Advocacy & Safety - Helmet Cameras? Yay? Nay?

Do you use a helmet camera? What kind?

If you had TWO cameras, where would you mount them?
-one on the helmet, and
-one on your seatpost facing back?

I was considering the VHoldR Contour HD, it is supposed to record in High-Definition (HD) to get the best footage of licence plates.

Are there other options? I looked at footage from the GoPro Hero, but the resolution is terrible, and I would rather pay a bit more money to get some good capturing of licence plates.

This is in response to almost getting run over by a motorist who failed to stop at a stop sign.

See my sig for details on my home-made option. I think it is superior to the non HD vholdr. If I had two I guess I would mount one rearwards and one on helmet.

The Fox news guy in the Milwaukee area had one helmet mounted and the other strapped to the left side drop part of his roadbars. Seemed to work well in showing the motor vehicle position relative to his bike and which ones were getting too close. Then the helmet camera would get the license plate and overall view of the vehicle.

I was considering this, the HD, high definition version, 720p, Contour HD

It draws less attention than the Flip mounted to a helmet

http://images1.opticsplanet.com/640-640/opplanet-vholdr-contour-hd-camcorder-on-helmet.jpg
http://images1.opticsplanet.com/640-640/opplanet-vholdr-contour-hd-camcorder.jpg

I use 2 cameras every time I ride. I posted on my blog how I mount them. One faces backward and one faces forward on the helmet. I use the Oregon Scientific ATC2k and ATC3k.
The blog post is at
http://bikesafer.blogspot.com/2008/02/ask-and-you-shall-receive.html
I use them on the 320x240 resolution and I can usually bot not always get license plate numbers.
Bikesafer
Jeff

Do you use a helmet camera? What kind?

If you had TWO cameras, where would you mount them?
-one on the helmet, and
-one on your seatpost facing back?

I was considering the VHoldR Contour HD, it is supposed to record in High-Definition (HD) to get the best footage of licence plates.

Are there other options? I looked at footage from the GoPro Hero, but the resolution is terrible, and I would rather pay a bit more money to get some good capturing of licence plates.

This is in response to almost getting run over by a motorist who failed to stop at a stop sign.

I don't use a video camera, but I do have a Marwi headlight mounted to my helmet and I get asked almost all the time if I have a video camera mounted on my helmet.

I've thought about using a video camera but haven't figured out the best place to mount it or which direction to point it.

See my sig for details on my home-made option. I think it is superior to the non HD vholdr. If I had two I guess I would mount one rearwards and one on helmet.

Not bad at all.

I don't mean to sound like a psycho, or some weirdo, but I would really like to have four cameras altogether.

I want to have at least the Contour HD mounted on my helmet, and this is because it is less conspicuous than the Flip, or Kodak. But not ragging on them, either way.

Then I would have a special mount that would mount one camera facing forward, and one facing left, it would go together, so that I could take it off in one go. This would mean that I can take off the quick release mount and it would remove both cameras. Finally, I would have one other HD camera on the seatpost with the roll cage mount, facing backwards.

I prefer the Flip Ultra HD, or Kodak HD over the Oregon Scientific (OS), just because the quality and resolution are so much better -not ragging on the OS's, but am looking for the best chance to catch a licence plate if needed. I am not trying out the law of attraction looking for trouble, quite the opposite in fact. I don't want anything dragging on, and so the cameras will catch the truth, and the "Truth will set you free!"

The reason why I am so anal about this, is for two reasons:
1) Motorists who are at fault will blame the cyclist 99% of the time, if there is a cop present, it changes to 100%
2) I had a cellphone camera with me and tried to catch a plate, it caught nothing but a white rectangle -TWICE!

---forgot to add, sometimes these cameras may freeze up, not always, and it's rare, but in case it does, it is good to have backup cameras in case it becomes needed

one time I had a run in with an SUV (SUV driver was at fault), things coulda been a lot worse, but there were witnesses

ride safe, bike safe, and if you drive a motor vehicle, watch out for cyclists

I don't mean to sound like a psycho, or some weirdo, but I would really like to have four cameras altogether.

I want to have at least the Contour HD mounted on my helmet, and this is because it is less conspicuous than the Flip, or Kodak. But not ragging on them, either way.


The Flip I have is very inconspicuous. Noone can tell you have it when looking at it from behind and the front.

too bad we live in a society where some feel this is necessary...

too bad we live in a society where some feel this is necessary...

You mean where people will lie to try to get out of a ticket or prosecution? I doubt there have ever been any societies where that wasn't true. Not that contained humans, anyway.

You mean where people will lie to try to get out of a ticket or prosecution? I doubt there have ever been any societies where that wasn't true. Not that contained humans, anyway.

I think it goes beyond that... sadly.