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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • Happy to help.

    I should have mentioned a slightly different option of rack seating is basically to install a cushion, some rails, and running board to keep the little legs from flopping around.

    The rails are kind of hard to search online for because they get called a lot of different things. I found this one by Surly, and this other one by Yuba.

    That couple I mentioned before have a set of these on the one bike they take two of their children on. I don’t think they have running boards on their bike, but I’ve seen other people use them and think they’re a good idea. Here’s a post I found from some guy that made his own for a few bucks.

    Benefit of the rails over the specific child seat is the rails still help hold cargo for when you need it.

    Keep in mind, this whole kid on a rack option will change your centre of gravity, and starting, stopping, and slow maneuvers in general will feel a bit different.

    Hope it works out!






  • Imagine the gearing on a half tonne bicycle hahaha.

    I like to think in this future, vehicles have also become wide enough they take up multiple of our current lanes as to not tip over by being tall as a house.

    America's new best selling vehicle:

    Bonus, the compact car of next century:

    The infrastructure would be comical.




  • China’s market is also fundamentally different. The buyers care more about function than they do form. This is what allows vehicles like the Changli to sell in China for about $1,000 USD. People import them for about triple that, and there you go, a four figure electric car. These days there are even some commercial outfits in the United States that import dozens at a time and sell them for about $10,000 USD for people that don’t want to deal with the bologna that comes with international imports.

    The safety and quality are certainly on par with the cost, but at low speeds, we certainly don’t need advanced safety equipment. Accidents would be less common anyway if people had more reaction time as a result of driving slower. Besides, many repairs that may be needed will be simpler to perform due to the less complex construction.

    Regarding longevity, there are people using these things on farms, on construction sites, and in college towns. Might not last twenty years, but seeing how buying a used car for $500 can end up costing you more than $40,000 over less than a decade, I’d say the Changli is extremely compelling given the cost per year of ownership.




  • I’m with you there.

    Not too long ago, my company was informed by letter (as you should have been) of a price increase. I can’t remember exactly, but I want to say it was a 600% increase on the company’s rates. There’s never been any claims on the policy, they just decided they could do it to enough of their clients, and probably enough would pay it that it wouldn’t matter they’d lose a bunch.

    I understand the provide we switched to actually provides greater coverage for less than the original amount we paid the first provider. Unbelievable.

    It wasn’t specifically for insurance reasons, but I got rid of my car after I noticed I wasn’t driving very far. Now we have a couple cargo trailers and we do the shopping and the errands just as easily and we’re saving tens of thousands doing it. We go through the winter as well, it’s not for everyone but dress appropriately and have lights and you’ll do great.


  • I have Viofo 129 Pros. Looks like they now have a 229 Pro in various bundles.

    At the time, I looked into various brands and models and was consistently finding so many models were the same device with a different brand on them. That was a huge turn off because it means no firmware updates, support, or a real company behind the product.

    Here’s what I was looking for and think is good to be mindful of:

    No large display screen

    I didn’t want something with a huge display screen, because I don’t want my view to be obstructed by stuff on the windscreen.

    No built in secondary camera

    A secondary, driver facing camera built in. To achieve a second camera, in my opinion, the main exterior facing camera quality must be compromised to maintain overall price parity with single camera competitors.

    Also, on the topic of insurance, there’s absolutely nothing an insurance company would see on the driver facing video that would be to your benefit. They’ll claim you didn’t look down at the speedometer once the entire drive before your accident and therefore they believe you to have been speeding. This also applies to law enforcement in my opinion. Everything you say / provide can and will be used against you.

    Additive secondary camera

    A number of models, Viofo included, have a input port on them to allow a second camera to be used to combine footage. Think of any video you’ve seen where the front facing footage has a smaller rear facing video in the corner. These aren’t bad, but I noticed that most of the rear facing cameras are lower resolution than the main camera. To me, this doesn’t make a lot of sense as there’s the same likelihood of an incident behind me as in front of me. This might not be an issue anymore, given its been five or so years since I bought mine, the new models might be 4k 60fps all the way around.

    A minor detail is also that with additive cameras, a portion of the front view is obstructed in the recording by the rear view. Maybe this is circumventable, and they save as multiple files independently, I don’t know. The resolution thing bothered me more.

    Personally, I don’t have rear specific cameras. All of mine are the 129 Pro model, each set to the same video settings. I’m kind of particular and wanted full 360° coverage, so each of our vehicles have four cameras, front, rear, and both sides. Obviously not exactly economical to start out, but one of the side cameras already paid for the entire camera set up in a sense as it captured someone breaking into a neighbour’s house and lead to arrests and prosecution. I call that a win.

    Tactile buttons only

    Capacitive buttons are garbage and should be outlawed in vehicles as you can’t feel for them. More specifically though, a dedicated toggle button for microphone recording. I like to have mine on in the event I need to read a license plate, or I am in an accident significant enough where recording a final message to family would be important.

    That said, I do regularly turn the mic off when there are private conversations taking place, and this is important enough to me I feel it’s worth mentioning.

    Night performance

    The hard truth is that night vision is these cameras is never going to be great as the sensors are pretty small and they tend to adjust to your headlights anyway, but the Viofo cameras I’ve had have all been able to read a plate when illuminated. I wouldn’t count on it though, also read aloud the plate so the mic picks it up.

    Parking modes

    Most cameras have some for of parking mode, where they activate when it senses the vehicle get bumped. They do this with a g force sensor.

    Not all, but some cameras, including Viofo, also have motion sensing abilities, so they will record a set length (5 or 10 minutes) after they see something move. These tend to have sensitivity options which is great if you live in a windy area with trees, because then it’ll basically be on all night.

    There’s also just a time lapse option for when the vehicle is off, and the camera will just take a low frame rate video - as in 10 frames per minute - and kick up the frame rate if it sees something or experiences movement. In my mind this is the best of both worlds, so this is what mine are set to.

    GPS

    Some reviews I came across way back when were finding some cameras had GPS data displayed on the video with no option to turn it off. This data included the current speed of the vehicle. This circles back to giving the insurer or authority data that can incriminate you. You were going 55 in a 50 and so it’s your fault an inebriated driver went through a red light and slammed into you. No thanks.

    That said, I do have the GPS coordinates displayed on mine. In the event the vehicle is stolen and found ditched somewhere, there’s a slim possibility the coordinates could come in handy. Unlike the speed display, the insurer would have to calculate travel speed based off changing coordinates which would be changing at a non standard rate. I find this an acceptable hurdle that an insurer would not traverse.

    Capacitor, no battery

    No nuance here, batteries tend to swell in the heat experienced by vehicles in the summer sun. Instead, having a capacitor solves this issue.

    Memory card

    Get the fastest and highest capacity SD card the camera you get will accept. No sense spending money on a good camera if the card fails you. This is a guide to understanding various SD card related terms. It has a good comparison table partway down.

    Adhesive mounting, no suction cups

    I prefer a bracket with adhesive that the camera clips into instead of a suction cup. I’ve had suction cups let go in both heat and cold. It’s difficult to achieve the same angle once it’s fallen off. Also, this happening while driving can be startling.

    Versatility

    Bit of a unique situation to my use case, but I often remove a couple cameras to attach to my bike when going on a ride with a lot of road riding, or sometimes with my family. I have mounts on my bikes I just clip them into and I slip a USB power pack in a pouch with a cable running to the cameras. Basically this let’s me not have dedicated bike cameras.

    Insurance on your insurance

    As I mentioned before, the camera can be considered your insurance policy. Something I recommend to anyone that asks about dash cameras is to consider guarding your possession of the camera a tertiary insurance policy.

    If you are ever involved in an accident, don’t say a thing to anyone about the video evidence. Best case scenario, it throws a would be liar a curveball and they admit whatever fault is theirs. In my opinion, it’s not worth bringing up because of the risk that someone is desperate enough, they might try to commandeer the camera from your vehicle. This also helps trap someone in a lie should they go that route.

    Final paranoia

    I addition to your primary insurance (policy), your secondary insurance (the camera), and your tertiary insurance (not volunteering the footage), I also practice a fourth level of insanity - I mean insurance - whereby I keep extra SD cards in the vehicle so following an accident, I can quickly replace the cards with the accident footage on them with empty cards to record the aftermath.

    This way if anyone sees the camera in the windscreen and removes the card or even the entire camera, I’m still covered. These extra cards aren’t huge capacity, maybe enough for an hour of footage.

    I didn’t realise I had quite so much to say on this topic. Hopefully the insane parts were outweighed by the useful parts haha.