I

6:28

got. I got close to, I got close

6:30

to making some less well informed

6:32

decisions, let's say, because you know how it is, like

6:35

it's an emotional decisions sometimes, yeah, and you're

6:37

making it. Whenever you're making a big purchase. You

6:39

know, there are all kinds of psychological factors

6:42

that come into play where you think, for instance,

6:44

I'm just I'm making up numbers, right, But let's

6:46

say you're gonna pay You're getting some super

6:48

high end car and it's like eighty thou

6:51

dollars, and then you see another car

6:54

and it's thousand. But by the

6:56

time you're already spending eighty grand, you're like, well,

6:58

how much is it? You know, what a price can

7:00

you put on happiness? Right? And go back

7:02

and you try to persuade your significant other

7:05

that you're not crazy. You know, we've

7:07

all been in some variation of sure. So

7:10

it's here's the thing, though, we've

7:12

also been whenever we buy a car

7:14

new to us or brand new, new or used

7:17

whatever, we always know that

7:19

there are some owner modifications

7:21

we have to make right. It could be something

7:24

as simple as, you know, getting some tuning

7:26

done, getting some wheels

7:28

that you prefer. It could be oh

7:31

god, like, what's that stuff? I hate rain X?

7:34

You know, like it's time to put the rain X on and

7:37

Scott Scott on the sea. Yeah,

7:39

yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, all all those little things.

7:42

But one thing that I've been considering,

7:45

and I am not alone in this, one thing

7:47

I've been considering adding to this

7:49

new car would be dash camps front

7:51

and back, nicely done. I would as well enjoy

7:54

a dash cam. I don't know if I wanted all the time

7:56

though, And I've got kind of a

7:59

few stipy lations that would have to be in place, I guess

8:01

before I ever purchased one. Maybe we'll discuss

8:03

those at some point. But what about

8:06

you, Kurt, do you think you would ever go for a dash cam?

8:08

Yeah, especially after doing a little research

8:10

for this conversation here, Yeah, exactly.

8:13

And we're going to talk about some interesting things

8:15

in this kind in this podcast that maybe

8:17

people haven't really considered when they're looking

8:19

at the dash came because I mean, we've we've all seen dash cam

8:22

footage that's you know, either one

8:24

it's either hilarious, right, or

8:26

you're watching something that is well, it's practically

8:28

like tragedy unfolded in front of you. If you happen

8:30

to see one that's like that. You see some interesting

8:33

things like newsworthy things you find,

8:35

um, well, you know what, maybe

8:38

maybe we should just let some of these go until we until

8:40

we actually get to them, because there's some there's

8:43

some other twist to this whole thing that I

8:45

find fascinating in some ways that you can

8:48

use dash cams either to your advantage or maybe

8:50

even to your disadvantage as well. Will

8:52

discuss. But we've probably

8:54

we've got we wanted to do a show on dash

8:56

cams for a long time. It's not like their brand new

8:58

technology of course. And I know we've talked

9:00

about you know, dash camp footage that

9:02

we've seen, you know, some some funny some unique

9:05

things that we've seen or just in passing,

9:07

you know, nothing really in depth, but um

9:09

we have really talked about like you know, who needs them,

9:11

or how much they cost or what they do or

9:14

you know, the real the intent

9:16

behind them, the real purpose behind them. So there's

9:19

a lot of angles here that we just have never covered

9:21

over the over the past years. I mean, I know we've

9:23

we've again just touched on a few things, but we've

9:26

never really talked about them in one

9:28

complete show. And I think with Kurt here and with

9:30

Ben here and myself, we should

9:32

be able to have a pretty decent discussion about

9:34

what we've seen, what we know about them.

9:37

Um. I don't know if this is necessarily

9:39

the place, and I hope I'm not reigning on

9:41

anybody's parade here when I say that, I don't think we're

9:43

gonna, like, you know, recommend one specific

9:45

model for you to get that that's the best one or anything

9:47

like that. This technology changes relatively

9:50

quickly, just like you would expect. There might be

9:52

some that are that are recommended by certain

9:54

websites like c net or you know, any consumer

9:57

consumer guide or you know places like that that might

9:59

say the is the best one right now for the

10:01

its price point, and that's fine. We can talk about

10:03

those. And there's such a variety of price point, Oh

10:06

there really are. Yeah. That's another thing is is

10:08

the incredible right of prices. I think

10:10

Kurt and I were talking off air about the gap

10:13

between the lowest and the highest price one that

10:15

I was able to find. It's it's uh, it's immense,

10:17

it's a huge difference, but what you get is

10:19

also completely different, So we can we can dive

10:21

into all this, but I think that it's

10:24

something that's it's worthwhile talking about because it

10:26

seems like we would all benefit

10:28

from something like this, I mean almost everybody.

10:30

And Ben you had mentioned to me off

10:32

air as well that UM and and a

10:35

Kurt that you almost see this

10:37

as becoming like maybe a UM have

10:39

required feature on cars. Absolutely

10:42

that is mandated, right, And the reason yeah, yeah,

10:44

And the reason I feel that's a solid bed is

10:47

because of the rise of onboard

10:49

camera technology that we already

10:51

have for you know, parking assistance, like

10:54

a rear view camera. Right. Also

10:57

in terms of insurance

10:59

and determin need liability,

11:01

it's it's a no brainer for

11:03

insurance companies. The way

11:06

that I would see it happening is I

11:08

would see I would see certain

11:12

models or types of dash cams

11:14

being incentivized by private

11:16

insurance companies. So it's just

11:19

like a lot of these uh, insidious kind

11:21

of overarching systems. It rarely

11:24

starts out as something you have to do.

11:26

It starts out as something you can opt into.

11:28

For a discount, right and then a

11:30

few years later the discount

11:33

becomes less and less important

11:36

because the true cost of insurance

11:39

in everybody's head is

11:41

the cost of insurance that you pay

11:43

when you have a dash cam. Because of course you would

11:46

why wouldn't you, of course normalize

11:48

it. That's what I think is happening. It's going to become

11:50

normalized technology. I think, yeah,

11:53

I really think so. I mean, but right now, I

11:55

think about who needs these right now? For

11:57

for my short list of people that needs them, and it's

11:59

probably includes everybody really, but for

12:01

now, you know, truck drivers, fleet owners,

12:04

bus drivers, anybody that drives for maybe

12:07

a shared ride company like Uber or

12:09

Lift. You know those drivers they need them. They

12:11

point them the opposite direction to uh point

12:13

inside the vehicle for safety, so they

12:15

use them as well taxi drivers of course. Um.

12:18

And then the general idea is that you know, you

12:20

get this camera that

12:22

that records a wide angle of view. A

12:24

lot of times you'll see the the angle as

12:26

one of the selling features on the on the cameras

12:28

typically like a hundred and seventy degrees,

12:31

So you get a wide angle and

12:33

it's just a constant recording of of what's

12:36

happening in front of the vehicle or wherever that lens

12:38

happens to be pointing, if it might be pointing inside

12:40

the vehicle, as we said for a share

12:42

driver. But you also could have

12:45

multiple cameras on the car. You could have all all

12:47

different variations of this. But you know, so these

12:49

views are all from you know, one or more viewpoints.

12:51

And as Ben said, this could be

12:53

extremely valuable for insurance

12:55

companies if they decided that, you know, if you

12:57

have a dash cam on your car, we're gonna

12:59

get of view a bit of a cut rate on your

13:02

premium for the next six months or the next year

13:04

or whatever, as long as you keep that on and

13:06

make that available to us if there is an accident,

13:08

if there is a problem, and uh, and

13:10

of course you would agree. You have to agree to that, you

13:13

know. I guess once that's all in place, you can

13:15

again count on that benefit coming

13:17

through, even though you have to invest in the technology to begin

13:19

with, or if you're lucky enough, maybe you've got

13:21

a car that already has this built in, because there

13:24

are cars that have systems built

13:26

in that will do this already. Now I would

13:29

have to assume that this encompasses

13:31

almost any car right now that is claiming

13:33

to be driverless, any car

13:35

that is claiming to have an autonomous mode. Because

13:38

the one in particular I'm thinking of is one that we've

13:40

seen in recent news and maybe

13:43

the two of you have also seen this. But there's

13:45

something in the Tesla models that's

13:47

called Centry mode. If you heard Tesla center

13:49

mode. Okay, so this

13:52

is uh something that uses the Tesla

13:54

cam videos I guess as a dash cam footage,

13:56

and Centry mode is something is a mode

13:58

that you can put the car in that again uses the cameras.

14:01

And there are eight cameras in total

14:03

on the new Tesla model, so there's a

14:05

lot of them. I mean they're forward facing, rearward

14:08

facing, you know, left right that you

14:10

know, it's it's they're all over the place. These these cameras.

14:12

You can look up the locations if you want, but they capture

14:14

video of vandals

14:17

that might be up to no good around your

14:19

vehicle. And it does this in a pretty

14:21

cool fashion. I think. Um I've watched some people

14:24

try to trigger the system. You know,

14:26

just see what it takes to activate

14:28

this system, because you have to put your car into

14:30

centry mode. It's not going to automatically do that, and you

14:32

do have to they say install the

14:35

dash cam, but it's not really installing, it is just

14:37

more like having access to it. So there's

14:39

very specific steps you have to go through in order to

14:41

set up your Tesla cam system

14:44

in order to make it work this way. But if you have a Tesla

14:46

car that was built after August of any

14:50

of these models, the Model three, the Model S, or

14:52

the Model X, you will have that feature

14:54

available to you as of February of two thousand

14:56

nineteen, so you can activate this, but again

14:59

you have to go through the process us to be able to do. It's very effective,

15:01

but it does activate all these cameras when there

15:04

is a presence noted around

15:06

your vehicle that looks like they're up to no good. And it's

15:08

funny to watch, you know, the videos, and you can

15:10

watch them on YouTube or whatever video platform

15:12

you want, but you'll see an owner trying

15:15

to trigger his own sentry mode, you know, trying

15:17

to trigger the camera, and sometimes it works,

15:19

sometimes it doesn't work. So it's kind of comical,

15:21

you know, like what works, Like, all right, I'm I'm pretending

15:23

as if I'm walking through a parking lot next to my car,

15:26

and you know, he said his driveway doing this like I'm

15:28

walking next to the parking a parked car

15:30

here doesn't turn on, but he'll stop and

15:32

look in the window of the car and it will

15:34

turn on. It'll activate it. And one

15:36

of the most clever things about this is that

15:39

the cameras pick up you know, all of them activate,

15:41

and you know, it picks up audio and everything. The

15:44

really cool part about this is that it's always recording

15:46

anyway. So if you've got it in the centry mode. Let's

15:49

say that an action happens, like someone bumps

15:51

into your car in the parking lot and they leave. You

15:53

know that it happens a lot. You know, they'll open the door

15:55

into it or park you know, parking, they may

15:57

bump your bumper. What's really

16:00

cool about this is that the recording is actually

16:03

beginning there. The recording that you're accessing

16:05

is recording ten minutes before the

16:09

action was detected. So it's because

16:11

it's continually going, it recognizes

16:13

that moment when something happens, that's the

16:16

moment that it actually activates and turns

16:18

on. But you get video and audio

16:20

from ten minutes prior to that because of the continuous

16:22

record, which is smart. You know. I like that because

16:25

we've all been at

16:27

least adjacent to a situation where

16:29

we see a bumper, like

16:31

a little a little bit of paint has lost on one

16:34

bumper another it's a parking lot. Someone misjudged

16:36

the distance or something, or

16:39

someone was jerk with

16:41

a shopping cart. I saw something

16:44

years ago on the internet and this was a true

16:46

story. So somebody got their car hit and

16:48

then they came out of you know whatever

16:51

story they were in, and they see this

16:53

little like piece of notebook

16:55

paper on the windshield. And this person

16:58

said, Hi, I'm sorry bumped

17:00

into your car. I don't have

17:02

any money, uh, and I'm not gonna

17:04

give you any of my information. But somebody saw

17:06

it happen. So I'm writing this note

17:09

and I was like, Wow, that's it's

17:12

pretty cold. That's pretty cold.

17:14

A sociopath is out there in

17:16

the parking lot of the bed bath

17:18

and beyond or whatever. Also,

17:20

you know, you're captured on on surveillance cameras.

17:23

You're gonna get caught. My

17:25

conscious wouldn't allow this. Yeah,

17:38

there are people out there who will rationalize

17:40

doing completely irresponsible things. And that's

17:42

why I think it's better

17:44

for everybody if

17:47

we all have dash cams as stick

17:49

because I do have some concerns. But

17:52

um, to step back. You know, one thing

17:54

we didn't say the

17:57

way that a way that a dash

17:59

cam is to biically gonna work. It's gonna

18:01

be uh, it's not going to be as

18:03

fancy as the testlas centry mode that's

18:06

like very high end. Instead

18:09

it's going to be something like a

18:11

small thing mounted on your windshield, often

18:14

with a suction cup, right um,

18:16

and some you can use permantent adhesive on.

18:18

But it's a commitment, especially

18:21

if it breaks or you want to upgrade. To

18:23

your point Scott about how fast the technology

18:26

is evolving. And then it typically

18:28

records on micro

18:30

SD card, right yeah, some

18:33

sort of internal or external

18:35

type of storage. And then you have to be

18:37

careful because in

18:40

many of these devices the footage will

18:43

just be collected until that card

18:45

is at capacity, and then it'll just loop

18:47

and start erasing everything. Yeah, it starts to rewrite

18:49

the old files and so old videos

18:51

are often recorded over unless

18:53

you stop them. If there's an event

18:56

to some sort, you know, an accident or you know,

18:58

in occurrence of whatever that you want to see like

19:00

maybe maybe we were driving home and you know, a

19:02

deer in in front of you, in front of your car and it was

19:04

so close you couldn't believe it. But then you want to check the

19:06

footage of being home to see how close it really was. Just

19:09

you know, something cool like that might have happened, or you

19:11

might have witnessed an accident and you want, you know, that

19:13

person to uh have some sort

19:15

of benefit from your foot at your file footage.

19:17

You know, you can you can offer that to them if you wanted

19:19

to, or you know, it could be something that you're involved

19:22

in as well. It could be that it could just be

19:24

a picturesque drive. Maybe you want something

19:26

kind of cool to upload if you're driving the

19:28

Tail, the Dragon or something like that, some really

19:31

interesting road or um, you know, some somewhere

19:33

like that. Now we've we've seen, you know, people

19:36

use go pros for this for a long long time,

19:38

but it's slightly different. The go pros just record

19:40

until the battery is dead or you know, the space

19:42

is filled up. And their thirsty beasts, Yeah,

19:44

they really are. I mean we've had experience with them in the

19:47

road rally that we did, but we were continually changing

19:49

batteries and locations and moving it all

19:51

over the place, and we had we had several of them going

19:53

all at once. That was kind of a different

19:55

thing. It's not it's not like a purpose

19:58

built dash cam that is mounted

20:00

in one spot all the time. It never moves, it's

20:02

got power from the from the car systems. You

20:04

know. It's it's like an accessory that's running all the time.

20:06

It's just a it's a different beast, really, But I

20:09

will tell you this, I was surprised to find that

20:11

you can. He wanted to. You know, everybody's

20:13

got a smartphone in their pocket, right and

20:16

chances are you've got an old smartphone that's sitting

20:18

in a desktore somewhere. Likely

20:21

you can turn that old smartphone

20:23

into a dash caam if you want it. There are apps that are available

20:26

that you can use to you can download the

20:28

and use your smartphone as

20:30

a dash cam. And it does have a lot of features

20:33

that you would expect in other dash cams,

20:35

only the storage is a little bit different. The way the files

20:37

are saved and rewritten are different on

20:39

some I know that you know that doesn't apply to every single

20:42

app that might be out there, but it will give you things

20:44

that you didn't expect to have on a smartphone

20:46

type device like this, Like you know, we're a little time

20:48

stamp that the image you'll also tell

20:50

you, you you know, critical information like your speed,

20:53

your located, your maybe your location probably

20:55

if you have GPS involved, but um,

20:57

it could also show you you know which direction you're

21:00

at. It just it could be a lot of valuable information

21:02

for you if you need it in let's say a court

21:04

case, because you can take footage

21:07

from dash caams into a courtroom

21:09

situation and show them They've been used many,

21:11

many times to prove innocence

21:14

in a lot of cases. Ah, yes, yes,

21:16

because we're also interacting with the world of scams

21:19

here, right, Yes, So we've

21:21

got to think about it this way. All right.

21:23

So you're you're the esteemed Kurt

21:25

Garin, and you are driving

21:28

down the streets of Mumbai

21:31

or something, and you've paused,

21:33

Kurt, You've stopped maybe at a stoplight

21:36

or stop sign or something, and

21:38

then out of nowhere, someone

21:41

runs towards your car. They

21:43

slam their hands on the hood

21:46

and then they throw themselves on it, then

21:48

throw themselves back on the ground. Uh,

21:50

and then have some accomplices who

21:53

are ready to go to court and say that

21:55

you hit this person. They

21:57

saw it right. Yeah. Luckily

22:00

for you, you have a dash cam.

22:03

It's right there, uh, in the vicinity

22:05

of your rear view mirror. And that

22:07

dash cam, let's say you have a sixteen gigabyte

22:10

SD card. It's been recording

22:13

for up to two hours, and so

22:15

you can say, all right, that's fine, buddy, I

22:17

will see you in court. And then, like you

22:19

said, Scott, you can play the footage of

22:22

you at a full stop when this guy runs up and

22:24

then you know, fakes his injury

22:26

or fakes this accident. And as ridiculous as

22:28

that sounds, how many videos of that

22:31

have we seen in the last week when we were researching

22:33

this. This is a real thing, that Kurt. That's

22:35

probably the reason that we see a lot of cameras

22:37

in certain areas of the world. I think so too.

22:40

I mean, how many how many times did we see the

22:42

scenario that that Ben was talking about play

22:44

out in the videos that we watched, you know,

22:46

the compilations of a dash camp footage,

22:49

Yeah, there are there. It's different this scenarios.

22:51

But there was a guy. There was a guy that I saw running

22:54

dive onto someone's hood and he and

22:57

this is the worst one I saw. He repeatedly

23:00

mashed his own head into the windshield until

23:02

the windshield broke and then he fell on the ground.

23:04

So this guy was really into it. I mean,

23:06

he was going for big money. It wasn't

23:08

just you know, you knocked me down and I'm a little hurt. It's

23:10

it's I've got a cut on my head. Now you have me hard

23:12

enough and fast enough. But the footage shows

23:15

that the guy, you know, the driver had stopped long

23:17

before the man even you know,

23:19

was near the veal ten feet in the car. He

23:22

dove onto the hood and then smashed

23:24

his head into the windshield three or four times and

23:26

then rolled onto the ground. And that happens

23:28

over and over and over again. It happens with You'll

23:31

see bicycle riders doing trying to pull the

23:33

same scam. Of course cars will try

23:35

to pull the same same scam. And

23:37

and Kurt, you and I talked about this before. This is

23:39

this is a big time insurance fraud,

23:41

right yeah, yeah, yeah.

23:44

There's a couple of different ways that they can

23:46

do this. There's um there actually I've

23:48

looked this up. There there four main

23:50

types of staged accidents that scammers

23:52

will try to pull on you on the road that can be

23:54

thwarted with the dash cam.

23:57

No, I remember we talked to years and years

23:59

ago about common accident

24:01

scams. But this

24:04

list maybe news. I suspect, I

24:06

strongly suspect, as some golden oldies

24:08

on that, I think that it does. Yeah, these are now these

24:10

are staged accidents. You gotta remember this. But I

24:13

guess the golden the golden

24:15

lining and this silver silver

24:17

I'm terrible with these things. That the silver

24:19

lining on this cloud, this puffy

24:21

cloud. Yeah, you had a real hard

24:24

time with leading a horses somewhere. But okay,

24:26

whatever, it's the idea

24:29

that the good part about this is you can have a dash cam

24:31

and uh and get out of any of these situations

24:34

if you happen to have this recording. Now here's the problem.

24:36

Yeah, still a lot of people don't have dash cams,

24:38

right, I mean, they're not mandatory, no one,

24:40

So it's an expense. Well, no one in this room has

24:42

one, yet I am getting

24:44

something. I honestly think that it's not a

24:46

bad idea for you know, all of us to get

24:49

one. And probably I might even look into

24:51

the one from you know, my wife's car, my daughter's car,

24:53

just because of what we've seen. But these

24:55

four types of scams, these four accidents, um

24:58

they actually named them. There's the drive down on, which

25:00

involves a scammer who motions for a victim

25:03

to move forward or to you know, merge into

25:05

a lane, or to go ahead. Like you've all seen

25:07

this right, you stop, someone kind of motions you

25:09

through, you start to go, well, they would then

25:11

begin to go as well, and then the

25:13

person that you know they have motioned would

25:16

wreck into them. That would be the problem. You would be your

25:18

problem. They would be the merging victims problem,

25:21

because the scammer would deny motioning them

25:23

forward at all. They would say like no, I never did that. I don't

25:25

know what happened. He just cut right into me. But you

25:27

would be able to spot that on a

25:29

good quality dash cam. There's

25:31

the panic stop. I think this is one that we're all

25:33

familiar with from those videos that we've watched the compilations.

25:36

Uh, this is one where someone in front of you

25:39

just jams on the brakes for no reason.

25:41

It could be a green light. They slam on the brakes

25:43

and you're you just smash right in the

25:45

back of and partially what happens here,

25:48

it's not just you know, like they slam on the brakes

25:50

and hope someone isn't paying attention.

25:52

They're watching the rear view mirror

25:54

for somebody to either look down or

25:57

to look out the window to the left or right, maybe

25:59

maybe maybe hold up a phone like

26:01

this. Yeah, yeah, exactly,

26:03

they are. They're watching for something like this

26:06

to happen, like for you to just for a second not

26:08

pay attention. That's when they apply the brakes,

26:10

and that's when you smash into, making it your fault

26:12

of course. Uh, it's dirty games.

26:14

Also sometimes they'll even back up into you.

26:17

There's no one else around, so

26:20

you've seen that then, right, yeah, okay, so what happens,

26:23

Well, they're trying to get you to where you're in them

26:25

by repeatedly hitting their brakes, and then if

26:27

you're paying attention, they'll just ease

26:30

back into you. See on

26:32

the dash cam you actually see the reverse lights

26:35

as they back into you, which is super

26:37

frustrating that it happens, But it

26:40

seems like a lot of times the second that the driver

26:42

gets out of you know, the victim gets out

26:45

and points at dash cam or says, I have a

26:47

dash cam the car that's in front. Besides,

26:50

they're just going to take off and and they leave you.

26:52

Of course you've got their license plate information, You've

26:54

got now maybe even a physical description

26:56

of them if they get out of the vehicle. Um, you

26:58

know, and you're able to see that on the that at

27:00

footage. But it's it's invaluable

27:03

because otherwise I guess who's at fault

27:05

in that situation. All they have to do it's just that he said,

27:07

she said situation in court, right,

27:09

and given the location of the damage,

27:12

it's gonna be the person in the car,

27:14

in the rear car exactly right. And

27:16

but unless there's a witness. Unless there's

27:18

a witness, but there's sometimes there's

27:21

cameras everywhere, so you never know if

27:25

you're going to back into somebody and make it look like a

27:27

rear under though you're pretty desperate, you know your

27:30

stam has gotten to the desperate levels.

27:32

Good point, you have just touched on something that I

27:34

feel. Okay, we're in the middle of our list here. Two

27:37

more. But um, a lot

27:39

of times, what will happen when something like this happened,

27:41

especially the pedestrian accidents that we talked about

27:43

before, Suddenly out

27:45

of nowhere, there are many witnesses,

27:47

right, you know, they look like about the same age

27:49

and you know, the same group of people as

27:51

as the person that's wrong. Yeah,

27:54

but they'll step out from the shadows and

27:56

there's like three witnesses. They've got, you know,

27:59

phones in their hand. They take and still photographs of their

28:01

friend who was on a skateboard seconds ago, laying

28:03

in front of your car, you know, saying

28:06

that they were just hit. But they weren't even hit at all. They

28:08

just laid down in front of you. So they these

28:10

witnesses appear and you know, you

28:12

get out again and show them. I've got a dash cam.

28:15

A lot of times they will just take off running and I've seen

28:17

it many times on these dash cam videos

28:19

on both sides. And the

28:22

other thing that happened, right, yeah,

28:24

the other the other thing. The other thing that

28:26

that occurs is they may have even

28:29

you know, somebody that comes by and says, hell, hey, you

28:31

know what, I've got a repair shop nearby.

28:33

Um, I can I can hook you up with you know,

28:36

um just a cash deal, So why don't you just come

28:38

over and pay me five dollars cash and I'll replace

28:40

that bumper and you know, no insurance will get involved

28:42

that kind of thing. So that happens. And then there's other

28:45

another scam where people pull up

28:47

like suddenly, what do you know, there's a tow truck

28:49

right there, happens to be two cars away from the

28:51

car that you just hit, and they stop and offer

28:53

their assistance. And it's the same situation. Now

28:55

they've got your car where the the

28:58

the other car and they're saying, well, why don't you just

29:00

pay for the tow to this shop and we'll figure it out,

29:02

and it ends up being like a cash transaction.

29:04

Never never let that happen. But um,

29:07

there's so many different levels to these scams. It's

29:09

unbelievable when you really think about it. I

29:12

had two more real quick ones if you don't mind, but these

29:14

are these are the stated accidents. There's

29:16

also the side swipe, which is

29:18

you know, we can all picture this too, I think, and it's one we've

29:20

talked about Ben the old side swipe. Yeah,

29:23

this is when there are two turn lanes like picture

29:26

two left turn lanes, and the

29:28

scammer will take the outside lane and

29:31

as the victim starts to make the inside turn.

29:33

The scammer just waits for them to get a little

29:36

bit too close to that outside lane, which often happens,

29:38

you know, right front of your car, and

29:40

they will they will side swipe you. And

29:43

then they'll say or they'll move their car so that

29:45

your car side swipes their car is more accurate

29:48

to say, so that you hit maybe the back

29:50

quarter of their views exactly right, and then

29:52

they will speed up and and you know, sometimes

29:54

you know, of course, cause this accident

29:56

to happen, and then of course say that you

29:59

know, you you came over too far into the outside

30:01

lane, it was your fault at Sarah. But dash

30:03

cams will take care of this as well. There's another

30:05

interesting thing there too that makes that scam

30:08

believable, and it's that a lot

30:10

of people, when they're taking turns

30:12

on a double turn lane, whether right

30:14

or left, a lot of people are really garbage about

30:17

staying in their own lane. Anyway, Yes, and I

30:19

don't understand why. It's one of those many,

30:21

many things that I will not

30:23

hesitate to go. A little road

30:26

rage Judge drew its jud jury

30:28

execution happens daily, doesn't

30:30

it, I mean, it really does. I mean, just it's it's

30:32

just it's so elementary. Well, it's usually

30:35

the outside person cutting in right,

30:37

it's usually going too far, you

30:40

know, lanes in

30:42

the intersection, you know, because

30:44

they're like, oh, it's easier to make the right

30:46

on red here. But then I'll just sort

30:49

of, I don't know, I just sort of

30:51

wobble my car into the lane that

30:53

I would ideally have liked to have been

30:55

in at some point. That's that's that's really

30:57

hoping. That's that's putting a lot of faith in and

31:00

the fact that somebody's gonna allow you into

31:02

because a lot of people that are aggressively defending

31:05

that for whatever reason, they're aggressively

31:07

defending that fifteen feet of pavement in front of their

31:09

car. I don't know why, but but it

31:11

happens. Hey, what's number four? The

31:14

number four? Oddly enough, it's named

31:16

my favorite dance movie, The The The Swoop

31:18

and Squat. Oh yeah,

31:20

I'm just kidding. I don't. I don't dance, Scott, I

31:23

kind of. You know, It's been said around the office

31:26

that I do have a bit of a dancer's body,

31:28

and I don't know if that's true or not. I think it's because

31:30

going back to the same bolt stuff from previous

31:33

episode. I think it's because of

31:35

the energy you put into your

31:37

daily running. It must

31:39

be, yes, your training. It probably is

31:41

my training. Yeah, I'm pretty intense. Um.

31:44

And you know you see pop, you can see that. I mean,

31:46

you've seen how how I eat. You know I eat

31:48

a lot. I mean, so you know it's

31:52

just fuel for the machine.

31:54

Well, also, you know this the swooping squat.

31:56

I don't know if you know this. Kurt uh

31:59

Scott is the what was it

32:01

it was? He is the champion of

32:03

the sup swooping squat in

32:06

southern northwest Ohio.

32:10

It's a very small region, but one

32:13

I'm the best. That dance

32:15

is really so

32:17

that's where if you're gonna do the swooping

32:20

squat, that's where you go. That's where you have

32:22

a have a satin jacket with that embroidered on

32:24

the back. It's very classic because

32:28

again it's a very discreet part of Ohio. So

32:31

sorry, man, what's number four? Okay, this

32:33

has gone silly enough. I guess the swooping

32:35

squat. This is another um of course,

32:37

another stage accident, and of course this

32:39

involves where the scammer passes the victim

32:41

and emerges ahead of them while applying the

32:43

brakes, and then the victim can't react

32:45

in time and then rear ends the scammer. Now that

32:48

this sometimes will be played out with two

32:50

cars to to scammer cars, which

32:52

is I find I find kind of extra elaborate,

32:55

really um, And this is when

32:57

the first car has passed the victim, the

32:59

sec car then pulls ahead of both

33:01

of them and then slams on the brakes, then making

33:04

the middle car then have to slam on their brakes

33:06

and that's where the accident happens. And then the first car that

33:08

caused all this leaves, And

33:11

of course there's no blame to be had in that right

33:13

because hey, I had to stop fast as well

33:15

because that car was stopping, so

33:17

they had an extra level to this whole thing. But that

33:20

has also been captured by dash cams many

33:22

many times in the past. You can watch examples

33:24

of all of these happening on dash cams,

33:26

which I find really fascinating because you

33:28

can just watch these things unfold

33:31

once you know what to watch for. And

33:33

you know, I don't know for sure, but have

33:36

you ever felt like you've been like kind of part of something

33:38

like that? I mean, you're in traffic and someone is just breaking

33:40

completely irrationally. Someone

33:43

is you know, almost it feels intentional

33:45

that they're trying to get you to ram the back end of their

33:47

car and you're trying to be careful, and it just

33:49

feels like that. Yesterday I had a very

33:52

close moment on the freeway, which is terrifying.

33:55

Someone came to a near dead stop, I mean

33:57

from freeway speeds, almost

33:59

dead stopped to get over a lane for no

34:02

good reasons. It was unbelievab.

34:04

There's that there's that like three or

34:06

five seconds where you are just confident

34:09

that you're not only gonna hit that bumper in front

34:11

of you, and that luckily

34:13

didn't happen. And then you look behind you and you're like,

34:15

oh, that guy's gonna hit me. It's gonna it's gonna

34:17

happen. Here it comes, and then it doesn't, and you're just

34:19

like so happy when all that has

34:22

passed, but also angry at that person

34:24

because you know, what, what kind of fool does something like

34:26

that on a freeway. But again, you

34:28

know, there's moments like that when you think, all

34:31

right, if something bad did happen, I

34:33

would have been in a much better condition

34:35

going into court trying to fight this thing if

34:38

I had footage from a dash cam, and furthermore,

34:41

I'm just gonna hoppy horse. This is second

34:43

because I'm setting something up here, Guys.

34:46

Furthermore, if everybody

34:48

has a dash cam because it's mandatory,

34:51

then you will have multiple

34:54

reports of anything

34:56

like that, even if it's not a scam, even if

34:58

it's someone who was just januine when lee a

35:00

bad driver because they're a dumb

35:03

person, you just you're just really terrible.

35:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, even then,

35:08

there will be multiple angles.

35:10

It will be impossible to try to

35:13

spin a different narrative. I'm

35:15

setting that up because I would like to take

35:17

a moment if it's okay to talk about

35:20

my pressing concerns, my anti

35:22

dash cam oh philosophy.

35:24

Do I feel like we need to say this? So

35:27

not only will not only will

35:30

this sort of technology in my mind, become

35:32

mandatory in the near to mid

35:35

future, but also cars

35:37

will The trend of cars being

35:39

connected to the web is unfortunately

35:42

going to continue. Right, everything

35:44

your phone can do, your car can do,

35:47

and then your car will be able to do more. You'll be

35:49

connected, especially like you said, Scott, with the rise

35:51

of autonomous vehicles will be connected

35:54

in these massive citywide

35:56

regional grids, right, and that

35:58

will happen way before we get any kind of federal level

36:01

thing, of course, because technology

36:04

always outpaces legislation.

36:06

The problem with this is that

36:09

we will have very few privacy

36:12

like actionable privacy

36:14

guarantees, and this stuff

36:16

will start running through Like as soon

36:18

as these dash cams are connected

36:20

to the cloud, right, they'll be on all

36:22

the time. Why wouldn't you turn it off? Right?

36:25

It may be illegal top rated vehicle

36:27

without a working dash camp at some point

36:29

where am I supposed to smoke by crack? Right?

36:32

Where is Scott suppose to smous? That

36:34

wasn't mean that someone in the back of the room didn't hear that.

36:36

It was like it's

36:40

short for Scott ethan No,

36:42

no, really like what I mean? So the stuff

36:44

that you do in your private car is

36:46

then going to be public knowledge or

36:49

that's the problem right right right? Uh?

36:51

And that could go with you know, that's

36:53

gonna be tied to GPS data as well.

36:56

Um, it's not I'm not

36:58

of course, I'm not saying that anybody

37:00

is uh smoking drugs

37:03

or that they're doing illicit stuff automatically

37:06

for yourself. Okay, sorry Scott Athan,

37:08

but I will say I will say

37:11

that it is a terribly misleading

37:13

argument for anyone

37:16

to say, well, if you're not doing anything

37:18

wrong, what are you still worried about when you're

37:20

not doing anything more? That's

37:23

just that's that's disingenuous.

37:25

It's misleading, and there is there

37:27

are potential there

37:30

are potentially profound privacy concerns

37:32

when it comes to dash kims Hi.

37:42

Okay, I've had this argument for a long

37:44

time about the you know, I understand the

37:46

the thought behind this too. You know a lot of people

37:48

are is like, well, I'm I'm not doing anything. I'm

37:51

not I'm not saying anything interesting enough

37:53

on my phone. Why would anybody really

37:55

care about listening in I don't. I don't care. Anybody

37:57

can listening if they want to. It's boring, right,

38:00

it's not the point. The point is that somebody is listening

38:02

into a private conversation on your private

38:04

phone. That's the problem. And if it becomes

38:06

like this with dash cams inside your car, um

38:09

audio inside the car, because you know, the audio is

38:11

another element of this whole thing, and then you

38:14

know, early on I tell you this

38:16

is one reason that I probably

38:18

wouldn't want to get a dash cam in my car now.

38:21

I I do

38:23

think I want one that has video, but I don't

38:25

think that I want one that has audio. And there's a

38:27

couple of reasons. One is because

38:29

my taste in music might suck. And

38:32

you know, any type of video that might appear might

38:34

have some terrible music applied to it, you know,

38:36

which we've all seen that too, Like you like, have

38:38

you ever seen those videos? And it's like a great video, something's

38:40

really cool is going to happen, but you're like, what is that person

38:42

listening to voodoo music or something? I

38:44

don't know what's going on? Russian? Yeah,

38:47

Russian dash cam music. That's what. It's terrible.

38:50

It's terrible stuff. How many just like inane

38:52

conversations have you heard on these as well,

38:54

Like people just talking with their girlfriend or their

38:56

husband or their wife or whatever about

38:59

whatever, you know, like one of the grocery store and then

39:01

something happens and they both go oh

39:03

my, you know, or whatever happens in front of them.

39:05

You know, it's it's it's adds a little bit of

39:07

drama, sure, but you got to listen to them just chat chit

39:10

chatting before and that's a private conversation that's

39:12

now public right right, they're

39:14

saying stuff like, well, you know that that

39:16

other yogurt just gives me the gas I

39:19

got, I got, I can't, I can't sit in the

39:21

room. Holy hell, what is that guy in the

39:23

BMW? And suddenly bam, yeah,

39:25

and then something happens, and you know that's the trouble,

39:27

right, I mean that you get that that five or

39:29

ten seconds of conversation that you wouldn't

39:31

necessarily want anybody to hear, but it

39:33

adds to the video. It's part of the video. And then the other

39:36

thing is like, I don't know about you. Sometimes,

39:38

like when that happened yesterday, that an

39:41

event that that near accident,

39:45

all filters are off at that point when

39:47

I'm when I'm speaking, I'm I was angry. He

39:49

might just consider that. You know. There's also some

39:52

sometimes when something that you say could

39:54

be misconstrued or applied

39:56

to whatever. You know, like they might

39:58

hear you say something aggressive

40:01

or angry about that driver or whatever.

40:03

And if you think that they're not going to go

40:05

back that far in the footage, you're wrong. They're gonna take

40:08

all of that and maybe even more. They

40:10

might take additional footage from you for

40:12

a court case, the entirety of the two hours

40:15

on that on that sixteen years. Here's

40:17

one example that I can point to in particular

40:20

that the showcases this, UM,

40:22

there's a there's a guy. This is a very recent case,

40:24

and I know there have been other ones, but this is a recent one

40:26

that happened in UM. I'm scanning the notes

40:28

to South Wales, South Wales. So this is a guy.

40:31

His name is Scott Curtis. He's forty

40:33

five years old from South Wales, and

40:35

he just received a jail term for two

40:38

years and six months based on

40:40

footage from his own dash camp. So

40:42

his own dash cam convicted him

40:44

and he was apparently Scott Curtis

40:46

was up to no good. He's a drug dealer and

40:49

he was jailed by his own you know, caught by

40:51

his own dashboard camp. He was recorded

40:53

saying as he sold, he sold

40:55

gear, which gear means, I I

40:57

guess, um, in pairs

41:00

it's meth amphetamine. Gear is particularly

41:02

meth ampheta. He

41:05

was, He was, yeah, he said, well I didn't

41:07

know either. I didn't. I guess Kurt

41:09

knew that. Kurt, why don't you call it gear? Did

41:12

you know that, Kurt anyway?

41:15

Because I say gearhead all the time, I

41:18

think it's just a different meaning, I

41:20

guess. But but he was saying something. I mean,

41:22

he said a few real damning things

41:24

here and is he said something like he doesn't

41:26

do valium, but he said he does sell

41:28

gear as what he sold. What he said, Um,

41:32

you know, they suspected him of

41:34

selling this, but his he was caught throwing little

41:36

baggies of heroin and cocaine out of his car

41:39

in some car chase. Uh, then they

41:41

caught him, you know, he claimed it wasn't he wasn't

41:43

doing anything wrong. Of course, they see that he has

41:45

a dash caam, so they go to the dash cam

41:47

footage. They take it as audio as well,

41:50

and they go back two hours in the footage and

41:52

it shows him like I think, he's like polishing

41:54

the hood of his car and he's talking to someone on the phone

41:56

and you can hear it outside and again

41:58

he's talking about you know, like he doesn't sell valium,

42:00

but he does sell gear and he's talking about

42:02

other other um class A drug

42:05

deals that he had done from this yellow forward focus

42:07

that he was driving. And uh and apparently

42:10

like once he was shown this, he said, you know, I've

42:12

still was made here. He was still maintaining

42:14

his innocence in court even and

42:16

they said, look, here's here's the footage, here's what we've got,

42:18

and he just completely admitted

42:21

to the whole thing went away for two and a half years.

42:23

But again, that's one case where you know, as

42:25

a lot of lawyers have said, you know, these dash

42:27

cam footage, you know, these these files

42:30

can cut both ways. It can help you or

42:32

it could really hurt you in some cases. You know, if

42:34

it shows you've been driving aggressively up

42:36

until the point of that accident, and then you're trying to

42:38

say this accident was caused just by another bad

42:40

driver, they may have, you know, a

42:43

different opinion if they look at that. I'm also

42:45

wondering, now that you mentioned it for audio

42:47

enabled dash cams, I'm

42:49

wondering if the content

42:52

there could be pulled without

42:55

an accident occurring, you

42:57

know what I mean, Like maybe somebody's got a messy divorce

43:00

proceeding, yeah, or maybe somebody

43:02

is, uh, they're

43:04

doing some financial crimes. I don't know, they're

43:06

having a conversation on the phone that gets picked up.

43:09

Like you said, we'll take your head. We'll think about

43:11

this also. Like let's say that you know, we talked about

43:13

uber and lift drivers and you know drivers that are

43:15

just shared right maybe taxis or something. They've

43:18

got the camera lens facing backwards, but they've

43:20

also got audio once they can record what's happening. It's

43:22

for their own safety, really, and I understand that it makes

43:24

sense. However, it's also illegal

43:26

unless you're telling them that you're recording them.

43:29

You know, they can see the video. They can you

43:31

know, maybe you've even got a little sign. But it might

43:33

have to might have to say recording

43:35

audio as well, because you might pick up their private

43:38

conversations and then be able to use

43:40

that against them somehow, or use that, you know, in a

43:42

different way, or might become public. Now they

43:46

that's different in every state, right

43:48

right, George's one party.

43:52

Well that's a good that's a good point. I mean, so so

43:54

it varies state by state, but I mean there's

43:56

there's so many different concerns here with audio

43:59

and video and and what you're picking

44:01

up and what you're using it for, and also

44:03

when at what point do you have to give someone your

44:05

private footage that you you know you've

44:07

taken or how far back can they go

44:10

in that footage? You know what I mean? That's

44:12

there's a lot of gray area here, which

44:14

is another reason to be concerned about the

44:16

use of the cameras. And you guys are

44:18

automatically calling me tinfoil, hattish

44:21

and crazy. No, of course not, of course,

44:23

now we do that? Wh do that off,

44:25

Mike? Now,

44:28

you know what, I think. I've only had a couple more things

44:30

here and then we'll maybe wrap it up. But I did want to

44:32

say that there are some some brands out there that are

44:35

expensive, and there's some brands out there they're inexpensive.

44:37

We haven't really talked about the disparity and price yet,

44:40

and I will tell you that you know, you can pick you can pick

44:42

one up from like some of the big names that you would expect,

44:44

like Garment or Cobra or Pioneer,

44:46

and I think there's even some called like there's

44:48

one called falcon I which has some real high end equipment.

44:51

Is Ken would um lots of different

44:53

makers and lots of different features you can look for.

44:56

But when I said, you know that Kurt and I were talking

44:58

about the disparity and prices, you know that the difference

45:00

in like the from Low to High. The

45:03

cheapest one that I found online that you can

45:05

buy. I couldn't hardly believe this when I found

45:07

it. You can buy a seven twenty

45:10

DP full HD car camera recorder

45:13

that has a hundred and seventy degree wide angle and

45:15

night vision h claims hdm my hookups

45:18

for three dollars and sixty four cents.

45:21

I know, I know, and I got to believe that

45:23

that is probably not a

45:25

high deaf image that you would would be able

45:27

to use in court. I bet it's pretty low rez. I

45:30

don't think that it's going to be as fantastic as it

45:32

may makes itself out to appear in in this ad.

45:34

For three dollars and sixty cents, there's just

45:36

no way. Yeah, I gotta

45:39

be honest with you, man. If the point of

45:41

a dash Kim is the stop scams,

45:43

that sounds like you're injury into one.

45:47

But then I was surprised on the other end of the spectrum. You

45:49

know, you do the sort feature and you get the most expensive

45:51

one, and you do get to a company that I mentioned

45:54

just a second ago, falcon I, and falcon

45:56

I has a completely different set of clientele.

45:58

I believe they've got the fleet owners.

46:00

So these are people that are adding um

46:03

DEF cams to their fleet of trucks,

46:05

like maybe semi trucks or you know, cross country

46:08

shallers. These will have multi

46:10

camera capability. They have passwords,

46:13

sign ins that the drivers don't have access

46:15

to. Um it has streaming

46:17

capability so that you know, they can be viewed from

46:19

anywhere the owner chooses, you

46:21

know, like if they're back in the office or at home or

46:23

wherever, they can watch what the drivers are up to. WiFi

46:26

capability all that we're talking in the

46:28

neighborhood of like twelve hundred

46:31

dollars. But the cameras they may be

46:34

equipped with, like you know, anywhere from three to eight

46:36

cameras. UM Again, they have a

46:38

lot of added complexity

46:41

to the system as well. I mean they're they're not uh,

46:43

you know, the three dollar camera that we're talking about

46:45

here, UM at the cheap end. These are the real, real

46:47

expensive ones, and there's everything in between.

46:50

And I kind of found that UM the

46:52

best ones the ones that are mostly recommended

46:54

by the current list lists

46:57

for you know, the best value for your money,

46:59

the best you know, the best optics at night, that type

47:01

of thing. The ballpark price here

47:03

seems to be right around two and

47:06

fifty dollars. That seems to be like a

47:08

topic, like a really good quality one brand

47:11

name, one that has a good image, it's got good reputation,

47:13

good ratings. You can get them for

47:16

fifty dollars that are still decent, but

47:18

they won't have the options that the ones that are to fifty

47:21

will have. And I mean this is like with anything

47:23

else. You can go to the extremes, you can go to the

47:25

three dollar one, you can go to the twelve hundred dollar

47:27

one if you want, but somewhere in the middle

47:29

is usually the best, best deal for you. It's

47:31

so weird too, because, as

47:33

you said, this field is still evolving

47:36

very quickly with the technology, right,

47:38

and it's converging with other technologies,

47:41

cloud connections, so on. Uh.

47:43

But I don't think we mentioned how

47:46

new dash cams are, Like dash

47:48

cams really started mainstreaming for

47:50

civilian drivers in two thousand

47:52

and twelve. Yeah, that

47:54

is nuts, because you know, we've seen so many dash

47:56

cam footage clips from police

47:59

cars, police police if you use these for seems

48:01

like ten twelve years. Some of the best television

48:04

in American history is composed

48:06

almost entirely of footage from

48:08

police dash caam. I watch I watch hours

48:11

of that every week. I think it's so it's so

48:13

entertaining to me. I love because it's it's all police

48:16

chase is captured on some of

48:18

these dash cams, and some of that footage

48:20

is just unbelievable. It's it's it's

48:22

amazing to watch. But you can get

48:24

similar footage. I guess if you're here,

48:26

you're up to it. Then if you're out jumping your foard

48:28

escape someday, I do expect

48:31

that you'll have a dash cam in place when you do that. And

48:33

Kurt A, you're gonna get a dash cam, do you think

48:36

eventually? Yeah? What do you think I capturing?

48:38

Your gonna be chasing down bikers on the

48:40

road, doing a little intimidation tactics.

48:44

You're you're like the opposite, right, yeah, I play?

48:47

Yeah, I know you do. I do want to know where you go to jump

48:49

your cars though, Oh there

48:51

are there are places all over

48:53

thanks to the fine services

48:56

of the City of Atlanta.

48:59

Uh, you know what I mean, you can jump your car almost

49:03

the big thing is whether you can land it. That's

49:06

crazy. The Department of Transportation is building

49:08

ramps for us. Now, yeah, yeah, it

49:10

just seems like it anyway it does. Um

49:13

I would say, also, this is a serious

49:15

question. Do you think we could get a price

49:17

break if we all went in, like if we

49:20

if we each got one

49:22

front, one rear camera and then we'll be buying

49:24

six Uh I'm

49:26

not going to go with that four dollar And

49:30

you know that's that's something too, like you might be able to

49:32

buy a set up that has a front and rear, which,

49:34

by the way, it makes for really great footage,

49:37

you know, if there is, there's a lot of footage

49:39

online, so if you if you haven't done this yet,

49:41

I can't imagine that many listeners have these,

49:44

but check out dash cam footage. Most of it is going

49:46

to come as as Kurt said, from Russia. Check

49:48

out the Russian dash cam footage. There's

49:50

other there are other players in

49:52

the game, but Russia is

49:54

by far and away the

49:56

best when it comes to dash cam footage.

49:59

Primo Russia, and it's just the wacky

50:01

stuff seems to happen there. Yeah, Russia

50:04

is to dash cams as as

50:06

the United States is the baseball. There

50:09

are other people doing it, but there's

50:11

one country that clearly is the best. I feel

50:13

like I'm prepping for the s a t here when I

50:15

hear a question like that. You know, you

50:19

can see some you can see all

50:21

kinds of things. You can see meteorite,

50:23

you can see a meteor shower. Yeah,

50:26

Kur was just talking about this. That was that's one of your

50:28

favorite ones, right, the meteorite strike

50:30

in Russia. Yeah, crashes,

50:32

you can see some air disasters happen unfortunately

50:35

in front of you. There's lots of natural disaster

50:37

footage, Bridges collapsing, that type of

50:39

thing. Um. Just there's a

50:41

multitude of things you can you can look for, but they

50:43

all come up under the keyword of dash cam footage.

50:46

And it's something worthwhile

50:48

to watch, just to kill a little time if you need to. Uh,

50:51

It's it's entertaining. It's also a little scary

50:53

and it may even kind of shock you

50:55

into wanting to get one of these for yourself, just to protect

50:57

yourself. When you really start

50:59

to look at some of the scams that are pulled and some

51:02

of the uh, the dire consequences

51:04

that could result if these people didn't have

51:06

a dash cam, you know that they could have be in real serious

51:08

legal trouble. Better safe than sorry.

51:10

And then also I would I would consider

51:13

for anyone who is just

51:15

concerned about documentation in

51:17

general. Uh, I do want you to know it

51:20

is not illegal to have your dash cam

51:22

running if you are pulled over by

51:24

law enforcement or anything like that. So,

51:27

um, you know it's it's

51:29

it keeps everything transparent. There's

51:32

plenty clips of that online too. Yeah. I think

51:34

we're at this stage. We're at kind of a

51:36

sweet spot because once this stuff comes becomes

51:39

cloud connected, guys, I'm gonna freak out.

51:41

I'm gonna I am going to freak out and go

51:43

a little bit like uh, conspiratorial,

51:46

and I'll probably I'll probably

51:49

try to find some way to disconnect mind

51:51

from the web. We'll just hang onto that escape

51:53

and you'll be okay, right, yeah, I hope. So yeah,

51:55

it's kind of like, um, when we were lost

51:57

in that great North American quiet own

52:00

or something, we had to use your old tomahawk. Yeah,

52:03

yeah, that's right. It was a garment, Yeah,

52:05

an ancient garment u um

52:07

GPS device and it worked perfectly. It

52:10

really got us out of a jam. Yeah that place. And now

52:12

is the time to buy your dash cams

52:14

and then save them for when you can't find

52:17

one that doesn't automatically connect you to the

52:19

NEDA a good

52:21

idea. Yeah, alright, no, I'm in.

52:23

I'm in. My new business is going

52:25

to be vintage dash camps. Wait

52:28

aren't you also stockpolling light bulbs for some reason?

52:30

Yeah? Yeah, yeah, Okay, Well, I

52:32

mean you don't like that information?

52:36

Oh sorry, sorry, No, you're fine.

52:38

I like the teaser. We don't know where you store them. No,

52:40

that's that's critical. Yeah, that's mission critical

52:43

for me in that bunker. Okay,

52:45

Look, I'm leaving, alright,

52:50

I mean I wouldn't hear from other

52:52

people. Find us on Facebook, find us on

52:54

Twitter, find us on Instagram. Let us know

52:56

your experience with dash cams. No, obviously

52:59

we're not saying driver as a criminal. Obviously

53:02

we're not saying anything derogatory

53:04

about the fine men and women in

53:07

law enforcement who are literally risking their

53:09

lives every day. Uh. But law

53:11

enforcement caught onto dash cams way

53:13

before the civilian world did, and

53:16

they did so because there's a reason they work.

53:18

They can save money. More importantly, they can save

53:20

your life. Yeah. They protect them, right, They protect

53:22

them against many many legal battles that would

53:25

have been lost had there not been uh

53:27

kind of that. Well, the only blinking eye, right,

53:29

and that's that's like, it just shows you what's

53:31

there, simply that no more. I mean, you get you get

53:33

the audio, you get the video. It's all laid

53:35

out right there, and let the judge decide. And

53:37

I guess I save your life. I mean, you can save you from

53:39

a life in prison. Well that's true, yeah

53:42

too, yeah, all right, well alright, so I

53:44

think we've got the social media taken care

53:46

of. But if you want to check out our archive of

53:48

information or archive of shows, you

53:50

can do that at iHeart dot com, where you can

53:52

go to Apple Podcast you can leave feedback,

53:54

hopefully positive feedback, but you can leave any kind of

53:56

feedback you want there at either one of those. And

53:59

uh, as always, we were trying to grow our audience.

54:01

So you know, anytime you hear something you

54:03

like, maybe tell a friend, you know, get somebody on

54:05

board listening to car stuff. And if

54:08

you do so, Ben will send you a special

54:10

gift in the mail. And now I'm just kidding, No,

54:12

that's true. No send us your address. Uh

54:15

no promises that you will enjoy said

54:17

gift, nor any promises

54:19

as to the monetary value of said gift.

54:22

But yeah, yeah, hit us up,

54:24

uh and maybe we'll have like a drawing. No,

54:27

Scott, you painted us into this corner. Now,

54:29

now we're doing I'm not giving

54:32

away anything from my desk. I love everything

54:34

on my desk. All right, all right, Well

54:36

I think that's about it. Well, thanks everybody for listening. We appreciate

54:38

it, and we'll catch you next time. Car

54:42

Stuff is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff

54:45

Works. For more podcasts from my heart

54:47

Radio, visit the i heart Radio

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