Anyone dealt with policewitness.com?

WatlingA5

We're thinking of getting a dashcam for my wife's car - she has a 100-mile-a-day commute and comes home with some hair-raising tales of the morons she encounters. However, trying to find a decent camera seems to be fraught with all sorts of claims and sales tales - as well as stories of expensive junk.

I found http://policewitness.com
The webpage layout implies it has police support and it claims to be "liked" by the Institute of Advanced Motorists, but I can't find any links to the organisers/owners. Since it offers to sell dashcams that produce videos suitable for use in court and it seems you have to become a "member", it may be just a sales site masquerading as something set up purely for the public good. It also claims you can send them a video of bad driving and they will pass it on to the police.

When people want my money, I like to have at least some verifiable geographic address, so has anyone dealt with them or know any more about them?

scotsbob

Never heard of them but they are overcharging by about £200 on each camera.

Techmoan on Youtube has extensively tested dashcams and the best he has reviewed is this one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wmIyD1fM4M&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PL9AE23A7F0C9FDC91

if you jump to 17.50 in the vid you can see it in the car.

ado

WatlingA5 wrote: »

I found http://policewitness.com
The webpage layout implies it has police support and it claims to be "liked" by the Institute of Advanced Motorists, but I can't find any links to the organisers/owners. Since it offers to sell dashcams that produce videos suitable for use in court and it seems you have to become a "member", it may be just a sales site masquerading as something set up purely for the public good. It also claims you can send them a video of bad driving and they will pass it on to the police.

..........

bodgerx

WatlingA5 wrote: »

We're thinking of getting a dashcam for my wife's car - she has a 100-mile-a-day commute and comes home with some hair-raising tales of the morons she encounters. However, trying to find a decent camera seems to be fraught with all sorts of claims and sales tales - as well as stories of expensive junk.

I found http://policewitness.com
The webpage layout implies it has police support and it claims to be "liked" by the Institute of Advanced Motorists, but I can't find any links to the organisers/owners. Since it offers to sell dashcams that produce videos suitable for use in court and it seems you have to become a "member", it may be just a sales site masquerading as something set up purely for the public good. It also claims you can send them a video of bad driving and they will pass it on to the police.

When people want my money, I like to have at least some verifiable geographic address, so has anyone dealt with them or know any more about them?

Does she have a smart phone? Android, iPhone etc?

If so, get a car cradle for it so that it can be snapped into it rather than plugging a cable into it, and download a dash cam app like AutoGuard. Job done.

King_Nothing

Pay them £60 a year, for them to say they hand over your video's to the police, when if it was really important, you could hand them over to the police yourself, for nothing.

Get a roadhawk, or any HD dash camera off of ebay and they'll be good enough for what you need, install it, and let it run, use it if you have an accident to prove your side of the story.

facade

Buy a dashcam for your own protection by all means, can be invaluable in an accident, but leave detection of offenders to the Police.

Your anonymity goes out the window when someone you have snitched on decides to go not guilty and you are called as a witness.

Surely you have better things to do than spend your life getting back at people who have wronged you by cutting you up etc?

vikingaero

Agreed on overpriced cameras. The owner of the site I believe was not a fully fledged PC but a Special Constable. Basically you pay £60 for them to pass on videos of bad drivers to the Police who may or may not take action.

The site also sells Hi-Viz Cycling Tabbards for £20 with Police in huge letters and Witness in much smaller font. IIRC there were horse riders getting into trouble with the Police for having Hi-Viz that resembled Police Hi-Viz.

George_Michael

vikingaero wrote: »

IRC there were horse riders getting into trouble with the Police for having Hi-Viz that resembled Police Hi-Viz.

You see horse riders wearing them a lot in the area where I live.

WatlingA5

Many thanks all - for confirming what I suspected and for the Techmoan link. No, we've no intention of becoming video vigilantes. No point and, as you say, facade, better things to do.

But it could be useful if one of the idiots causes an accident.

facade

I actually bought that mobius camera from the techmoan video; works well, but the novelty quickly wears off and you forget to use it.

vikingaero

facade wrote: »

I actually bought that mobius camera from the techmoan video; works well, but the novelty quickly wears off and you forget to use it.

How do you forget to us a dashcam? If it's attached to the windscreen and plugged in, it should autostart and switch off on the ignition.

Do you plug/unplug and remove it all the time?