I have changed my car, and it’s about time to get a dashcam. Could you offer thoughts on whether I should get one and which to buy?
From Mark H
Dash-cams have become incredibly popular in the past few years, maybe because we just live in a vastly more litigious society these days.
There are a couple of layers to the “should” part of the question, but the general answer is yes, you should get one. A good dashcam can potentially save your driving licence if you’re involved in an incident, and it can show that you were not at fault. Equally, it can provide vital and helpful evidence to An Garda Síochána, not just in the case of a road traffic incident but in all sorts of cases – from missing people to robbery and beyond – simply by recording the environment around you as you go.
So, which one should you go for? Well, on this, I’m going to defer to a proper expert. Shaun Jobber is a former motor insurance claims handler in the UK.
These days, he’s a bit of a social media star, appearing as “BigJobber” and passing an expert eye over dashcam footage that’s sent to him by fans. It’s not just entertainment, though – Jobber’s knowledge is usefully educative, even with the occasional difference in nuance between the rules of the road in the UK and here.
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As he’s a big noise in the dashcam world, I’m willing to take Jobber’s recommendations as writ, and his current top pick is a Vantrue N4 Pro S 4K dashcam. This comes with front and rear-facing cameras, and includes such niceties as night vision, high-res imaging, and even a sentry mode, which can detect if someone bumps your car in a car park. If that happens, the camera starts recording, so no more wondering about who’s left that dent on your door – you’ll have their reg number on your camera.
The Vantrue can be controlled via a mobile phone app, and it also has voice control. Handily, it’s a self-installation thing too, as you simply attach the cameras to your front and rear screens with included sticky mounts. Just don’t forget to turn them on when you start up the car.
Now, this particular camera is a bit pricey – €295 in Ireland, but there are other, simpler options. There’s a much more basic, front-facing only model (but still with sentry mode) for €135. You can go much cheaper – there are dashcams available from companies with names that seem to consist entirely of consonants for as little as €40 – but we’d suggest that a budget of at least €100 is a good starting point.
Jobber gave us this advice: “My key points when purchasing a dashcam would be that quality can be the difference between capturing the evidence clearly and capturing evidence that might not be useful.
“Your cheap petrol forecourt or Amazon dashcams may capture the event, but if the number plate of the offending vehicle isn’t clearly seen, and that driver makes off from the scene, you’re still stuck between a rock and a hard place.”
It’s also worth noting that some cars actually come with a built-in dashcam, utilising the vehicle’s surround view camera system and automatically saving footage in the event of an incident. Most Mercedes and BMW models now come with such tech, as do Teslas, while Toyota and Lexus offer pre-wiring for a dealer-fit dashcam.
Now, earlier I alluded to the fact that there are a couple of layers to the “should” part… If you install a dashcam and start recording, that makes you responsible for the images and data recorded.
That means that anyone whom you’ve recorded – someone crossing the street in front of you, someone cycling past – can technically demand that you supply them with that footage, under GDPR rules.
The rules state such data must also be deleted or anonymised once it’s been used for its intended purpose. Which also means that if you start posting your recordings on social media (it’s become a popular sport, usually showing someone driving badly), then technically that person, or any person who features in the video, can demand that you take such footage down.
You may also be incriminating yourself. In any road traffic incident now, the Gardaí’s first response will be to ask if anyone involved has a dashcam, and will ask you to provide the footage to help establish exactly what happened.
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Can a garda compel you to hand over the footage? For an expert legal opinion on that, we turned to barrister David Staunton, an acknowledged expert in the field. According to Staunton: “A garda may seize a dash cam under section 7 of the 2006 Act if they have reasonable grounds for believing it constitutes evidence of an arrestable offence, at the time the power is exercised.”
An arrestable offence has occurred, pretty much automatically if someone has died in a road traffic incident, or where the incident is serious enough that section 13 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 might apply.
However, in the event of a non-serious incident, such as a crash where only cars are damaged, and no one is hurt, gardaí don’t have the automatic right to seize your dashcam or its footage. They can ask, but you can legally decline on the grounds of privacy and possible self-incrimination.
If you turn over the footage, in theory, the gardaí are only allowed to access the data that pertains specifically to that incident – in other words, they can’t be hitting rewind to see if you were looking at your phone while driving last Tuesday. Equally, you can only legally refuse to hand over the material if there is a real risk of prosecution. It’s not something you can do on a whim.
There is the potential that the gardaí could get a warrant to seize your dashcam and its footage, but that would require that a serious enough incident had taken place, so it’s not likely that this would come into play.
There’s also a rule that says seizing a dashcam is one thing, but actually accessing the digital data held on it or its SD card is another. According to Staunton: “Even where the physical device has been lawfully seized… any examination of its digital contents must be separately authorised.
“Access must be strictly limited to the specific incident under investigation. In the absence of such authorisation, any entry into the digital space is, on the authority of the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in the DPP v Patrick Quirke [2023 case], unlawful.” There may also be a need for a separate warrant to be issued to enforce the revealing of any passwords or pins.
So, think carefully. Yes, a dashcam can be a hugely useful tool, and it can help to protect you against liability in the event of an crash. But you are, potentially, opening something of a can of legal worms, so think carefully before buying.
