5 Reasons to Consider Investing in a Vehicle Camera System

In today’s crash-for-cash climate, the presence of vehicle cameras is a rising trend that hasn’t gone unnoticed. From simple forward-facing dash-cams, to full multi-channel DVR solutions, installing a camera solution not only protects your drivers against any false allegations, but can also result in a range of additional benefits, from improved driving behaviour and lowered insurance premiums.

But the benefits don’t stop there. Have a read of our top 5 reasons why you should think of investing today…

1. PROTECT YOUR DRIVERS WITH INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE

According to Aviva they have seen a 9.5% yearly increase in the number of fraudulent claims in recent years. With industry figures showing 1 in 10 personal injury claims are linked to suspected crash-for-cash schemes, it is important to have evidence to support your claim. The presence of in-vehicle cameras, or “dash cams” not only deters fraudsters from targeting your vehicle but also provides accurate and admissible video evidence of any incident.

“NOT ONLY HAS THE GENERAL LEVEL OF SAFETY FOR OUR DRIVERS IMPROVED, WE’VE ALSO BEEN ABLE TO SAVE ON COSTS BECAUSE OF REDUCED UNNECESSARY INSURANCE PAYMENTS.” STEVE NEWTON – BOUGHEY DISTRIBUTION TRANSPORT MANAGER

4. FUEL SAVINGS & REDUCED WEAR AND TEAR

A lesser known benefit of vehicle camera solutions is the potential for cameras to save your company money in day-to-day fleet costs. After speaking to Transport Managers at our latest camera forum at the beginning of March, it was made clear that after having cameras installed into their commercial vehicles, driver’s adopted a different mindset. The opportunity to be praised for great driving, defend themselves from claims and knowing they have a live witness on-board creates a more conscious driver that was mindful of their driving behaviour, resulting in reduce fuel usage and less wear and tear on the vehicles.

5. PERSONALISED FEEDBACK/TRAINING

When it comes to improving driver performance, camera footage of driver’s reactions can be invaluable as it creates a feedback/training approach that is driver specific. By downloading and watching the footage with your drivers and using the camera’s detailed g-force and accelerometer data, you can quickly identify specific areas for improvement and create targeted incentive programmes for them.

A complete guide to SD vs. 3G/4G Fleet Camera Systems

Trying to find the right vehicle camera system for your fleet can be a lot like trying to buy the right car: there are a lot of models, variations and qualities to choose from but unless you know what you need in a system you don’t know what to look for and what to avoid.

With the recent “dashcam boom” there are now so many different options to choose from that sometimes it can get a little overwhelming. So we thought we’d take it back to basics and look at the main difference between what’s on offer; SD vs 3G/4G.

Why are you looking at cameras?

Before you start to weigh up your options, you need to establish why you are looking for a camera system in the first place. Is your company looking at cameras for evidence against insurance claims? To help with driver training and keep costs down? Or maybe company compliance is the biggest factor? Both SD and 3G camera systems can help with all of the above, but there are crucial differences in terms of ease-of-use, cost and reliability between the two solutions.
Access to footage

The main distinction between the two types of vehicle camera system. SD card based cameras require you to physically retrieve the SD card from the camera and plug it into a reader on your computer to download and view the footage. If your fleet consists of a small number of vehicles who return to the base every evening, then checking the SD cards is an easier feat. But if your vehicle’s are out on the road for days, or weeks at a time without returning to base, then there may be the possibility that the footage will have been overwritten due to the limited storage capacity of an SD card.

Vehicle cameras with an on-board 3G/4G sim not only send an instant SMS/email alert notifying you of any detected incidents, but also enable remote access to the camera allowing footage to be remotely downloaded and saved instantly. Alongside ensuring that no footage is ever lost, it also means that you can provide your insurers with FNOL (First Notification of Loss), speeding up any claims process and potentially even reducing your overall insurance premiums.

Reliability

When one of your vehicles has been involved in an incident and it’s your drivers word against the other, having the inadmissible footage from your vehicle camera will provide the accurate evidence needed to ensure a fair distribution of blame. Both camera solutions can provide reliability…but only if they are working properly.

Not only are SD cards renowned for being prone to corruption (with manufacturers recommending reformatting every 2 to 6 weeks), they are also very easy to remove by the driver should they wish the footage to be ‘lost’.

The instant download capability of 3G cameras negates these issues, and the live wireless connection to the camera also enables regular automated remote health checks by the provider meaning that lost footage is a thing of the past!

Cost ££

The key feature of SD based camera systems is how cost effective they seem at first glance. With SD dashcams being sold everywhere – even in petrol stations, they are cheap to purchase and easy to get hold of. However, with the risk of corruption and the need to replace SD cards regularly, the extra costs from replacement hardware and vehicle downtime can add up quickly.

3G cameras have a larger upfront hardware cost, plus the added monthly data charge, however, with remote access to the footage there is no need to bring your vehicles back to base, minimising vehicle downtime and saving on fuel costs. Providing your insurers with FNOL can also have a big impact on reducing your insurance premiums.

And finally….Do your research

With such an extensive range of camera systems on the market it can often be a little overwhelming for fleet operators to know what will suit their fleet requirements best. Take the time to sit down and create a list of everything that you need out of your camera system. Does it need to be FORS compliant? Do you need 360o coverage around the vehicle? Are you vehicles away from base for long periods of time? How much do you want to spend? Will your insurers contribute?

We’ve put together a little summary table to hopefully help answer some of these questions:

	SD	3G/4G
Cost effective	Yes	Yes – dependant on number of cameras fitted plus monthly data costs for the sim
Recording Time	Up to 38 hours before the footage starts being overwritten	Up to 3 months storage. Also the option for live viewing.
Risk of Lost Footage	High – SD cards are prone to corruption and have no ability to perform health checks.	Low – can perform health checks at any time. Captured incidents are also sent to the end user instantly for immediate download.
Amount of Cameras	Up to 2	Up to 24
Durability/Reliability	Low – storage size decreases over time. SD cards require reformatting every 2-6 weeks and are highly prone to corruption.	High – remote health checks can be performed regularly.
Ease of Access	Low – footage can only be accessed by removing SD from vehicle and downloading onto a computer.	High – footage can be remotely downloaded at any time or viewed live.
Tamper-proof	No – easy for drivers to remove SD card	Yes – footage is automatically remotely downloaded. Hard-drive based camera systems are also harder to tamper with.