Dashcams are selling like hotcakes. Furthermore, car manufacturers are increasingly equipping their cars with cameras for the benefit of the car's driver assistance system. These cameras can also be used as dashcams.
A dashcam – a contraction of dashboard English Camera – doesn't just provide entertaining YouTube videos. Insurers use the footage as evidence when assessing liability. Police and the justice system use the footage to track down and prosecute traffic offenders. The presence of a dashcam in your car can earn you a discount on your car insurance premium. Some insurers even make a dashcam a condition for taking out a policy. Dashcams also contribute to road safety by increasing the chances of catching anti-social drivers.
Police can do nothing with half the footage
Due to the explosive increase in the number of dashcams on Dutch roads, footage is also increasingly finding its way to the police. Half of the videos uploaded via politie.nl give the police reason to take follow-up action. This is partly because the footage is unusable as evidence, and partly due to undercapacity. A filmed offender can expect a written reprimand, a fine, or – in a limited number of cases – legal proceedings. For the police, footage is only usable together with a witness statement. Without this statement, it has no legal basis.
What about privacy?
Although dashcams are an excellent way to catch bad drivers, there are also criticisms to be made about the proliferation of dashcams. Is this secret filming? Shouldn't faces be anonymised? And aren't we fostering a 'snitch culture' by doing so?
We are very curious about your opinion on dashcams. They undeniably contribute to road safety, but doesn't this come at the expense of our privacy? What do you think? Car hire in the Urmond region, without a dashcam? You can do that at Adrem Car Hire!
