Learning About Insurance Coverage For Automobiles

Adding dash cams to commercial trucks has become more popular both with trucking companies and truckers themselves. Not only do the videos from the camera provide a travelogue for the driver and friends, but they also show essentially what the driver can see, albeit from slightly different positions. Better yet, there are now options to film views that the driver can't see. If your trucking company is considering dash cams, you're making the right move; all it takes is one video to save you a lot of trouble with insurance and court cases:

Not Just for the Front View

Most people are familiar with front-view dash cams, which usually provide a wide-angle view of the road in front and slightly to each side of the vehicle. Front-view dash cams often have a slight to moderate fishbowl effect depending on the settings you use and the maximum angle of the lens.

However, you can also get dash cams that have a rearview camera, and some brands offer cams for the blind spots on either side of the vehicle. So not only can you record what's happening at the front and back of the vehicle, but also on each side. This can be very good because it can show what people were doing just before getting into an accident.

Like an Extra Witness

It's not unusual for other drivers around you to witness an accident, but it's also not unusual for every driver around you to be concerned with their own vehicle's surroundings, especially in heavy traffic. It's also not unusual to find yourself the only vehicle on the road save for one troublemaker out to get an insurance payment.

Dash cam footage functions as a witness to what happened. While it's not infallible and might not catch every view, in most cases it does catch enough for an insurance investigator to determine what happened in an accident. The footage helps avoid they-said scenarios where no one else was around, and it helps uncover fraud, such as when cars slow down in front of trucks and start brake-checking to force the truck to hit them.

Are Interior a Good Idea

One more type of dash cam view is the interior view, showing what the driver is doing. This can be a tricky situation because, on one hand, there's a lack of privacy. On the other hand, it can show whether the driver was even paying attention at the time of an accident -- or not.

Interior dash cam footage that shows a driver not paying attention helps a trucking company's bottom line. Now the company knows that this driver does not belong behind the wheel.

However, the company does have to make some sort of allowance for the driver to have privacy, especially if the truck has a sleeping cab. Set rules for when the dash cam is to be on must be in place and must contain times/circumstances when the cam can be off.

Talk to your insurance company about how a dash cam system might help lower your commercial truck insurance costs.