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Top Tips for City Driving

Top Tips for City Driving

More often than not, our customers install a car camera because they’re looking for protection against other drivers on the roads around them. And that need for peace of mind is, understandably, highest in cities such as London, Birmingham and Manchester. Here, high traffic volumes and congestion make driving conditions difficult and stressful, and the result is that 75% of all UK motor accidents occur in urban environments.

We spoke to insurance company Adrian Flux, who said that although the most serious accidents tend to happen at higher speeds, city drivers suffer more than their fair share of shunts, bumps and scrapes. Their spokesperson also highlighted that it’s likely that the majority of ‘crash for cash’ accidents happen where there is less risk of serious injury – in other words, in urban areas.

With that in mind, we’ve produced our top tips for city driving to help you minimise the chance of being involved in an accident.

1.Keep your distance

Rear-end collisions are one of the most common forms of road traffic accident so by simply ensuring you have a safe distance between you and the car in front, you give yourself ample time to react to their actions safely. Also, by communication your actions well in advance, with clear indications and gentle breaking, you give drivers following you enough time to react accordingly, reducing the chances of being rear-ended yourself.

2. Give Yourself Time

Speeding is a major contributor to the accident rates in the UK, but by allowing yourself extra time to get to your destination, you can drive in a slow and calm manner. At slower speeds you are also able to analyse road conditions better which will help you to avoid any potential hazards.

3. Anticipate

Don’t just survey your immediate surroundings, such as the car in front and the one behind, ensure that you are aware of activity as far ahead of you as is possible, paying particular attention to junctions, pedestrian crossings and traffic lights. In city environments, pedestrian and cycle traffic can have a significant impact on vehicular activity, so be sure to make yourself aware of activity on the pavement and in cycle lanes, as well as on the road itself.

4. Read the Signs

Road signs are there for a reason, so make sure you pay attention to them as they give you early warning to any hazards on the road ahead. As well as road signs, road markings will also help you to identify any potential threats and allow you to react accordingly.

5.Regularly service your veichle

It’s one this making yourself more aware of the potential dangers of the road, but you also need to be sure that your vehicle is in good working order. Among other things, ensure that your brakes are in good condition so that you can stop effectively if required and that your lights, windscreen wipers and heater are working so that you have optimum visibility in all conditions.

6. Concentrate

It sounds simple, but every time you step behind the wheel of your vehicle, it requires your full concentration. Don’t allow yourself to get distracted by your stereo, sat nav or mobile phone. In busy cities, the landscape of the road ahead of you can change dramatically in a heartbeat, so ensure that you are focused at all times.

Follow these simple tips and you will greatly reduce the likelihood of being involved in accident. However, for those occasions that a collision is unavoidable, a car camera will ensure that you have irrefutable evidence as to the circumstances surrounding the event. This evidence can be crucial in proving your innocence, helping you to protect your no claims bonus and avoid rising insurance premiums. Also, with some insurers offering discounts to customers who install a car camera, there are potential savings to be made too. Adrian Flux commented that insurance premiums can also be higher in some urban areas in the UK, so discounts of up to 15 per cent can count for a lot more.

If you have any other top tips for safer driving please comment below.

Drive safely.

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Flash for Cash Scams

Flash for Cash Scams

As featured in today’s media, incidents of a worrying new twist on the ‘crash for cash’ scams are being reported, where drivers waiting to exit junctions or driveways are flashed, signalling that they are safe to proceed, before they are deliberately crashed into. Dubbed ‘flash for cash’ these scams are engineered to place the blame on the innocent party and are generally followed by a substantial, and often grossly inflated, insurance claim. Read more on how this type of crash for cash scam is engineered.

So, is this the beginning of the end for common courtesy on UK roads? These incidents are thankfully isolated, but they have been reported widely in the media, including the BBC, and will be on the minds of drivers up and down the country. The next time you are flashed before exiting a junction or merging onto a busy, but slow-moving carriage way, will you think twice?

We sincerely hope that in defiance of this type of unsociable behaviour, drivers will remain courteous on the roads and help to make UK highways a calmer and safer place to be. However, if you’re looking for some additional protection against ‘crash for cash’ and ‘flash for cash’ scams, a car camera installed in your vehicle will record activity on the road around you to provide irrefutable evidence if you’re involved in an incident. Our range of dash cams offer HD video recording, multiple lenses and wide-angle lenses to help you capture as much detail as possible.

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Our new website is live!

Our new website is live!

After months of hard work our new site is now live. We’ve also compiled our new range of the best car cameras currently on the market covering all areas of technology. We realise that buying a car camera can be a confusing task so we’ve tried to make the website as easy to use and friendly as possible. Plus, we’ve added lots of guides to help you decide what’s most important to you.

We’ve divided the range into categories depending on the most common features and added filters to you can easily and quickly narrow your criteria down until you find the camera that’s right for you.

We combine this extensive product range with a secure and fast checkout process to make ordering from Car Camera Shop as easy as possible. Over the coming months we’re testing and reviewing new products which are set to advance the car camera market even further – so watch this space!

We would love to hear from you if you have any questions or feedback on the website or car cameras in general. So drop us a line for a friendly chat.

We look forward to seeing you again soon,

Car Camera Shop

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New Release: The Nextbase 122 Dash Cam

New Release: The Nextbase 122 Dash Cam

As part of the brand new series of Nextbase dash cameras, the Nextbase 122 dash cam is a clear winner as a highly practical and functional car camera. HD recording, parking mode, and more, all for a very low cost make it an ideal choice for younger, or new drivers.

Recording Quality

The Nextbase 122 records in an impressive 720p HD at 30 frames per second – enough to clearly capture road incidents in detail. Its 5-layer f1.6 lens provides a viewing angle of 120° to ensure that the whole road is covered with video footage in order to provide court admissible evidence instantly. The vehicle camera is completely compatible with a polarising filter, giving you to option to improve your recording quality through reducing or completely removing glare and reflections from your vehicles windscreen. These are some seriously impressive specs when compared against the price tag of this camera.

Design

The Nextbase 122 has the classic look and feel of a Nextbase camera, meaning a discreet installation which doesn’t distract you while driving is very possible. The newly designed mount uses a lower profile design and high strength neodymium magnets allowing you to easily place and remove the dash cam with just one hand. A standard 3m adhesive pad is used for fitting, and a suction pad is included. The power cable goes directly into the mount itself, leaving the car camera completely free from wires.

Nextbase 122 Dash Camera

Nextbase 122 Features

Nextbase 122 Features

Video Quality

The Nextbase video quality is sufficient for recording the road ahead of you in enough detail to use your footage as evidence. 720p @ 30fps HD Recording, alongside a 120° wide viewing angle ensure that your journey is covered.

Display

The Nextbase 122 uses a bright and clear high-resolution screen for easy menu navigation and playback. The display is 2″ in size which is slightly smaller than some of the previous models. This provides enough size to see the menu and recording screen while allowing the camera to have a slightly more discreet design.

Capacity

This dash cam will support up to a 32GB Micro SD card, for 4 hours of footage. Once this storage becomes full, it will automatically begin to overwrite the oldest footage to provide you with constant recording.

Footage which you don’t want to be overwritten can be saved as a manual recording.

Nextbase 122 Front Installed
Parking Mode

The Nextbase 122 features a new and improved intelligent parking mode which will automatically begin recording when motion or movement is detected around your parked vehicle.

This makes use of their new high precision G sensor to make sure that all possible events are recorded and locked away from being overwritten.

Free Cloud Access

Another feature new to the Nextbase range is their completely free MyNextbaseCloud service. This allows footage to be easily saved, viewed and shared online without taking up storage space on your SD card or computer.

What's in the box
  • 122 Nextbase Dash Cam
  • Fitting tool
  • Adhesive mount
  • Suction mount
  • Usb cable
  • Car power cable
  • Quick start guide