In January, when Kid 1 was heading back to school in the GTA, DW and I agreed to let her take our CR-V to make it easy for our daughter to commute between campus and the house where she was living for the semester.
She could have used public transit to get from her rental place and the campus but it would mean that she'd have to take a bus that passed by the end of her street, which took her to a GO train station, take a train to another station that was a couple of kilometres from campus, and take another bus that would carry her the rest of the way to school.
The whole one-way trip would take Kid 1 close to an hour to complete, assuming that the buses ran on time. By driving herself to campus, the whole trip would take about 15 to 20 minutes, depending on traffic along the QEW.
DW and I didn't really need two vehicles. We both work from home and if we did leave the house, we usually went out together. Any time we needed to get to an appointment or run a quick errand, the other of us was content to stay at home.
Because of the high number of bonehead drivers in the GTA, we felt confident that the CR-V was a safe vehicle for Kid 1. But we also wanted to add a layer of security by installing a dash cam before she set out.
A friend who also lives in the GTA had told us that there were a number of reports where someone would back their vehicle into the front of a car (usually, one that had a young female driver) and then try to scam them, saying that the young driver had rear-ended them. A camera would settle that argument.
Thankfully, the camera saw no action the entire time that Kid 1 had the vehicle. The camera runs every time the CR-V is driven but we've never had to look at the recorded footage. And because the camera is hidden behind the rear-view mirror, you can't even tell that the camera is there.
Ever since we've installed the camera, I've always thought that we should have one in our Niro, too. DW and I make several trips to the GTA each year, not only to see Kid 1 but to visit Kid 2, who lives in Toronto. We also take the Niro when we head out with our kayaks and on the few camping trips we've done.
We love our Niro and thought we'd add that same level of security that we've placed on the CR-V. So last week, during Amazon's Prime Days, I found a good deal on a dash cam. After watching a few YouTube reviews, I pulled the trigger.
This dash-cam deal came with two cameras: a 4K camera for the front and a 1080p camera for the rear window. Installing the forward-facing camera was easy, since I had watched several videos for installing the camera on the CR-V and considered myself a pro.
The rear camera took some additional effort to install, as I had to remove some casing around the rear-centre brake light and run the cable through holes in the metal. But I was able to string the cable under moldings and you can't see any in the passenger compartment, except for where the cable extends a couple of inches from the molding to the cameras.
Within an hour, both cameras were in place and configured.
That evening, I went for a short drive around the neighbourhood to check the quality of the video. Unlike the camera that we set up in the CR-V, the cameras in the Niro connect to my smartphone through WiFi. (To retrieve footage from the CR-V, we have to extract the SD card and plug it into our computer.)
I was pretty happy with the footage that I captured in the Niro. It was blue hour and the detail in both cameras was pretty clear. At traffic lights, I could easily read the license plates of the cars in front of me and from behind. When the cars were in motion, the plates were more of a challenge to read but everything else was sharp, even when I zoomed in on a car while I was reviewing the video.
It would be pretty easy to see who was in the wrong, in the case of an accident.
But with any luck, we'll never need the cameras.
What about you? Do you have dash cams? Have you ever needed them? What do you think of dash cams? Leave a comment.
Happy Tuesday!
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