10/19/16 Dash Cam, Good Or Bad?

    I don't know how new the phenomenon of capturing video of what happens in front of your car is, but some people seem to be using it to act as Nosey Nelly's.  There are hundreds of hours of footage of bad accidents, funny events, even fatalities, if you look around You Tube.  I was looking at the New Tesla X cars which boast 0-60 times of 2.5 sec.  This is on par with supercars like Ferraris and Lamborghinis.  Sure enough, I found plenty of videos where these family vehicles running on nothing but battery power are "smoking" the crap out of cars worth two to three times as much.  Wife liked the idea of getting one when she gets back in town, of course, she is too far in the middle of nowhere to rely on battery power and they are pricey.  I doubt she would be trying to get the fastest power plants, those are over $120,000.  They do start out in the $70,000 range, so they are an interesting thing to consider.
    Getting back to the videos, most of the youtube clips exist because more and more people have dashboard cameras or dash cams.  My brother who is into anything conspiracy related said they are as normal as a stereo in a car in Russia because people are so aggressive at driving and trying to blame others for their weird behaviors.  I can only agree that what sounds like Russian to my ears is usually followed by traffic situations that don't make sense.  Maybe it is good to protect your investment, the family car is usually the second most valuable thing we own, next to our homes, so we should keep an eye on it at all times. 
    A guy who was talking in one of the clips about having the dash cam in his Lamborghini explains how what he thought was driver error when he let one of his friends drive his car, because of having the dash cam, he was able to prove that the car on its own lifted off the ground as it cleared a hilly road, this caused the driver to overcorrect and he crashed into some side barriers.  There was another instance where another car he owned, before dash cams were common, was keyed.  Newer dash cams can be set to turn on when the car is touched or bumped.  The offending person scratching the car could be caught in the act.
    The problems I noticed with these cameras is when then these people start chasing interesting situations.  Two knuckleheads might be bumping each other, but because you want to record it on your dash cam, you stay too close to the action and become part of it.  Another instance I didn't like is the person doing the shitty driving is running stop signs, and in your interest of catching them you do the same thing.  So now, it isn't one drunk person or inattentive driver, it is a group of idiots moving down the road.  On a few situations, I said to myself, "why don't you just slow down and let the assholes get some distance?"  The worst part I think is once the idiots crash, you become a necessary eyewitness and who has time to stop and help the Stupids who couldn't keep their cool while driving?  Worst of all, you might get cursed at or punched for trying to be a good Samaritan.