Who video records their commutes?

[shovelhd]

If you use a standard camera, make sure that you have more than enough storage to exceed the recording capacity, or else you will lose the accident reconstruction capability. That's why the Fly6 works well. It shuts itself off after 30" of being more than 45 degrees past vertical. If you take a nature break on your ride, make sure to lean the bike up against something to keep the camera running.

[Ti Designs]

Originally Posted by Dead Man

and the cameras are light, cheap and abundant now

Much like being in a car with the windows rolled up makes people act like a$$holes, having a camera on your bike or helmet makes a lot of cyclists act like a$$holes.

[shovelhd]

Only if you allow yourself to become the asshole.

[smontanaro]

As someone who is now recovering from a titanium hip upgrade, I can say it would be nice to have had front facing video. I remember nothing about the crash (woke up in the ambulance) and obviously didn't see the car.

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by smontanaro

As someone who is now recovering from a titanium hip upgrade, I can say it would be nice to have had front facing video. I remember nothing about the crash (woke up in the ambulance) and obviously didn't see the car.

Hope you have a good lawyer....

[Ti Designs]

Originally Posted by shovelhd

Only if you allow yourself to become the asshole.

There are three ways you can look at video taken from a bike mounted camera. One is just what happened - that gets old really quickly. The second way is critical of the rider. I already to that with my trainer set-up, but I'm not normal. If cameras could only show what the rider was doing wrong, [almost] nobody would have a camera on their bike (and I would have them front, back, both sides, from under and one following me on a drone). The third use of a camera is to show what everyone else is doing wrong. A quick search on YouTube will show that most people use cameras this way, and there's a term for someone who assumes that everyone else is doing it all wrong...

The funny thing is there's endless video showing people putting themselves in bad situations - they never notice that part...

[shovelhd]

I guess it depends what the intended use is. I use mine for the same purposes as the OP, as a safety device. As a bonus, the clips can be fun to watch when you are riding in groups. I don't see the point of these Youtube road warriors that scream "I've got you on video". If you do, you should shut up and deal with law enforcement if needed.

[kevinvc]

I've got a Contour and have mixed feelings about it. The battery life isn't enough for an all day ride, but is fine for my commute. But it's still a pain to have to plug it in to charge it and delete the old video on a regular basis. I was using it every day for a while and it became part of my daily routine for when I got home.

Also, it is pretty much worthless in very low light conditions. That means there is no point in using it for several months out of the year when both sides of my commute are in darkness.

I mount mine to my helmet so I can make sure I capture something that I think may be important. It's nice to be able to aim it, but it makes the video much shakier, so it's not really any good for entertainment purposes.

It's a mixed bag, but it sure would have been nice to have had a recording and the license plate from when I got right-hooked and broke my wrist a few years ago.