Garmin Drive‪™‬ 4+

There's lots of dashcams on the market but I didn't expect to find Garmin offering anything in this end of the pool. That's not necessarily a criticism but i do believe you get what you pay for. And in this case what I got was Garmin reliability and simplicity at the price of cheaper offerings.

The Dash Cam Mini 2 comes nicely boxed with a full set of cables and mounts. I almost sprung for the parking mode cable and am glad I didn't. This unit works well without it and the power drain is minimal, though I do unplug it when the car is in my garage.

It's small. It has voice control. The SD holds enough minutes for me to record long minutes of epic roadside beauty. Okay, that's a gimme for Garmin. But the unit is beautifully versatile and largely unobtrusive. It delivers a crisp picture and the image has always been stable for me. The incident detection feature kicked in twice when traffic suddenly came to a halt. And in the one accident that happened in front of me, I was able to edit and send the footage to the aggrieved party quickly. It's a good little camera.

My camera starts right up every time I get in my car. I have a recent video where someone was not watching what she was doing in a parking lot and drove right out in front of me. I was able to slam on the breaks and miss hitting her. She could barely see over the steering wheel and looked at me like “what’s your problem” and kept making her turn in front of me. It scares me as I could have T boned this lady and really hurt her.
Since hitting a motorcycle at night just over a year ago, I have become hyper aware of everything around me. It was at night and I turned in front of a motorcycle I never saw. A black crotch rocket, driver admits to speeding. Driver all in black from helmet down and could not have had any headlights or reflectors as I saw nothing. Thank God the driver has literally no serious injuries except of course road rash, a chipped tooth, and a broken thumb. He was driving suspended.
So glad to now have a dashcam. The whole thing would have turned out differently if I had video. I never saw him. If I did, why would I turn?!

With the simplicity of the Garmin drive app I was able to use the video footage on my Garmin dash cam to prove to a receiver that I was not belligerent and disrespectful to the gate guard when I arrived at their facility... when I talked with the manager at the facility he told me that the guard had accused me of being vulgar and belligerent when I was told that I was not going to be loaded. I sat in my truck for a few minutes after this conversation and realized that my dash cam was on I checked to see if it had recorded the audio between me and the guard and it did surprisingly it was a very clear audio with the cam mounted to my windshield and an electronic speaker approximately 3 feet outside the door of the truck all the conversation was clearly recorded. Playing the video with audio back to the manager gave him a total respect for the integrity of a person who was not just trying to defend himself but telling him the truth... The app is very easy to use self-explanatory and is worth it’s weight in gold . (that is if it has any weight)