Whether you’re a rideshare or delivery driver (or both), you need a dashcam.
Increasingly, drivers are in situations that require them to prove they’re following regulations and procedures.
This can range from verifying whether you and/or a passenger are wearing a mask to proving that there was a traffic jam resulting in a delayed delivery.
When situations like these occur, or an accident happens, or there’s any kind of incident that makes you wish you had witnesses, a dashcam becomes your indispensable ally.
Quite a few different kinds are available, and the one you need depends on your individual preferences and your budget. In this article, we’ll tell you how useful dashcams can be, and offer some suggestions on how to find the best one for you. Here’s what we’ll cover:
- The need for dashcams
- Affordable dashcams for rideshare drivers
- Highly-ranked body cams for delivery drivers
- The Gridwise favorite
What is a dashcam and why do drivers need one?
As the name suggests, a dashcam is a camera device that captures video images and records activity from the perspective of your dashboard. You could have the camera mounted on the dash, or maybe on the windshield (in states where it’s not prohibited). Some even attach to the back of the rearview mirror.
The dashcam can record what is going on outside your car and, if it is properly equipped, inside and behind your car as well. There are simpler cameras that allow you to take video in one direction or the other, and more sophisticated devices that capture images from both directions at once.
A dashcam can run all the time, or you can manually choose when you want it to record. To be safe, it’s probably best to leave it running at all times, but if you’d rather not do that, again, you can turn it on and off when you wish. In most cases, the recording is stored on some form of digital memory device, and when it reaches its time limit, it records over what you’ve already captured. The recordings are time and date stamped, so there’s never a question as to when a particular recording was made.
While a dashcam might seem intrusive, it can be a great source of comfort and protection for drivers. It’s easy to see how it can be a safety feature, because a passenger, or even a passerby, is less likely to cause a commotion or wrongly accuse you of something if they see you have a dashcam and that their activity is being recorded.
Going off of that, the dashcam can also be essential in the case of an unfair deactivation. To reiterate, if you’re unjustifiably accused of violating a regulation, or a customer falsely accuses you of being rude or not wearing a mask, a dashcam can prove what really happened on the ride.
Also, if you happen to be involved in an accident, the dashcam will give you irrefutable evidence of what happened and which party was at fault.
In the case of delivery, a dashcam allows you to show that you did NOT steal something, or that you weren’t working for more than one app at the same time. Read more about unfair rideshare deactivations.
Top 5 dashcams for rideshare and delivery drivers
If you plan to only be a delivery driver, you may not need a fancy camera. Still, you might want the flexibility of seeing the view both inside and outside of your vehicle. You may, after all, have to prove that you did NOT eat those fries the customer insisted were missing from the order.
If you’re a rideshare driver, you’ll definitely want a camera that will get clear pictures inside and outside the vehicle, with a continuous loop of recording. Passengers can act out when you least expect it; you never know when someone is going to be rude to you or someone else, or accuse you of committing an egregious act of disrespect, theft, or worse.
The Anker ROAV Dual DashCam received 4.5/5 stars on Amazon and checks out at $74. It can simultaneously record the front and inside of your vehicle, and has a built-in GPS that automatically records your rideshare or delivery driving route, location, and speed, so you have all the information you need for every ride.
Another dashcam considered to be one of the best on the (somewhat) cheaper side of the spectrum is Pruveeo’s dual dashcam. This can be found on Amazon for $80. It has numerous features, including high-definition capability, cameras that record the interior and front of the car, and loop recording.
In some states, there might be some laws prohibiting you from mounting a dashcam on your windshield, plus some legalities you should be aware of. Learn more about the details of dashboard legalities, depending on where you live.
Body cams
If you deliver by bike or scooter, a recording device is an important accessory for you too. Do you know how useful it would be to definitively prove that a car hit you? Or to get the license number of a motorist who failed to yield?
A body cam might make more sense for delivering on two-wheels. A camera mounted on a bike or scooter won’t produce very clear videos, due to the shakes and quakes that come along with the bumpy rides bikes and scooters give you.
This CammPro body cam, designed to clip onto your clothing, could work very well. You move around a lot less than your handlebars do when you’re on a bike or scooter, so the video will be less shaky. The price is a little steep at more than $150. If that’s too expensive for your budget, this model by Ksadbossbo costs just under $40.
The Gridwise favorite
It’s great to get state-of-the-art technology in a stand-alone dashcam, and there’s no doubt that plenty of companies have great products to offer. But did you know there are dashcam apps that you can download and use, right on your phone? Some of these are mediocore but others are incredibly impressive—one in particular.
It’s not often that a product sweeps us off our feet, but when we learned about what the Driver app can do, we were smitten. Driver is a great option for our drivers because it works through your smartphone, which is probably already mounted somewhere within your reach while you’re driving.
The Driver app has an amazing amount of features too. It records in the background while you use other apps, and you never lose your video data because it automatically places a backup on your phone. You can easily find and share all your videos and use navigation and routing software that’s also used by Tesla and Porsche drivers. The Driver app is available for both iOS and Android devices.
You can visualize turn-by-turn directions with Driver’s augmented reality (AR) navigation, and allow audio alerts to warn you if you’re coming up too close to the car in front of you. Also, videos of the front and back of your vehicle are recorded simultaneously.
On top of all these benefits, Driver is affiliated with several insurance companies, who will use your anonymized driving data to individualize premium costs according to your driving style. You might be amazed by some of the offers that come your way as a result of using Driver as your dashcam. And do you want to know what we consider the very best feature of the Driver app? It’s free! Like Gridwise, Driver is one of those apps you’ll want to have with you whether you’re rideshare driving, delivering, or doing a mix of both
Drive with Gridwise!
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