Cycling cameras (for more safety on the road?)?
Hi,
Has anyone gotten a camera for recording rides? I ride on the street a lot and we all know that there is a risk of being hit by a vehicle. It also seems like the trend of American's driving larger and larger vehicles (or driving large vehicles more frequently) makes cyclists more at risk for a dangerous collision (see below); not to mention the increased prevalence of distracted driving. I'm really warming up to the idea of getting one of these rear and front facing cameras. I have experienced (and hear from others) that drivers are usually not held responsible as often as they should be when hitting a cyclist. I don't want to plan to be hit by a car, but if I was, I like the idea of having evidence to help prosecute someone if they were at fault.
I also wonder if I could use the footage to file complaints about drivers breaking the law even when I am not hit ( in situations where the driver's behavior endangers cyclists, pedestrians and/or other drivers). Grand Rapids has a law requiring drivers pass cyclists with at least 5 feet of clearance. I know volunteers help measure the compliance of this with riding around laser sensors on their bikes or something.
Thoughts? Is it all just marketing? Or if every cyclist had cameras on their bikes, would cyclists actually be more safe (hypothetically drivers would be more careful because they know they are on camera?)?
Any recommended cameras? Has anyone tried the CycleIQ cameras?
This company certainly advertises that their cameras can be used to provide evidence in the case of an accident caused by a driver. (and they have 30% off right now)
Thanks!
Comments
I have the cycliq 6 (if i recall), but have never installed it. My local cycling club hooked us up with a group/bulk buy a couple years ago, but like I said, never installed it.
For me, to make it most effective, I need it to be able to mount to multiple bike easily. I've just never spent any time on trying to figure out how to make that happen.
I've been using the Fly6 CE for a year, and recently got the Fly12 CE. They are designed for this use case and just work, with features like looping video, incident detection, and relatively long battery life. Fortunately I haven't needed the video, though I did check the Fly6 videos once to make sure it was recording okay.
Mounting was pretty easy; I have the Fly6 around my seat tube, and the Fly12 is underneath an aerobar. Scott, you could probably get a second set of mounts for the other bike. They use an 1/8 turn mount and come off pretty easily (the front has an optional tether loop as a backup). The biggest issue I had was fitting both the Fly6 and a Varia Radar; I ended up leaving the radar on the seat post, and had just enough room on the seat tube above the rear brake to fit the Fly6. If I couldn't fit both I would just use the radar.
They do need to be charged reasonably often; the rear camera doesn't last quite as long as the radar so it's probably in the 5-7 hour range. I have the front light turned off, and the rear light minimized.
When considering the price budget for memory cards also.
Thanks a ton for that feedback @Scott Alexander and @Mike Westover ! . I ended up buying the cameras while they were 30% off. I got multiple mounts so that I can easily move them from Bike to Bike. Hopefully I will get them up and running in the next couple weeks.