We were buying an SUV to replace the grey XF. Our white XF has less miles and has always been mine favorite of the two, so we're keeping that one. However, before I had a chance to sell the grey XF, some bozo that wasn't paying attention just wrecked it.

The traffic was slowing in his lane for the exit ramp, and the road was wet from a storm cell that just passed, so he couldn't stop in time because he wasn't paying attention. Instead of rear-ending the car in front of him, he came over into my lane. I was slowing down already noticing the slowing traffic, but the 2 lanes to the left of me were going full speed, so I had to try to drive around this guy, but he just kept coming over more and more until he finally hit me and bumped my car over to the far left lane. That's when I got sideswiped by a pickup truck that was barreling down the emergency lane instead of slowing down even though he said he saw the action ahead of him. He commented how I did everything I could to avoid the accident, but there was no way with what the red SUV was doing.

Since I was going to sell the car, I was no longer emotionally attached to it, so that wasn't a problem. The guy that caused the accident had current insurance with State Farm, which was great news, but State Farm was already trying to figure out how to get out of it and telling me they may rule that it's partially my fault and that I would have to claim on my insurance for my damages and potentially the pickup that sideswiped me. I politely asked them where do I email the dashcam footage, and within hours of receiving State Farm called to tell me that due to the footage they are accepting responsibility for all 4 cars that were damaged in the accident. The red SUV also clipped the white pickup truck before coming in my lane.

So that little $90 camera saved my $1000 deductible and a moving accident claim. Probably saved some of the other people that got hit too.

Get one! Not having a dashcam these days is about as dumb as leaving jewelry, guns, laptop, and purses on the seat of your car while leaving your car parked in a public place -- but hey, people do it all the time and are surprised when their car is broken into.

I already installed the dashcam in the new 2020 Mercedes just days after getting it.

 

Youch, that was a close one could have been really bad. Glad you are ok.

I have enjoyed watching you-tube dashcam videos, let you see all the mayhem you can get into out there. (maybe load yours up )

I have a dashcam app on my phone that is mounted and pointed out the window when in my holder. Luckily have not had to use it.

 

Yeah, with the faster traffic on the left, I could have been rear ended easily if I had stopped. You can hear that I punched the throttle to get my speed up to avoid that from happening. It could have turned into an ugly pile if not. Instead no airbags went off and it was only side swiping.

You should get a real dash cam that's always on and recording as soon as you turn on the car. Using a cell phone, you are bound to miss out on the footage you need. I've had dash cams for 5 years, and this was the day I finally needed it.

 

Absolutely. I'm in the public transit industry and we have anywhere from five to a dozen cameras on every bus. Hence its almost never our professional driver, rather its always the other driver in the SUV on their cell phone, speeding or otherwise doing something I only wish that I could post online or submit to one of those viral video shows to embarrass the heck out of them. But after seeing so many accidents on video, I put dash cams in all my cars. Then after my brother got hit by a truck that was actually backing up and the insurance believed the truck driver, I got the idea one year to gift dash cams for Christmas to all my family of driving age.

They're actually quite inexpensive, so cheap in fact that like our OP says, there's almost no excuse not to have one. They're all from China, and most brands that no one ever heard of. Even many of the more expensive brands you might have heard of, like some of the stereo companies put their name on dash cameras, if you sort through enough pages of Amazon listings, you'll likely find an identical unit from some no-name brand for much cheaper. There's really only a handful of chip sets that they are all based on and the software is pretty much all the same on all of them. I've tried a few different unfamiliar Chinese brand names. Depending on features and warranty, they range anywhere from $25 to $200. I've bought about fifteen of them altogether in the $50 to $150 range (with tariffs I assume they've gone up 25% since my last purchase). I did have to return/exchange one out fifteen, but I guess that's not too terrible a fail rate.

Somebody on here even posted about one that has an OEM looking plastic housing that goes around the base of the rear view mirror for the Jaguar XF. If anyone is interested, you could probably find it with the search function if you have the time. I didn't see that post until after I'd already installed mine. Mine is pretty obviously a foreign object stuck to the inside of the glass, but it does the job. I also for the XF, opted for one with both a front and rear window camera.