Talk to me about helmet cameras

Pufftmw

I have a Garmin Virb Elite mounted under my handlebar. Links nicely to my Garmin 800 so that starting/stopping that starts the Virb. Cost about £95

Battery lasts about 2 hours & 64gb is 5 hours recording. I just charge it daily and erase footage once or twice a week (unless I want to keep it of course).

wolfsbane2k

Pufftmw wrote:

I have a Garmin Virb Elite mounted under my handlebar. Links nicely to my Garmin 800 so that starting/stopping that starts the Virb. Cost about £95

Battery lasts about 2 hours & 64gb is 5 hours recording. I just charge it daily and erase footage once or twice a week (unless I want to keep it of course).

Hmm, where did you find the elite for that price from?
Oh, wait - that's the elite, not the XE. Still, 95 isn't a bad price for it.

tgotb

dhope wrote:

Semantik only has 400 posts to Chasey's 30k so while Semantik has riding bikes for longer his internet opinion is largely insignificant

What this really means is that while Chasey was busy posting stuff on the internet, Semantik was busy filming people...

dhope

TGOTB wrote:

dhope wrote:

Semantik only has 400 posts to Chasey's 30k so while Semantik has riding bikes for longer his internet opinion is largely insignificant

What this really means is that while Chasey was busy posting stuff on the internet, Semantik was busy filming people...

They should start a YouTube channel with that sort of dedication and teamwork

tgotb

Fenix wrote:

I'd not be relying on claiming on others. Get your own life insurance in place - what if you just have a heart attack or a (very unlikely) deadly crash was your fault.

^ this.

I'd be very surprised if the total damages obtained by UK cyclists as a result of camera footage were even a small proportion of the amount of money spent on cameras. Put simply, it's very poor value for money. Spend the money on life insurance and/or personal accident insurance instead.

hegyestomi

Wolfsbane2k wrote:

Pufftmw wrote:

I have a Garmin Virb Elite mounted under my handlebar. Links nicely to my Garmin 800 so that starting/stopping that starts the Virb. Cost about £95

Battery lasts about 2 hours & 64gb is 5 hours recording. I just charge it daily and erase footage once or twice a week (unless I want to keep it of course).

Hmm, where did you find the elite for that price from?
Oh, wait - that's the elite, not the XE. Still, 95 isn't a bad price for it.

Merlin was selling them on the Ice bike show this year for £60: I was thinking long and hard but at the end I took it out from my basket.

kingstongraham

Semantik wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Semantik wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Might as well film your entire life for that moment when someone commits a crime against you.

Because that's a world I want to live in.

Get a few more miles in and a few more years under your belt and you may well have a different opinion.

Are you for real?

No wish to demean you or cause offence but from your comments you are clearly still a young guy(30 or under) and I can see that most of your miles are the same short journey to work and back, some of it on those rather nice blue lanes for cyclists with only the occasional longer ride out.
I have been cycling considerably longer than yourself, since well before you were born. And while I am not going to claim I have any greater prowess on a bicycle than the next man (or woman) or any greater right to comment than others one thing I have learned is that there are some f***ing nasty people in the world. Some of them are regular users of our roads. And one of these days you might meet one. So you need all the weapons in your arsenal to fight back and a helmet cam is one such weapon.
Having said all that, I can see that your original comment was slightly tongue in cheek so I'm happy just to roll with it.

Doesn't that work for what Rick said as well? What if you meet them when you aren't on your bike?

Semantik

KingstonGraham wrote:

Semantik wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Semantik wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Might as well film your entire life for that moment when someone commits a crime against you.

Because that's a world I want to live in.

Get a few more miles in and a few more years under your belt and you may well have a different opinion.

Are you for real?

No wish to demean you or cause offence but from your comments you are clearly still a young guy(30 or under) and I can see that most of your miles are the same short journey to work and back, some of it on those rather nice blue lanes for cyclists with only the occasional longer ride out.
I have been cycling considerably longer than yourself, since well before you were born. And while I am not going to claim I have any greater prowess on a bicycle than the next man (or woman) or any greater right to comment than others one thing I have learned is that there are some f***ing nasty people in the world. Some of them are regular users of our roads. And one of these days you might meet one. So you need all the weapons in your arsenal to fight back and a helmet cam is one such weapon.
Having said all that, I can see that your original comment was slightly tongue in cheek so I'm happy just to roll with it.

Doesn't that work for what Rick said as well? What if you meet them when you aren't on your bike?

Theoretically yes, but depends to a degree on what strata of society you mix in and your ability to spot trouble before it happens. Whereas the roads are a place where there is danger of coming into conflict with unpleasant morons or worse on a daily basis and it's not always possible to avoid them. Conversely,I'm fairly confident, for example, I wouldn't need my camera running while shopping for fruit and veg in Waitrose.

tgotb

When people talk about "fighting back" against nasty people, and "needing" all the weapons in their arsenal, I am very thankful that we don't live in a country where gun ownership is commonplace...

slowbike

Semantik wrote:

Conversely,I'm fairly confident, for example, I wouldn't need my camera running while shopping for fruit and veg in Waitrose.

well - our local paper has a news story of the police releaseing CCTV from the waitrose store where a lady had her purse stolen - so a camera may help there too..

IMHO it's exceedingly unlikely that a cyclist will need camera footage, but they are becoming so affordable (I won't say cheap) that they're a tempting "safety" device - ie users will feel safer because "I'm recording this" - as though that makes whoever they're altercating with change their behaviour. fact is, the presence of a camera could make the situation worse as well as better - and in the situations that could make it better there are other ways to achieve the same result without needing to wave a camera about.
In the situations that could make it worse, the best form of defense (for most of us anyway) is to run away - or get on your bike and ride away - preferably ways that a driver cannot drive.

For me (at least) a camera is a backup tool - it's something that should be descreately recording without the owner drawing attention to it - the GoPro and similar, mounted on the helmet - are just not descrete enough.

rick_chasey

Semantik wrote:

Theoretically yes, but depends to a degree on what strata of society you mix in . Conversely,I'm fairly confident, for example, I wouldn't need my camera running while shopping for fruit and veg in Waitrose.

Understood.

mtb-idle

I've just bought a GoPro session at lunch time, but now I've had a proper play with it it turns out it wont overwrite old files, so I'll need to be manually deleting files off it morning and night, which seems like a bind. Otherwise it looks like the best option, and to be honest is over my ideal budget

Fenix wrote:

I think it can ?

https://gopro.com/support/articles/how- ... oping-work

Ahem, to move away from the bickering and get back to the OP's question...

As above, I would have thought that the GoPro session is the best tool for the job. It wont overwrite old footage but if as per Fenix's link you set it to record at 120 minute intervals it should keep looping around but have enough on there to cover your commutes/retain any important footage that you might require later.

You can also highlight/tag particular sections to make them easier to find later.

https://gopro.com/support/articles/what ... es-it-work

Battery life on the session should be enough for your needs too.

I agree with the sentiment that a GoPro mounted on top of the lid makes one look faintly ridiculous, well considering that one is a grown man riding a bicycle maybe faintly more ridiculous is the correct phrase but the helmet lid ting always reminds me of this:

Semantik

Rick Chasey wrote:

Semantik wrote:

Theoretically yes, but depends to a degree on what strata of society you mix in . Conversely,I'm fairly confident, for example, I wouldn't need my camera running while shopping for fruit and veg in Waitrose.

Understood.

Says the bad boy from the 'hood....

who works in the City.

rick_chasey

You're illustrating the point quite nicely about surveillance, since the first two things you did was check my strava & my twitter page and made snap judgements off the back of both.

Anyway. Don't get a helmet cam. It'll smash your head in when you crash.

And think about ways of avoiding nutters rather than aggravating them with a camera; avoid treating the road like it's a conflict between you and the nutters, and focus more around not letting things get to you. A miss is as good as a mile.

An inability to replay incidents is useful for getting over them, I've found. (And as someone above mentioned, I've probably had more than my fair share of grief. I imagine that's in part, because, as this argument demonstrates, I don't always let things lie, though I've learned to do so on the bike in the short time i've been on it).

rower63

I'm aware of one former prominent poster to these threads who ditched his cam because he had the presence of mind to realize that it was turning him into a completely different rider, whom he didn't like.

slowbike

Rick Chasey wrote:

though I've learned to do so on the bike in the short time i've been on it).

you're not posting on here whilst riding are you?

mtb-idle

Slowbike wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

though I've learned to do so on the bike in the short time i've been on it).

you're not posting on here whilst riding are you?

I thought he was sensitive about his height and we weren't supposed to mention it?

Semantik

Rick Chasey wrote:

You're illustrating the point quite nicely about surveillance, since the first two things you did was check my strava & my twitter page and made snap judgements off the back of both.

Anyway. Don't get a helmet cam. It'll smash your head in when you crash.

And think about ways of avoiding nutters rather than aggravating them with a camera; avoid treating the road like it's a conflict between you and the nutters, and focus more around not letting things get to you. A miss is as good as a mile.

An inability to replay incidents is useful for getting over them, I've found. (And as someone above mentioned, I've probably had more than my fair share of grief. I imagine that's in part, because, as this argument demonstrates, I don't always let things lie, though I've learned to do so on the bike in the short time i've been on it).

Your views are as valid as the next man and I understand your point. And I take the points made by other posters that some cyclists misuse the footage or get way too hung up about relatively trivial incidents

But I stand by mine. Which was that after any accident or road rage incident you are in a much better place in terms of getting a fair outcome if you do have camera footage than if you don't.

Oh, and I don't do Twitter . But your rides all end in the City so I was guessing you don't go there everyday just to feed the pigeons.

pblakeney

In over 40 years of road cycling I have never had an incident happen where the situation would have been improved by having a camera. It could happen, but then so could an asteroid.

prawny

I've decided the keep the GoPro, it's working ok now. I've noticed that despite a couple of close passes that I've considered reporting by the time I get home I can't be bothered to look through the footage, or remember where it happened.

It's slung under my bars, so I can't point it at anyone, it's not obvious and I've not started riding like I've got a camera on yet.

Basically, it's going to be for a record if I do get hit, or in the case of a hit and run, hopefully I'll have a record of the reg no without having to remember it.

I've not had any aggro ever to be fair, so it's not it for that. And Mrs P has banned me from posting videos on YouTube. So all should be good.

Might go for a hoon on the MTB with it in my chesty mount over the weekend.

mtb-idle

...is the right answer

dork_knight

Anyone gone the Lucas Brunelle route?

pastryboy

No to helmet camera, yes to bike mounted.

I reported a couple of near misses to roadsafe but they seemingly ignored them. The camera is really there for a major issue I've no desire to go round reporting everything and trawling through footage - same reason I use it in the car.

greenroadmachine

PBlakeney wrote:

Semantik wrote:

That much is obvious. But without camera evidence of these misdeeds you have little hope of doing much about them afterwards. Without witnesses it becomes your word against theirs. Which is frustrating to say the least. I would rather have something further than that to rely on. Evidence from these cameras can be priceless in securing convictions and persuading other parties to admit liability.

I must remember to add a clause in my will to prosecute using the evidence.

If George Mason had carried a rear-facing camera on his bike, there would have been solid evidence about the crash that killed him: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/motorist-set-to-face-court-over-death-of-cyclist-michael-mason-after-private-prosecution-a3316381.html

tgotb

GreenRoadMachine wrote:

If George Mason had carried a rear-facing camera on his bike, there would have been solid evidence about the crash that killed him: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/motorist-set-to-face-court-over-death-of-cyclist-michael-mason-after-private-prosecution-a3316381.html

He'd still be dead.

If I had a hundred quid to spend, and offered my family the choice of:
1. Spending it on something that might increase my chance of getting home in one piece (Bikeability training, safety equipment etc)
2. Spending it on something that might increase the chance of prosecuting someone who stopped me getting home in one piece
I think I know which they'd choose.

It seems that, for some people, the instinct for revenge overwhelms the instinct for self-preservation. As I said previously, thank goodness we don't have guns...

jamesco

TGOTB wrote:

If I had a hundred quid to spend, and offered my family the choice of:
1. Spending it on something that might increase my chance of getting home in one piece (Bikeability training, safety equipment etc)
2. Spending it on something that might increase the chance of prosecuting someone who stopped me getting home in one piece
I think I know which they'd choose.

1 & 2 are not mutually exclusive. Something that increases prosecutions and reported incidents will have an effect on safety: drivers have punishment as an incentive to drive more safely, councils get statistics as an incentive to improve road conditions, and the police / CPS get the benefit of indisputable evidence to enable successful prosecutions.

Having gone through jury duty, I've seen first-hand that the effect of CCTV is undeniable. The difference between having something recorded versus circumstantial evidence is night and day. What's on screen is inarguable; even the most damning circumstantial and witness evidence carries nothing like the weight of a recording.

Having been hit by cars with and without a camera, the benefit of a camera is also indisputable: the incidents with a camera were prosecuted successfully, the drivers were punished and I got some compensation. It'd be better to not need a camera, but until the behaviour of drivers and the legal framework change, cameras are a benefit to cyclists.

rick_chasey

I guess it's a difference in mentality.

When I was pushed off by a driver leaning out of the car window and fractured my pelvis about 11 years ago, my main concern was just being able to get back on the bike (well, it was actually to be able to wipe my own arse which I had to wait 2 weeks for....) and get over the *fear* every time a car came passed at night. I'm quite glad I didn't have anything that meant I could relive that experience. I guess I was too absorbed in my own issues to bother about the bloke who did it. FWIW, it was dark enough I doubt a camera would have picked much up, even with today's technology.

Again, the same when a guy got out his car, pushed me off and kicked me in the ribs ( a few broke) until someone pulled him off me. My main concern was just to be able to ride around again without being worried that someone will do that.

In general, I've found not being able to revisit things afterwards useful mentally.

Ultimately we all suffer bad luck in life, some more than others. Best thing to do is to get up and get on with it. Main take away I had from those was not 'I didn't get the bastard' but 'what should i do to avoid this scenario?' - in the first instance; chalk it up to back luck, in the second instance, just because he's knocked your hand with his car when he passes, don't argue and call him a c***.

I'm not batman; i'm not going around looking to lock up people who do bad stuff. I just want to get on with what I like doing, without being worried. Best way I've found to do that is just to get on with it.

greenroadmachine

jamesco wrote:

TGOTB wrote:

If I had a hundred quid to spend, and offered my family the choice of:
1. Spending it on something that might increase my chance of getting home in one piece (Bikeability training, safety equipment etc)
2. Spending it on something that might increase the chance of prosecuting someone who stopped me getting home in one piece
I think I know which they'd choose.

1 & 2 are not mutually exclusive. Something that increases prosecutions and reported incidents will have an effect on safety: drivers have punishment as an incentive to drive more safely, councils get statistics as an incentive to improve road conditions, and the police / CPS get the benefit of indisputable evidence to enable successful prosecutions.

This is absolutely correct. It's not a dichotomy. If you're spending £££ on a bike, then it's arguably worth spending £100 on a camera that contributes to the safety of the cycling community (even if not directly to your safety).

rick_chasey

I'd say all cyclists avoiding getting involved in arguments would do significantly more to the 'safety of the community' than posting angry men in their cars on youtube.

greenroadmachine

Rick Chasey wrote:

I'd say all cyclists avoiding getting involved in arguments would do significantly more to the 'safety of the community' than posting angry men in their cars on youtube.

FWIW, I've never had an argument with a motorist, even when the motorist was responsible for the crash (4 times in 40+ years) or close call. It might be different, however, if one of my children was hurt.